Quotes & Sayings About Democracy In The Middle East

Pick the topic you like: the Middle East, international terrorism, Central America, whatever it is - the picture of the world that's presented to the public has only the remotest relation to reality. The truth of the matter is buried under edifice after edifice of lies upon lies. It's all been a marvelous success from the point of view in deterring the threat of democracy, achieved under conditions of freedom, which is extremely interesting. It's not like a totalitarian state, where it's done by force. These achievements are under conditions of freedom. — Noam Chomsky

Now the question is, now that we are there, what should we do in the best interest of the U.S., not only from a standpoint of the necessity of some stable democracy in the Middle East ... — Mike Huckabee

For 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region, here in the Middle East, and we achieved neither. — Condoleezza Rice

Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe because in the long run stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty ... The global wave of democracy has barely reached the Arab states. For too long, many people in that region have been victims and subjects. They deserve to be active citizens. — George W. Bush

King Abdullah has died. A divisive figure in the Middle East. The sad irony is that the USA preached democracy in the face of absolute rule. — Immortal Technique

Egypt was the first democracy in the Middle East. Women were unveiled in the 1920s. Egypt is a country of civilization, of culture. It shouldn't be suffering. — Ahmed Zewail

A central claim of the Bush administration's foreign policy is that the spread of democracy in the Middle East is the cure for terrorism. — Timothy Garton Ash

All across the Middle East in the streets, people are demanding democracy. It's amazing. The only way in America you get people to get worked up like that is to threaten to give them health care. — Bill Maher

When you look at - when you talk to people in Africa and across the Middle East, they're not satisfied with the way things are going. Sure, this idea of democracy was injected into the region, but it has brought mostly chaos. — Richard Engel

Our first and immutable commitment must be to the security of Israel, our only true ally in the Middle East and the only democracy — Barack Obama

Egypt had the first constitution in the Middle East that allowed for liberty. And it had democracy. — Ahmed Zewail

We have to have a more realistic foreign policy and not a utopian one where we say, oh, we're going to spread freedom and democracy, and everybody in the Middle East is going to love us. They are not going to love us. — Rand Paul

Therefore, the question is not whether such democratization is possible, but instead how to meet the yearning of the masses in the Middle East for democracy; in other words, how to achieve democratization in the Middle East. — Recep Tayyip Erdogan

The administration often used the analogy of planting the "seeds of democracy" in the Middle East, as if they'd sprout into democratic regimes as nature took its course. Democracy doesn't sprout like apple trees. Scattering the seeds isn't enough, no matter how many soldiers do it. To continue with the gardening analogy the Bush administration seemed to love (there were also many "seeds of terror" and "seeds of hope"), democracy is more like a fragile flower that requires constant attention and the right soil. Dictatorships and fascist regimes are hardy weeds that sprout on their own. — Richard Engel

The issue is: $1 trillion or $2 trillion is a lot of money. If our objective is to have stability in the Middle East, secure oil, or extend democracy, you can do a lot of democracy buying for this sum. To put it in context: The whole world spends $50 billion a year on foreign aid. — Joseph Stiglitz

Yet lost in the debate about America's true intentions in the Middle East was the fact that large majorities in every Muslim-majority state surveyed told pollsters they wanted to see their countries move toward greater democracy. A wave of democratic fervor across the Middle East created a renewed sense of hope for scores of people who had spent their lives in autocratic societies but who now looked forward to the possibility of having a say, even if in the most limited of ways, in their own political destinies. The Green Movement in Iran lit the fuse, employing new social media technologies like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to break the government's monopoly over the media and to demonstrate to the world their aspiration for freedom and liberty. — Reza Aslan

Ending torture and tyranny in Iraq was not a mistake. Supporting democracy in Iraq is not a mistake. Helping the long-suffering Muslims of Iraq who now seek to live democratically is not a mistake. In the long, long history of the Middle East, this breakthrough may one day be ranked as a dramatic turning point in regional history. — Michael Novak

Morocco has a lot to do in terms of democracy. The daily practice of democracy evolves in time. Trying to apply a Western democratic system to a country of the Maghreb, the Middle East, or the Gulf would be a mistake. We are not Germany, Sweden or Spain. — Mohammed VI Of Morocco

When the Furies were released in the Middle East, an evil emerged beyond my worst imaginings.
The joy of the Middle East has been replaced by fear, pervasive in Iraq and Syria and darkening the lives of people throughout the region. This is why refugees have been flowing out of the Middle East by the millions for Europe. If President Bush's seeds of democracy or the Arab Spring had bloomed, these families wouldn't be risking everything to leave. Many in the region have simply lost all hope, which is understandable. If you lived in Libya after the fall of Gadhafi, you'd be terrified. You can't work, you can't sell your goods, your children can't go to school, you can't even drive around without fear of being kidnapped by bandits or terrorists. It's not a place where people can be happy and even marginally prosperous. It's pure chaos. It's worse in Iraq and Syria. — Richard Engel

New political systems and philosophies were imported into the Near East under the general term democracy and grafted artificially into a society which was feudal in nature and theocratic in spirit. The results were not happy... — Gerald De Gaury

America's objective in the Middle East is to create democracy in the same way that my goal on a first date to feed women. — Dov Davidoff

Since the Bush-Cheney Administration took office in January 2001, controlling the major oil and natural gas fields of the world had been the primary, though undeclared, priority of US foreign policy ... Not only the invasion of Iraq, but also the toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan, had nothing to do with 'democracy,' and everything to do with pipeline control across Central Asia and the militarization of the Middle East. — F. William Engdahl

Israel's democracy is the bedrock on which our relationship stands. It's a shining example for people around the world who are on the frontline of the struggle for democracy in their own lands. Our relationship is also based on our common interest in a more stable and peaceful Middle East, a Middle East that will finally accord Israel the recognition and acceptance that its people have yearned for so long and have been too long denied, a Middle East that will know greater democracy for all its peoples. — William J. Clinton

Democracy isn't just for people in the Middle East, but Britons, too. — Heather Brooke

Similarly, it is argued that the culture of Islam is incompatible with democracy. Basically, this conventional perspective of the Middle East thus contends that democracy in that region is neither possible nor even desirable. — Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Israel, the Jewish state, the only democracy in the Middle East, continues to shine as a beacon of light in the darkest region of the world. — Brigitte Gabriel

If ideas and beliefs are to be denied validity outside the geographical and cultural bounds of their origin, Buddhism would be confined to north India, Christianity to a narrow tract in the Middle East and Islam to Arabia. — Aung San Suu Kyi

Iraq can emerge as a beacon of hope and democracy in the Middle East, and the world, with our help. — Chris Chocola

America cannot do most of what needs to be done alone. You need friends. And we have good friends around the world. We have friends with whom we share values in Europe and Asia - thanks to the forward march of democracy - in Latin America, in Africa, and increasingly in the Middle East. — Condoleezza Rice

Democracy or breakdown in Syria would change the whole Middle East overnight. — Paul Krugman

A democracy in the Middle East must be more than a democracy in name only - it must live out its principles. — Kay Granger

Iran is a country that talks about, denies the Holocaust, promises to wipe out Israel, is engaged in terror throughout the world. This is a regime that is giving vent to the worst impulses that you see right now in the Middle East. They deny the rights of women, deny democracy, brutalize their own people, don't give freedom of religion. — Benjamin Netanyahu

The world has paid a heavy price for the lack of democracy in most of the Middle East. Operation Ajax [CIA code for the August 1953 coup] taught tyrants and aspiring tyrants there that the world's most powerful governments were willing to tolerate limitless oppression as long as oppressive regimes were friendly to the West and to Western oil companies. That helped tilt the political balance in a vast region away from freedom and toward dictatorship. — Stephen Kinzer

You know who is against democracy in the Middle East? The husbands. They got used to their way of life. Now, the traditional way of life must change. Everybody must change. If you don't give equal rights to women, you can't progress. — Shimon Peres

Some who call themselves realists question whether the spread of democracy in the Middle East should be any concern of ours. But the realists in this case have lost contact with a fundamental reality: America has always been less secure when freedom is in retreat; America is always more secure when freedom is on the march. — George W. Bush

Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. — Jack Schwartz

The war against ISIS will pose many new challenges for the next commander-in-chief. The last two presidents [George W. Bush and Barack Obama] pursued a Middle East policy that supported toppling dictators to try to promote democracy. — Wolf Blitzer

We want to be, I think, an example for the rest of the Arab world, because there are a lot of people who say that the only democracy you can have in the Middle East is the Muslim Brotherhood. — Abdallah II Of Jordan