. >> host: amaney jamal, the u.s. policy has been to push democracy in iraq. is it successful? is it -- what's the result? >> guest: the result unfortunately, has not been successful. i mean, in many ways if you look at the problems right now in iraq, in syria especially with isis, a lot of scholars and academics place it back to what happened with the u.s. invasion of iraqing. especially with the -- of iraq. especially with the u.s. privileging a shia-majority government while not taking into account sunni grievances in iraq gave and fueled movements like isis that mobilized on this kind of like, you know sunni consciousness, the sunni sectarianism, gave those movements fuel. so it's really quite unfortunate, and i think until we can resolve what's going on with isis right now isil in syria and in iraq, the future of democracy in iraq is still very much questionable and debatable. >> host: syria jordan, saudi arabia non-democracies. >> guest: yes. >> host: is democracy, in your view, a laudable goal? >> guest: i think -- >> host: for those countries? >> guest: if we look at pu

" amaney jamal prefer at princeton is the author. professor jamal, let's start with the question that you ask on the back of this book, which is why has democracy been slow in the middle east and the arab world. >> guest: the book tackles this question head on, and what i do in the book is try to take on a lot of the both academic explanations why we haven't seen democracy in the region as well as the more popular explanations about why we haven't seen democracy in the middle east. so let's start with the popular explanation. often times people say that there's something unique about the religion of islam or the culture of islam that has prevented true democracy in the region. so this is something that i engage with seriously in the book and first of all i argue well probably some truth to that but let's look at the empirical record. look at the number of muslim countries worldwide inside the middle east and outside the middle east easily you can say about 60% of those countries have democracy or transitioned towards democracy. so, -

" amaney jamal prefer at princeton is the author. professor jamal, let's start with the question that you ask on the back of this book, which is why has democracy been slow in the middle east and the arab world. >> guest: the book tackles this question head on, and what i do in the book is try to take on a lot of the both academic explanations why we haven't seen democracy in the region as