I find the idea that you can introduce democracy by military force a very quaint idea. Moreover, if I wanted to choose a testing ground for doing it, Iraq would be the last nation I would choose.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Imposing democracy through military force is impractical. Choosing Iraq as a test case for this approach is seen as a poor strategic decision.
- In plain terms
- You cannot force democracy with the army, and Iraq was the wrong place to try.
- What can you take from it?
- Military force is an ineffective tool for establishing democracy.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What conditions are necessary for democracy to take root?
- When is military intervention justified?
Another view
Military intervention sometimes succeeds in changing regimes but fails to establish stable democracy.
More from George Soros
My position is that America is great precisely because it is an open society, and an open society recognizes that nobody is the ultimate arbiter - and that we …
Permalink to quote #41 Most of the poverty and misery in the world is due to bad government, lack of democracy, weak states, internal strife, and so on. We do need to intervene, to i…
Permalink to quote #43 Now look at the ideology of American supremacy. It has a solid foundation in reality; namely, the United States is the dominant power in the world. The current…
Permalink to quote #40
Related quotes
The habit of ubiquitous interventionism, combining pinprick strikes by precision weapons with pious invocations of high principle, would lead us into endless d…
Margaret ThatcherMargaret Thatcher quote #68 Well, they're taking kids out of the country and sending them over there, National Guard kids and Army Reserve. They're sending kids who are barely prepared fo…
Garrison KeillorGarrison Keillor quote #2 And we have so much work to do in America, because all across America, there are walls ... There's a wall around Washington, D.C. The American people are, toda…
John EdwardsJohn Edwards quote #3