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

[al Roumi]

The question that this thread has hanging in the breeze is "what is stability?" and does it really differ from acendant western interest?

Nicely put.

For the US (and others) to move away from the cronyist policies they would almost certainly have to be a little less risk averse. I think Frag's is right about Islamism and the desire (to whatever extent, it does exist) to create a pan-islamic block. Clearly, such a block would endanger the current "stability" enjoyed by the US (Oil, trade, security etc).

But, to what extent does political Islam engender -or enable, such a block of nation(s) forming? My impression, as with the author of the article (by inference), is that one does not nessessarily lead to the other. However, it appears that the US is not prepared to take that risk -however marginal it may be.

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I still find the issue of "US hypocrisy" interesting. When the US remonstrates with authoritarian leaders for their heavy handed "statecraft", does it do so becasue of a genuine will to unilaterly improve the lot of mankind -or a domestic pressure for protest to be lodged, conditioned by a greater domestic preogative for existing domestic conditions to be maintained?

To my mind, US rhetoric is aspirational enough to lead one to believe the former, but action denotes the later -which is also "pragmatic" and machiavelian enough to reflect the reality of diplomacy.