The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror (Hardcover)

Freedom in Sharansky's view is rooted in freedom of expression -- freedom to say what one thinks, both politically and socially, without fear of governmental reprisals. This is the core freedom from which most every other political freedom derives, in Sharansky's framework. This is the heart of democracy, and explains why repressive regimes on the left and right politically often take freedom of speech, press, assembly and other freedom of expression rights away from the people.

Sharansky's idea of freedom has strong international ramifications for him. Sharansky's primary ideal, stated in the President's Inaugural Address, is that the democratic countries are inherently safer as international partners than autocratic and repressive regimes, and the democracy always tends toward peace as a primary goal. The people in democratic societies tend not to support terrorism and not to support warfare.

Sharansky's ideals are strongly stated and well argued. There is a strong element of political idealism here -- democracies are unfortunately rather good at waging war and supporting some activities that might be defined by others as terrorism; however, Sharansky's primary thesis is correct in that few democracies will hold these up as goals or ideals for which the nation strives, and warfare and terrorism will be seen as aberrations.

Sharansky spends time in the realm of the practical rather than simply theoretical. He surveys recent and current international relations and American/Western foreign policy with regard to the break-up of the Eastern Block and Soviet Union as well as the Middle East. Sharansky's argument here is that the press for democratic reform that worked in the case of the former communist republics should not be abandoned in the case of the Middle East in an effort to sustain a peace with repressive or autocratic regimes.

The one primary failing in this text from my perspective is that it does not adequately account for Israel's own continuing problem with the issue over Palestinian self-governance. That would undoubtedly take a book of its own to do, but Sharansky could have acknowledged the difficulties in this area, as it would undoubtedly have an impact on the way his wishes for affairs in the broader Middle Eastern context would be conducted.

Worth reading, particularly as it is on the Presidential bookshelf at the moment.

The most uplifting aspect of the book is Sharansky's narration of the collapse of the soviet union. The most depressing aspect is the hash that he considers everyone - Europe, the US, successive Israeli governments - has made of moving towards a separate Palestinian state. I was feelling quite optimistic about the role of the security fence in removing terrorist violence, but he reminded me that leaving the Palestinian regime to continue as a "fear society" condemns its people to more years of poverty, doublethink, and propaganda.

He makes no connection to the micro-level, but I think his message applies there to. Just as a free, democratic society functions better than a fear-filled dictatorship, which inevitably carries the seeds of its eventual implosion, so a family with authoritarian parents is doomed to disaster as the children defect to freer climes as soon as they have the physical and mental power.

In this book, Mr. Sharansky shows how tyrannical systems of government are never good governments with which the West can safely interact, but that they create instability and terror, both within their borders and without. He makes the point that the thinkers in the West must come to realize that there is a world of difference between free societies and fear societies, and that to make a peaceful world, the West must make the call for freedom a cornerstone of its foreign relations.

This is a fascinating and perspicacious work, and in it Mr. Sharansky makes a very convincing argument that the West must press for freedom around the globe. He is clear that many governments are far from perfect, but that when a government recognizes basic freedoms, it can and will move towards more freedom and more peaceful relations with the rest of the world. Overall, I found this book to be enlightening and totally convincing, and am quite sure that it reflects a good deal of thinking within the Bush White House.

So if you want to read a fascinating and thought-provoking book, then you must read this book. Also, if you want to understand an underlying thrust of the Bush administrations foreign strategy, then you must read this book. I give it my highest recommendations!