PUBLIC RELIGION SECRETARY RICE, AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY

Abstract

Abstract The U.S. foreign policy establishment's insistence on a secular democracy that seeks to privatize religious expression is seen as anti-Islamic by the Muslim world. U.S. religious freedom policy can and should be employed as part of the nation's refurbished democracy project in the Muslim world. However, it must provide a model of democracy that will allow Muslims to elevate into politics those aspects of their faith that value human dignity and freedom. We must work to create space for religion in U.S. and Iraqi politics so that militant Islamic fundamentalists are not justified in their proclamations that democracy is anti-Islam.