Summary

• Foreign affairs experts routinely use historical analogy to develop and justify policy. However, as professional historians have long noted, attractive analogies often lead to bad policies. Officials regularly choose analogies that neglect or distort the historical case they aim to illuminate. Nonetheless, history can be used effectively in international relations
• To do so, practitioners must first recognize the difference between historical analogy and precedent. Historical precedent, drawn from the past of the region in question, is a safer guide to policy than historical analogy, which is based on comparisons to events in other regions. Because historical precedent is a self-limiting form of analogy restricted to a certain place, people, and time, it provides a better indication of how a certain society understands and responds to a given situation.
• The recent U.S. intervention in Iraq highlights the misuses of history: American leaders employed analogies to World War II to justify the invasion and to predict success in establishing a democratic regime after. These analogies proved to be a poor guide to nation building in the short term. In the long term, they have deeply aggravated U.S. relations with Iraqis and the rest of the Arab world.
• A more effective use of history would have been to refer to the precedent of World War I, a crucial moment when American policy could have supported indigenous Arab constitutional democracy--but, fatefully, did not.
• For the new administration, the Arabs' experience of "justice interrupted" after World War I can still be a useful touchstone for promoting democracy in the region.1 This precedent alerts us that foreign intervention can spark a deep-seated and negative political reaction in the postcolonial Arab world and that reform in Arab politics must begin with respect for national sovereignty. It also reminds us that constitutionalism and the desire to participate in the community of international law are enduring values in Arab politics.

About the Report

Elizabeth F. Thompson, associate professor of history at the University of Virginia, was a Jennings Randolph fellow at USIP in 2007–08. This report, drawn from her forthcoming book, Seeking Justice in the Middle East, builds bridges between two worlds that have remained separate in recent years: academic history of the Middle East and foreign policymaking in the region. The author thanks USIP for its support, Meagan Bridges for her research assistance, and commentators on previous drafts: Nathan Brown, David Edelstein, Melvyn Leffler, Jeff Legro, William Quandt, Abdul-Karim Rafeq, Barbara Slavin, Bob Vitalis, David Waldner, and audiences at the History Department at Catholic University of America, the Institute for Middle East Studies at George Washington University, the Women’s Foreign Policy Group, and the Woodrow Wilson Center, all in Washington, D.C.