And the amazing thing in Iraq, as a part of a broader strategy to help what I call lay the foundation of peace: democracies don’t war; democracies are peaceful countries.

And what you’re seeing now is a historic moment, because I believe democracies will spread. I believe when people get the taste for freedom or see a neighbor with a taste for freedom, they will demand the same thing, because I believe in the universality of freedom. I believe everybody has the desire to be free.

I recognize some don’t believe that. That was — basically condemned some to tyranny. I strongly believe that deep in everybody’s soul is the desire to live in liberty, and if given a chance, they will choose that path.

And it’s not easy to do that. The other day I gave a speech and talked about how our road to our Constitution — which got amended shortly after it was approved — pretty bumpy. We tried the Articles of Confederation; it didn’t work. There was a lot of, kind of, civil unrest.

But nevertheless, deep in the soul are a desire to live in liberty. People have got the patience and the steadfastness to achieve that objective. And that is what we’re seeing in Iraq. ~President George W. Bush, December 19, 2005

There are a few things we know about modern democracy: it is not inherently more peaceful than other regimes (it is, all things considered, one of the more brutal and destructive and has facilitated modern mass warfare), it is perfectly capable of starting wars, it is more than capable of warring against other democracies, it is an exceedingly rare and brief form of government that has enjoyed less than two generations’ existence in countries outside of Europe and North America, and its institutions have hardly ever “spread” to a nation that has not been previously colonised and/or conquered by a people with representative institutions and democratic traditions. Yet it has never been directly and successfully exported by force of arms, even though colonised nations may imitate the models of the colonialists once the latter have departed. (Since we purport not to be colonialists, and supposedly have no intention of remaining for the decades that would be required to inculcate the political habits required, Iraq’s chances of success here are not much improved.) Modern democracy constitutes the form of government in roughly a bare majority of the world’s nations today for an apparent lack of credible alternatives, but such uniform direction in the political development of so many nations will not be sustained in the rest of this century. It is sobering to consider that no actual indigenous revolutionary movement of the last 80 years anywhere in the world has espoused a desire for democracy, liberal or otherwise, that was not heavily coloured by socialist or communist doctrines. If democracy is going to spread in the world, it will be Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales who are its prophets and pioneers and its expansion will be most unwelcome to the West.

There are a few things we know about liberty or freedom, specifically political liberty (which is what we must be talking about here for Mr. Bush’s remarks to have any substance whatever): it is exceedingly rare and transitory, even in the Anglo-American world, and has shown no sign of appearing in most of the world for almost all, if not all, of world history. It is folly to believe in the “universality of freedom,” when there is no reason to believe that it is either universally desired or universally possible. More to the point, even if universally desired, it is extemely unclear that it is universally obtainable.

The idea of freedom as man’s natural state and natural desire is a tenet of the political philosophers of the Enlightenment. It does beg the question why men in most places at most times do not seem to desire it, or at least prefer a great many other goods over and above their freedom, and it also makes us ask why this state of freedom frequently sets men at odds with their natural affinities and teaches them self-interest to the detriment of their natural obligations (i.e., family, community, cult, etc.). The Christian has an answer why men act against nature, but then he does not really believe that men, in their present state, are truly free. Even less does he believe that men become truly free by embracing autonomy and the willfulness that masquerades as freedom, and which Mr. Bush extols. It is that willfulness and passion that Mr. Bush proposes to spread.