Freedom's Unsteady March: America's Role in Building Arab Democracy..............(by Tamara Cofman Wittes)

On May 1st 2008, FOREIGN POLICY & SABAN CENTER FOR MIDDLE EAST POLICY organized an event at the Brookings Institution to discuss the new book, then, of TAMARA COFMAN WITTES. Brookings Senior Fellow Tamara Cofman Wittes argues in her new book Freedom’s Unsteady March: America’s Role in Building Arab Democracy (Brookings Institution Press, 2008) that democracy promotion in the Arab world remains an essential component of any strategy to achieve long-term American goals in that critical region. In November 2009, Tamara Cofman Wittes became deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs at the U.S. Department of State. She was at Brookings from 2003 to 2009. 

                 

TAMARA WITTES:   When I began writing Freedom’s Unsteady March four years ago, as Martin said, I set it up as a two-part argument. First, why the United States should promote democracy in the Arab world, and then how. Now, at the time, I thought the why part of the argument would be pretty uncontroversial, but the how might be very useful. After all,......READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPT

Selected Reviews

"[Freedom's Unsteady March] is an intelligent and thorough analysis that may help guide the next administration through the extreme challenge of furthering US interests in the Middle East. " Dierdre Sinnott, Foreword Magazine

"Freedom's Unsteady March is billed as a "realist's guidebook for democracy promotion." Wittes does not shrink from acknowledging the failures of the Bush administration in this area. But she attributes these failures to a halfhearted effort rather than the inherent unachievability or inadvisability of the objective." Eva Bellin, Foreign Affairs

"We ultimately need allies who share our values—not just our interests. In FREEDOM'S UNSTEADY MARCH, Tamara Cofman Wittes forcefully and articulately reevaluates how we can encourage liberalization in the Middle East. It is a welcome contribution to the ongoing foreign policy debate." Lee Hamilton, president, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

"FREEDOM'S UNSTEADY MARCH is a definitive assessment of one of the central foreign policy challenges of our era. Not trapped in the Beltway straightjacket of either cheering for or sneering at President Bush, Wittes provides compelling arguments for why the United States should foster democratic change in the Middle East, and then offers creative yet sober ideas for how to promote democracy more successfully. Wittes knows intimately both Washington and the Arab world, knowledge which grounds her arguments in solid research and prudent judgments. It should be required reading for anyone seeking to help make U.S. foreign policy in the next administration." Michael McFaul, professor of political science, Stanford University

"The author contends that democratic reform in the Arab world is neither a luxury nor a pipe dream, but a necessity. In this compact, lucid book about the recent democracy project in the Arab Middle East, Tamara Cofman Wittes provides an incisive, critical account of the Bush administration’s democracy promotion policy. Despite its commendable objective, it was underfunded, bureaucratically contested, and ideologically entangled. Wittes concludes with a passionate plea to hold firmly to that policy objective but to serve it better." Saad Eddin Ibrahim, Egyptian democracy activist and chairman of the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies