There is a popular belief, especially in America, that all people, deep down, want democracy, individual liberty, toleration, peace, and equality under the law. While undoubtedly true of many, this modern ideal assumes that everyone is the same; that anyone who is educated in the ways of Western democratic, ideals will embrace them if given a chance, and that inequalities in the world are the product of bad governments, not bad people.

The reconstruction of Germany and Japan after WWII, and the successful adoption of democracy by those countries, appeared to validate this notion and emboldened the U.S. to employ the same nation-building strategy in the Mid East. Among these Muslim nations, however, universal democracy has proven to be an illusion leading to over a half century of misguided foreign policy that has repeatedly failed. In what can only be characterized as an embarrassing display of ignorance, the U.S. has consistently underestimated the depth and determination of Islam’s political ideology. Nazism, Japanese imperialism, and Soviet brand communism were a mere flash-in-the-pan compared to Islamic supremacism, the roots of which go back fourteen centuries. Islamism is here to stay.

U.S. military and economic intervention in Iran, Iraq, Egypt, and even Afghanistan have failed either to hold Islamists at bay or to establish stable Islamic democracies. The so-called “Arab Spring,” which re-energized hopes of establishing democracy in the Mid East and Africa, has turned icy; in every country, fascist regimes collapsed under the pressure of popular uprisings, only to be replaced by radical Islamic governments. It is clear that many Muslims either prefer Shariah law to democracy, are willing to acquiesce to the will of militant Islamists, or have no capability with which to fend off the militant Islamists.

Globally, the story is the same. Out of the 57 nations which comprise the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, only three rise to the level of flawed democracies, according to the 2010 Democracy Index by The Economist *. With the exception of communist and former communist countries, Islamic nations impose the highest level of government restrictions on religion. Among the predominantly Islamic countries in the Mid East and North Africa, 80% have anti-blasphemy laws and 60% of these nations enforce them. Democracy, individual liberty, free speech, toleration, and equality are simply not consistent – or even compatible – with traditional Islamic theology and Shariah law.

* http://graphics.eiu.com/PDF/Democracy_Index_2010_web.pdf