The "better idea" consists of separating the struggle against radical Islamism from promoting democracy in the Middle East, focusing on the first struggle, and dramatically changing our tone and tactics on the democracy promotion front, at least for now. Rapid modernization is likely to produce more short-term radicalism, not less. This is not a trivial point.
Read that again. Rapid modernization is likely to produce more short-term radicalism, not less. This is not a trivial point.
Right. The United States and its Western allies should be helping genuine, traditional and pious Muslims to reassert their dominance over a beautiful and capacious religious civilization in the face of a well-financed assault by extremist thugs.
The new NSS keeps referring to Islam as "proud", which I find incredibly galling. Hasn't the President seen Se7en? The last thing that democracy activists need right now is more American fingerprints on outside funding. Democracy promotion should remain an integral part of American foreign policy, but it should not be seen as a principal means of fighting terrorism. We should stigmatize and fight radical Islamism as if the social and political dysfunction of the Arab world did not exist, and we should shrewdly, quietly, patiently and with as many allies as possible promote the amelioration of that dysfunction as if the terrorist problem did not exist. It is when we mix these two issues together that we muddle our understanding of both, with the result that we neither defeat terrorism nor promote democracy but rather the reverse.
A Better Idea, By Francis Fukuyama and Adam Garfinkle | 
