Lewis and Zakaria scripted two variants of the same imperial interventionism

Evidence

Sheehi points to the different approaches Lewis and Zakaria take. He writes that if “Lewis locates the failures of Islam within the barbarism of the ‘Arab mind,’ then Zakaria locates the hate for the West in the failure of Arab political culture and economic organization.” Zakaria, a student of Samuel Huntington, has argued that the United States should promote free markets and democracy in the Middle East, channeling his mentor’s modernization proclivities. He states that Arabs have seen the “reverse of the historical process in the Western world, where liberalism produced democracy and democracy fuels liberalism. The Arab path has produced dictatorship, which has bred terrorism.” In this view, the United States therefore had to intervene to carry the “white man’s burden” and bring democracy and neoliberalism. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 420

Categorization

• XREF: The racial-barbarism vs. cultural-failure distinction parallels Grosfoguel and Rana’s analyses of racialized and culturalist Islamophobia. — connects to: Neocons and liberal interventionists differ only in tactics, not imperial aims — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 404
• QUESTION: How does Zakaria’s liberal-imperial framing echo in contemporary ‘democracy promotion’ and its reception today?