In a pivotal by-election last Sunday in Lebanon’s Metn district, former president Amin Gemayel unexpectedly lost a close race to a relatively unknown opposition candidate with ties to Hezbollah.  In today’s New York Times, Hassan Fattah analyzes this surprising loss, seeing it as a rebuff against American intervention in the politics of the Middle East, a trend that can be seen in recent gains by Islamist and radical parties throughout the region.  This result should not be a surprise given that US foreign policy in the Middle East has consistently exacerbated existing divisions across the region, radicalizing many Muslims with otherwise moderate geopolitical outlooks.  It seems that US policymakers are surprised, however, when their steadfast support for democracy in the region is seemingly rejected by majorities of voters again and again.  After all, how can anybody reject democracy and freedom?

The answer, according to Mr. Fattah, is that recent electoral outcomes in Iraq, Palestine, and now Lebanon, that have favored parties opposed to American intervention in the region, are the product of the US trying to have their cake and eat it too.  In each of these recent elections, America was simultaneously supporting both the democratic system and individual candidates or factions, which casts doubt on the US’s true intentions, but more importantly it implies that democracy is only as good as the ideology of those that are ultimately elected and whether that ideology is acceptable to American interests.

In addition to tainting the very idea of democracy with support for individual candidates and parties, American foreign policy in Iraq, and elsewhere, has “embolden[ed]the ruling majority to resist compromises,” thereby undermining the fundamental tendency of democratic government to allow for a give-and-take that results in policies acceptable to everyone but favored by no one.  This is perhaps the most nefarious consequence of US support for specific factions while trying to support democracy more broadly in the Middle East, because it calcifies a set power relationships based on artificial, external supports that undermine the natural moderating tendencies of a democratic system of government.

Ultimately, to be successful in Iraq, to bring freedom and democracy to the Middle East and beyond, and to have any hope of really “winning” the war on terror, the US needs to realize that the potential short-term electoral payoffs that come from supporting a particular set of candidates or parties are far outweighed by the long-term effects of undermining the entire system of democratic institutions.  We need to learn to trust the system that has served us so well to do the same elsewhere.