Sharansky's strategy
We continue our debut of selected pieces from the just-publshed spring issue of the Claremont Review of Books with Professor Gerard Alexander's review of Natan Sharanksy and Ron Dermer's The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror. Alexander subjects the most notable of Sharansky's arguments in the book to thoughtful scrutiny and finds it wanting:
Sharansky's is a plea to recognize every peoples' equal moral claim to freedom and to honor the persistence of human yearnings for it. This is a noble and ennobling message. But—here I tread carefully because I honor both that message and the messenger—this argument simply cannot serve as the basis for America's foreign policy. At the heart of this book stand two claims that are empirical, not moral, in nature and that therefore must be held up to appropriate standards of evidence. They fail to meet those standards. Part of the problem is that, for his evidence, Sharansky relies on the two cases he knows best, Russia and the Palestinian territories. These prove to be highly unrepresentative.Alexander's review is "Freedom fighter."
