The Diplomacy of Religious Freedom

Author: Thomas Farr

May 1, 2006

In First Things, Thomas Farr contends that America's national security increasingly depends on our ability to understand and address the faith traditions, motivations, and behaviors of other societies, especially (but not exclusively) those of the Muslim world. The United States is failing at this in large part because of garden-variety secularism. This is not a new problem. As Edward Luttwak noted, in the late 1970s American analysts viewed opposition to Iran's shah in purely secular terms. Religion, if it had a role at all, was seen as marginal. Reports indicated a distinction between "pious" and "modern" Iranians, the former inevitably in decline, the latter moving with the tide of history toward triumph. History has not been kind to that analysis. But the task is far more than enemy identification. If the United States is to encourage the spread of democracy, it must learn to engage and influence powerful religious communities.

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