The Domino Theory Revisited

A Christian Science Monitor editorial in January 2003 discussed the theory that conversion of Iraq to a stable middle east democracy would start a "democracy domino" theory, whereby democracy would steadily grow in the dusty soil of the region.  Joel Mowbray, on Townhall.com in March 2003, wrote about the domino theory as it applies to spreading democracy in the middle east.

Foreign policy gurus in the 1960s believed that communism would spread—the infamous “domino theory”—from one country to the next in top-down fashion. The opposite would hold true in the Middle East—bottom-up freedom movements would spread, toppling tyrants in the process. The old social contract—where people allowed the leaders to rule in exchange for basic necessities—is on the brink of collapse. When it does, democracy in Iraq will be the domino that triggers reform elsewhere. Call it the “democracy domino” theory.

This theory was dismissed in some quarters.  Paul Reynolds, writing one month later in the BBC News noted:

There are some in the Bush administration who hope that the fall of Saddam Hussein will be followed by a "democratic domino" effect across the Middle East.

It is a reverse of the old theory which held that unless the United States fought in Vietnam, nations right across south-east Asia would collapse into communism like dominos.

It didn't really happen in south-east Asia, and there are others in Washington who say that the new prediction will prove wrong in the Middle East.

Actually, the dominoes may have toppled in south-east Asia had the U.S. not intervened in Vietnam.  The loss of Vietnam to the communists was markedly prolonged.  Cambodia fell, and then nothing more, really.  So who in Washington said the new theory would prove wrong, as regards the spread of democracy?  Greg Miller, writing for the LA Times/Common Dreams noted:

A classified State Department report expresses doubt that installing a new regime in Iraq will foster the spread of democracy in the Middle East, a claim President Bush has made in trying to build support for a war, according to intelligence officials familiar with the document.

The report exposes significant divisions within the Bush administration over the so-called democratic domino theory, one of the arguments that underpins the case for invading Iraq.

The report, which has been distributed to a small group of top government officials but not publicly disclosed, says that daunting economic and social problems are likely to undermine basic stability in the region for years, let alone prospects for democratic reform.

Even if some version of democracy took root -- an event the report casts as unlikely -- anti-American sentiment is so pervasive that elections in the short term could lead to the rise of Islamic-controlled governments hostile to the United States.

"Liberal democracy would be difficult to achieve," says one passage of the report, according to an intelligence official who agreed to read portions of it to The Times.

"Electoral democracy, were it to emerge, could well be subject to exploitation by anti-American elements."

The thrust of the document, the source said, "is that this idea that you're going to transform the Middle East and fundamentally alter its trajectory is not credible."

There was this dismissal, from American Scott Forbes in Australia, A Yank in Oz, August 2004:

My sense now is that George W. Bush has neither the political capital nor the international prestige to follow through on the neocon vision, if indeed that vision was ever possible. In fact, I suspect that no Republican, in the present circumstances, can lead us to victory in the so-called War on Terror: It's an "only Nixon can go to China" problem, but in reverse. Only a Democrat can now argue the case for democracy without getting tangled up in doctrines of pre-emption and intelligence failures; Bush and his GOP colleagues can't make the argument effectively.

Well, Bush and his foreign policy theorists are beginning to look like the more prescient on this topic.  After Afghanistan, and Iraq, and Egypt, and now Lebanon ... well, you get the picture.

UPDATE: More from Instapundit.  With links galore.

UPDATE: And yet more at Wizbang.  It seems a lot of people have thought of the dominoes with the latest development.