ANWAR IBRAHIM is a former finance minister and deputy prime minister of Malaysia. He is a visiting professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in Washington.   For six years he was a political prisoner in Malaysia and was released from jail in September, 2004. 

Internationally, his courageous and firm refusal to surrender his principles and ideals in the face of the unprecedented attacks on his political and personal life while in prison  enhanced his standing in the West, while his message of tolerance and reform resonate within the Islamic world.  

MaximsNews was active in the "Free Anwar Movement". Anwar Ibrahim is now a Columnist for MaximsNews Network. 

          UNITED NATIONS - / www.MaximsNews.com/ - 31 March 2006 - Since 9/11, the United States has pursued what the White House calls a "forward strategy of freedom" predicated on the belief that a dearth of democracy in Muslim countries has led to the spread of a deadly strain of Islamic extremism.

However, as the first returns come in on this democratization effort in the Muslim world, there is growing anxiety in the U.S. about the resulting character of these nascent, freely elected governments. 

Fear is growing that radicals may hijack democracy. 

Recent Islamist electoral successes in Iran, Egypt and the Palestinian territories have given rise to questions about the ability of liberal forces to prevail against fundamentalism.

For the United States, the fear is real, though perhaps tinged with a bit of Islamophobia: How terrible an irony it would be if this grand effort to spread liberty abroad resulted in anti-U.S. Islamic states imposing Sharia, or Islamic law, on their people.

There are some who say that "stability" not liberty is what the U.S. should be promoting throughout the Islamic world. 

Their view is that championing electoral democracy does not immediately serve U.S. interests abroad, particularly in the war on terrorism. 

They say the war against terrorism must be waged with an iron hand, not kid gloves woven from the fabric of constitutional liberties.

These views on democracy and stability in the Muslim world are not only wrong but carry grave consequences.

In a way, Washington's strategy may be viewed as expiation for past sins, when the U.S. was a stumbling block to democracy in the Middle East. 

Iran was a democracy in 1953 when the CIA engineered the coup that transformed it into an absolute monarchy. 

The U.S. also has supported other tyrants in the region, including, of course, Saddam Hussein. 

All of this in the name of stability and security in the decades-long confrontation with the communist bloc.

Is Washington really caught between the Scylla of supporting dictators and the Charybdis of promoting democracies that could bring Islamist radicals to power?

The best answers to the question of whether America should reassess its strategy lie in Indonesia and Turkey, refreshing examples of Muslim democratic self-assertion.

Seven years ago, Indonesia plunged headlong into democracy after more than 30 years of autocratic dictatorship. 

As the largest Muslim nation in the world, it stands out as perhaps the most significant political phenomenon in the recent history of democracy. Indonesians have gone to the polls twice since, and they overwhelmingly rejected the Islamist radicals. 

The press in Indonesia is free, and the elections are fair. Fundamental liberties are enshrined in the constitution and fully recognized and respected by the powers that be.

As fledgling democracies, Indonesia and Turkey still have a long way to go. 

In Indonesia, it is in fulfilling the socioeconomic objectives of democracy that can only happen over time. 

In Turkey, the containment of an unrestricted military establishment has aided in that country's European Union ascension. 

Nevertheless, they now stand as beacons, both for Muslim nations and for those who seek to help them.

To be successful in its efforts to spread freedom, the U.S. must remember that constitutional democracy cannot take root in a society, whether secular or Islamic, without the firm commitment of the politically empowered to protect the fundamental rights to liberty, equality and freedom of all.

The true cultivation of democracy requires more than simply the introduction of elections. 

It also requires the establishment of democratic processes and a leveling of the political playing field. 

It needs the guarantee of a separation of powers and the liberation of the judicial system from the stranglehold of autocrats and tyrants. 

Most of all, it requires the protection of fundamental liberties and a free press.

It is in these prerequisites of democracy that the U.S. and the Muslim world need to invest, with far more significant effort, for the causes of liberty to truly prevail.

         AnwarIbrahim@MaximsNews.com

        This essay was published earlier in the Los Angeles Times.

Anwar Ibrahim's Columns in MaximsNews

Democracy in the Muslim World and the White House 

Bridging the Chasm between the West and the Muslim World  

On My Release from Prison

Anwar Ibrahim Released From Prison!!! 

Muslims Must Reform -- Or Be Left Behind

Free Anwar Ibrahim