The other day, Fouad Ajami offered this thoughtful defense of the Bush administration’s democratization strategy.

As always, Ajami makes many good points. But note that his defense of democratization includes the claim that we cannot “hide behind anthropology.” By this Ajami means we must reject the claim that Muslim culture is incompatible with democracy. Unfortunately, as I see it, Ajami has accepted a false and very widespread dichotomy. In this view, either you take the cultural barriers to democratization seriously, or you move ahead with an essentially political strategy based on encouraging elections. My point is that this is a false choice. Elections are not enough, but cultural barriers are not necessarily permanent either. If we don’t acknowledge the cultural problem and try to overcome it by doing more than merely orchestrating elections, we are in trouble.