The US will be more actively engaged than ever before in promoting democracy in Muslim countries, particularly in the Arab world, US State Department Policy Planning Director Richard Haass has said.

The Arab world faces serious problems that can be met only by more flexible, democratic political systems, says
Haass in an article in The Herald Tribune distributed here by the State Department. 

"Muslims cannot blame the United States for their lack of democracy. Still, the US plays a large role on the global
stage, and its efforts to promote democracy throughout the Muslim world would have sometimes been halting and
incomplete," he says.

In many parts of the Muslim world, and particularly the Arab world, successive US administrations have not made
democratisation a sufficient priority, he says. And at times, the US has avoided scrutinising the internal workings of countries in the interest of ensuring a steady flow of oil, containing Soviet, Iraq and Iranian expansionism, addresing issues related to the Arab-Israeli conflict, resisting communism in East Asia or securing basing rights for the US military. 

"By failing to help foster gradual paths to  democratisation in many of our important relationships, we missed an opportunity to help these countries become more stable, more prosperous, more peaceful, and more adaptable to the stresses of a globalising world," he says.