Western foreign policy, when push comes to shove: Democracy sacrificed for Stability?

[Idaho]

That's a bit of a missionaries take, the west isn't the east. Democracy is something that naturally evolved here because of a quazillions of reasons, but it's a poor export product without them

Naturally evolved? I don't think so. It was a foreign idea imported and implemented violently against enormous resistance by the powers at the time. In the 18th century most European monarchs looked at the American and French revolutions with undiluted horror. The Great Reform Act of 1832 in Britain divided the politicians even though it's measures were very conservative. The 19th century was marked by piecemeal compromise by the ruling class to democracy. One could easily argue that modern democracy, as we now know it, in Europe and the US was really only something implemented in the 20th century.

The idea that democracy is something only befitting Europeans is a fantasy that appeals to European right-wingers and the incumbent despots and wannabe despots of other parts of the world.