It takes a special kind of ideological blindness after the last three weeks of fighting in Gaza to insist that the “freedom agenda” that helped bring Hamas to power (and thus put Israel and Gaza on their present course) needs to be revived. When it comes to such blindness, few are more special than Fred Hiatt:

Yet the incoming Obama administration seems to be inclining, in its foreign policy, toward a philosophy that says: Voting matters, but maybe not as much as economic development, or women’s rights, or honest judges. Its adoption as U.S. policy would be a terrible mistake, for America’s security as well as its moral standing.

In fact, as Hiatt is forced to acknowledge several times, democracy promotion remains on the new administration’s agenda, but it is no longer going to be made into the rhetorical centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy. While the new administration’s other priorities may or may not be the right ones, making the mere holding of elections a lower priority seems very reasonable. Unfortunately, as Obama himself makes clear in a quote later in the column, democracy promotion more broadly defined is here to stay.

This is not a good thing. Democratization in recent years has not generally contributed to U.S. interests, and it certainly has not contributed to greater peace and security. From empowering Hamas to building up an aggressive nationalist demagogue in Georgia to boosting socialist “people power” in Bolivia and Venezuela to provoking ethnic conflict in Kenya, genuine democratic elections have produced a number of undesirable outcomes for the nations involved and for U.S. interests in their respective regions. The idea of “democratic peace” is a myth, and the politicization of ethnicity and religion that democratization has involved in many parts of Africa, Latin America and the Near East has led to terrible results. Why we should want more of this is a mystery, but like much related to the management of the empire this is something we are not supposed to challenge.

Update: Fortunately, European countries are all democratic, so they are not having any serious problems.