First Wednesday: Democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq – what went wrong?

What do the troubled elections in Afghanistan and the continuing violence in Iraq teach us about the West’s attempt to export democracy around the world?
In his book  Democracy Kills: What’s So Good About Having The Vote BBC foreign correspondent Humphrey Hawksley criticises Western governments for their failure to draw up detailed plans for after the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan and of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. With a panel of experts Humphrey Hawksley will examine the record of the West’s democratic mission and ask if there can be a transition from dictatorship to democracy without bloodshed.

With: Nick Fielding, former Sunday Times journalist and editor of Circling the Lion’s Den, a blog on Afghanistan; Rachel Reid, Afghanistan researcher at Human Rights Watch; Najibullah Razaq, journalist and expert on Afghanistan, who has produced numerous programmes on Afghanistan and Pakistan; Sami Zubaida, emeritus professor of politics and sociology at Birkbeck College, author of Law and Power in the Islamic World.