Aymen M. Khalifa is the editor-in-chief of the monthly magazine Civil Society, published by the Ibn Khaldoun Center for Development Studies in Cairo, Egypt.
The U.S.-led reconstruction effort has so far failed to establish democratic institutions in Iraq. But as troubled as that effort has been, it provides valuable lessons for future nation-building endeavors.
The history of twentieth-century European communist parties shows that extremists can be moderated by robust democratic institutions. Without them, however, the inclusion of extremist parties may undermine democracy.
