The crusade to impose U.S. democratic institutions

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The man behind ‘total war’ in the Mideast
By William O. Beeman, San Francisco Chronicle, 14 May 2003. With a group of other conservatives, Michael Ledeen recently set up the Center for Democracy in Iran, an action group focusing on producing regime change in Iran. Creative destruction is our middle name. We do it automatically. . . . It is time once again to export the democratic revolution.
What is the NED up to?
By Benjamin Duncan, al-Jazeera, 3 May 2004. Supporters of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) often praise the group for its support of democracy-building activities in dozens of countries around the world. Critics say NED is a government pawn masquerading as a private, non-political institution, whose real purpose is to pursue US foreign policy interests without congressional interference.
The $65m question: When, how—and where—should we promote democracy? First we need the facts
By Timothy Garton Ash, Guardian Weekly, 24 December 2004. Which means of promoting democracy are effective and justified? War is not justified simply to promote democracy. Spies should have nothing to do with supporting democrats in other countries. Maximum transparency is vital.
The dangers of exporting democracy: Bush's crusade is based on a dangerous illusion and will fail
By Eric Hobsbawm, The Guardian, 22 January 2005. A supposedly universal effort to create world order by spreading democracy. This idea is not merely quixotic—it is dangerous. The rhetoric implies that democracy is applicable in a standardised (western) form, that it can succeed everywhere, that it can remedy today's transnational dilemmas, and that it can bring peace, rather than sow disorder.
Democracy Hijacked
By Col. Dan Smith, USA, Ret., Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), 22 March 2005. President Bush called for the U.S. and Britain to create a forward strategy of freedom in which democracy and free markets will develop and spread. A basic flaw: it rests on the involvement of an exterior military power whose regional presence is dictated more by pragmatic national interests than by the inherent virtues of a political philosophy.