IT'S NO POPULARITY CONTEST

Making friends in the Middle East

Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA agent now working at the American Enterprise Institute, argues that our goal in the Middle East and the Islamic world should not be to minimize anti-American feeling but to encourage democracy. I think Gerecht has a point. The United States is not in a popularity contest, in which the prize goes to the nation that chalks up the highest favorability ratings in polls in other nations. We're engaged in the much more serious business of trying to ensure that we can live peaceably and safely in the world. George W. Bush has made the determination that that can best be done by promoting democracy and freedom in the Islamic world. You can disagree with that, as some thoughtful people do. But it's at least one plausible way to try to make the world less dangerous. Read on...