Cynical? Maybe…

The slogan “Exporting Democracy” summarizes the political mission of American imperialism during the presidency of Bush the elder. This slogan justifies political-military intervention against regimes that do not govern through a parliamentary structure. A preference for democracy over absolutism or “despotism” (seen as a relic of the past) is self-evident in the post-Enlightenment West but is by no means easily transposed to the Orient, where autocratic governments are not imposed from above; such governments are instead supported by much of the population, and tentative steps towards democratization are either taken in the name of religion (as at the end of the Pahlavi monarchy in Iran) or prompted by the armed forces (as in Kemalist Turkey). Moreover, the formula of “exportation” is itself strongly associated with its commercial origins and connotations and leads unfailingly to the idea that financial interests and commercial profits inform the American mission.—Mario Liverani, Assyria: The Imperial Mission, 157