Superimposing democracy?

I’d only heard of Reza Aslan a week before and decided to attend this lecture which was very popular.

He was very articulate and provided a compelling presentation. He questioned President Barack Obama’s decision to hold his promised speech to the Muslim world in Cairo. He believes the Middle East is no longer the religious centre of the Muslim world; rather that it is Africa, Asia and even Europe. Egypt is important due to its foreign policy role especially as an arbiter between Israel and Palestine. He believes it was a grave mistake to rewards President Mubarak for his dictatorial rule.

Reza made reference to Condoleezza Rice’s Freedom Speech in 2005 which put forward a pro-democracy push in Middle East which though was ridiculed in the West was taken seriously in the Middle East, especially in Jordan, Egypt and Palestine. He concluded that Bush was correct in thinking that political participation moderates radical tendencies however this was the only sympathy he had with the Bush administration and used the normal negative adjectives to describe George W Bush which I need not state here. Reza argued for the recognition of Hamas and Hezbollah which have moderated and that due to their popularity we in the West cannot avoid them.

Controversially he described Jihadism as specifically a Sunni movement, though he also stated Muslim groups are generally nationalistic not having a transnational agenda. I was troubled by this as I can’t think of a single Muslim group with a transnational, pan-Islamic agenda. He also didn’t give an example. He himself highlighted Bin Laden had nationalistic goals being the removal of US bases in Saudi Arabia.

Democracy is just as susceptible to being corrupted as monarchical or dictatorial governments as we can arguably see from the election of Bush in the first place, but also more importantly by the huge influence of corporate lobbies on Western governments. Do you think the focus should be more about pushing for human rights, economic justice around energy resources and labour rather than superimposing democracy on foreign countries?