I tried to read this book but I was probably not in the right frame of mind to like or think a lot about the solutions to promoting democracy presented here. Might give this a try another time.

Elliot Abrams served in the Reagan and Bush II administrations so I was a little weary given that the latter presidency ended up marred in two messes while trying to stabilize Iraq and Afghanistan. Abrams certainly makes an impassioned case for democracy promotion in the Middle East as part of a realistic foreign policy in the Middle East and he argues that this doesn’t have to be based on military means, which I think most people would be afraid of.

Democracy promotion can be achieved through a variety of moral, economic, and rhetorical means. But the problem with Abrams argument in my view is that there seems to be such a first impulse towards military means and fear mongering that the less militaristic means will not garner much thoughts due to the fact that it generally doesn’t capture headlines to say “We are giving this group of democratic opposition $.