Those who argue for the cultural or genetic theory of democracy have forgotten that, in the very recent past, Western Europeans with glorious cultural traditions freely embraced tyrannies of their own, including some of the worst in human history. Hitler and Mussolini were enormously popular among the heirs of Cicero, Marcus Aurelius, and Verdi, and Hegel, Beethoven, and Frederick the Great. At the time, some believed that there was something fundamentally (and perhaps incurably) rotten in the German or Italian soul, but there are few who believe that today. Why should we believe the heirs of Suleyman and Averroes have mutated into malignant monsters incapable of tolerant self-government?

Even those who argue the “genetic” theory of democracy have a hard time contesting the ability of Iranians to govern themselves or to grasp the subtleties of democracy. The Constitution of 1906 is as modern as anyone could wish, and prior to Khomeini’s seizure of power in 1979, women in Iran enjoyed more freedom than in any other nation in the region. Predictably, some of the prime movers in the contemporary Iranian democracy movement are female.

Calling Evil by its Name

Other objections have been and will be raised against calls for support of democratic revolution in the Middle East. Even many of those who sympathize with the goal with great passion and undoubted good faith, worry that anything the United States does to encourage it will only produce greater misery and greater repression. Better to leave bad enough alone, they say, and encourage a gradual evolution of Islam in a more tolerant and “moderate” direction.

This is an old story. I heard many of the same objections during the Reagan years, when those who applauded the president’s clear call for an end to the Soviet Empire and freedom for the captive countries were branded as hopelessly brainwashed ideologues. Then, as today, many warned that the condemnation of the Soviet “evil empire” would only make things worse, and they urged the United States to work with “communists with a human face” in order to encourage a gradual “Communist Reformation.” They worried that Reagan’s words would provoke the Soviets, leading to greater repression and possibly even global war. Events proved that Reagan was right, and once the Berlin Wall fell and people were free to speak their minds, the United States was thanked by the victims of Soviet Communism. They told the United States that when they heard Reagan describe the evil empire for what it was, they gained new hope and redoubled their efforts to bring it down.

Why should the naysayers be believed today, when chances for successful democratic revolution in Iran, and elsewhere in the region, are so much better than they were in the last decade of the Cold War? Only a very small minority was willing to fight Soviet Communism from within, both in the Soviet Union and in places like Poland and Czechoslovakia. Yet, in the end, they were strong enough to win their freedom. How many people would have given the “Orange Revolution” any chance in the Ukraine as of a few months ago? Yet they, too, were victorious and now speak openly of bringing the revolution to other former Soviet republics. Given that experience, it seems perverse to argue that freedom cannot be won in Iran and elsewhere, where far larger numbers hate the regime and wish to be free. Support for democratic revolution is part of US history and national character, and the United States should not wait for crises to take action.

Conclusion

The policy of advancing freedom in the Middle East is made more urgent by Iran’s support of the United States’ terrorist enemies and by the mullahs’ relentless drive to acquire atomic bombs. But it would be the right policy even if there were no war against the terror masters and even if there were no impending nuclear threat. It is what the United States is all about.

I do not believe that human events are the result of vast, impersonal forces, but rather of a myriad of decisions made by many people. But there are times when individual decisions are likely to have greater effect, especially when they are in support of mass movements like the democratic revolution that dominates contemporary history. The first generation of leaders of the democratic revolution of our time—the likes of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II—understood this and changed the world. It lies to a new generation to continue that great tradition.