Mr. Chair, there is a tremendous desire among some to distill democracy promotion or democratic development to simply winning a military struggle and having free and democratic elections. Obviously it is much more than that. In many places, it requires institution building, development of civilian law enforcement and education systems, the stabilization of an economy, and the building of local governments and national governments. All of these things are important parts of the package. Of course, every circumstance is different. Every occasion is different.
As the Soviet Union ended, we saw many countries where there were willing recipients looking to go quickly down the road to embrace reform of their judicial system, to learn how to run it the way that western democracies have been doing it for years. Then there are some countries, obviously, where democratic development is done in the face of hostile forces; there are countries and regimes that really are resisting it. As we know, we see that right now in some places, such as Belarus, where it is a big struggle.
Then we have a place such as Afghanistan, and there are others around the world that are similar, where it is something in between the two, where there are local populations and newly elected governments, where we have had the successful elections and we have people wanting to move toward that state of a stable, democratic and free country, but where there are forces within the country that are resisting it. They are fighting it and trying to destabilize the country militarily and through terrorist actions. Those are perhaps the most difficult ones, obviously, because the solution is different in every case.
In a case such as Afghanistan's, which has gone through such difficult times throughout the Taliban era and even before that, there obviously needs to be a large and comprehensive model that involves development on every front. That is what we are doing in Afghanistan. I believe it is the right model and I know this government believes it is the right one.