Retooling the Middle Eastern Freedom Agenda

The current debate over America's “democracy project” in the Middle East does notaddress U.S. foreign policy's failure to engage Islam directly as a religion. America's national security will increasingly turn on its ability to move religious actorstoward peaceful purpose and away from extremism. Yet despite emphasizing religiousfreedom as a foreign policy goal, the U.S. government has failed to better understand the relationship between religious freedom and national security. Strict adherence to a separation and privatization model of religion is dangerous to national securityand undermines the goal of promoting democracy abroad

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