There’s been an op-ed in the Post and a letter responseon the whole international organization of Democracies idea. Cheryl Rofer, posting over at Kevin Drum’s blog, picks up the story.
John McCain and others frustrated by the need to do diplomacy and work with other countries keep putting forth the idea of a League of Democracies...
But it turns out that we have had The Community of Democracies since 2000. You haven’t heard much about them, because they haven’t done much.
The Department of State’s website doesn’t list the members, just mentions 100 nations and 140 nations that were invited to previous meetings. Accomplishments so far include missions to East Timor and Tblisi, Georgia. No mention of what the missions were for.
I personally generally favor such an idea, so I’m glad it exists. I was never that worried about the potential negative consequences because any true gathering of democracies is unlikely to be a rubber stamp for the U.S. India, and many post-colonial states, have a fairly strong tradition of anti-interventionism.
The op-ed mentioned some controversy over who to include. Apparently Egypt and Azerbaijan were initially included but that’s subsequently been fixed. Anyhow, I think the best use of such an organization would not be externally directed, but instead keeping each other honest and collaborating on institutionalizing modes of cooperating that required shared political values.
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