As the world’s most powerful nation, the United States has become involved in dozens of conflicts around the world. Often these conflicts were sold to the public as an effort to not only protect American interests, but to bring freedom to the oppressed. Toward this cause, America has sought to impose democracy throughout the world.

But is democracy the solution to the world’s problems?

When America invaded Afghanistan in 2001, it was initially motivated by the fact that the country’s dictators were harboring terrorists that attacked America. After those dictators were removed, America’s involvement became more of a humanitarian, nation-building effort. Millions of dollars were put toward developing the nation, and a democratically elected leader was installed.

Then there was the war in Iraq. The U.S., along with several allies, invaded in 2003, toppling the autocratic regime of Saddam Hussein. Afterward, these forces helped Iraq establish a democratic government.

This was one of the great victories that U.S. President Barack Obama saw in Iraq. In a speech marking the end of the Iraq War, President Obama said, “[W]e’re leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its people,” and that “American troops [had broken] the back of a brutal dictator ….” Democracy was the victor in Iraq, according to the president.

But it didn’t stop there. When America put pressure on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to resign in early 2011, it was done in the name of democracy (recall the president’s “We hear your voices” speech to the youth of Egypt). This was done despite the fact that Mubarak was a long-time friend of America and had maintained peace with Israel for nearly 30 years. Later that same year, the U.S. backed a nato mission to assist in the overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi. This too was done in support of what the Obama administration viewed as pro-democracy protests in Libya. Even in Syria, the U.S. has voiced its support for the rebels who are working to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Time after time, America has worked to install democracy or has supported in a variety of ways those who appear to be pro-democracy. But what has been the outcome of democracy in the Middle East? Has it brought peace and stability as it supposedly did to America and the West? It certainly doesn’t look like it.

Last month proved to be the deadliest month in Iraq in the past five years, with more than 1,000 Iraqi civilians killed. As Reuters reports, “Most of the violence has been perpetrated by the Iraqi wing of al Qaeda, the strict Sunni Muslim jihadi group which was defeated by U.S. forces and their allies in 2006-2007 but has been reborn this year to battle the Shiite-led government.” The violence in Iraq has become so bad that the Interior Ministry announced last week that, once again, Iraq was in “open war.”

The same thing is happening in Afghanistan. On Tuesday, the Taliban’s leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, called on Afghans to not participate in next year’s presidential elections, calling them “a waste of time.” With the U.S. pulling out next year, many question whether the Afghan Army will be able to protect the gains made by coalition troops over the past decade. The country could easily break into civil war.

In Egypt, 250 people have been killed since the start of July when a new wave of unrest led to the military ousting Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi and taking control of the country. American diplomats are currently working to have the military government turn control of the country back over to the Muslim Brotherhood because Morsi was the elected leader. It doesn’t seem to matter that the Brotherhood is a terrorist group; the Obama administration doesn’t want to see a democratically elected official ousted, even if he is a radical.

The crisis in Syria isn’t shaping up to be a victory for democracy either. Right now, more and more extremists are entering the ranks of the rebels in Syria, putting the U.S. in a difficult position regarding whom it should support. It can’t support Assad, because it views him as a dictator. But, should the rebels win, it seems unlikely that a responsible democratic government would be established.

Democracy clearly is not working so well in the Middle East. It has not brought peace and stability to the region. In fact, it has destabilized it even more! If it was democracy that brought peace and stability to America, why hasn’t it done the same in these other nations as well?

The truth is that democracy is not the primary cause for American greatness.

What, then, made America great? What brought it freedom and stability? It came because God was fulfilling His promise of material wealth to Abraham, who is the ancient patriarch of the nation of America. You can learn more about this in The United States and Britain in Prophecy. Keeping those God-given blessings was conditional on keeping God’s law. When America’s forefathers created the Constitution, they tried to pattern it after the Ten Commandments. As editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote in No Freedom Without Law:

The Constitution is the foundation of our republic. And the Ten Commandments were, in many ways, the foundation of the Constitution. Our forefathers believed that if we didn’t keep God’s Ten Commandments, our republic would collapse!

The recognition of the Ten Commandments by the Founding Fathers was noble in its intent. The trouble is, Americans, as with the great body of humanity, never did have the capacity to fully obey them.

To the extent that Americans either wittingly or unwittingly obeyed God’s law, they were either individually blessed or cursed. However, the fact remains that it was only through God fulfilling His promise to the patriarch Abraham, after withholding it for 2,520 years, that America once reaped the benefits of so many national blessings.

Yet now America is turning its back on the very principles within its Constitution that helped keep America great in human terms. This can only have disastrous results.

Abraham Lincoln declared:

We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God … we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

As America continues to turn its back on God, the blessings will continue to be removed, just as He prophesied in Deuteronomy 28.

Imposing democracy on the world will not solve America’s problems. It will take a far, far superior form of government to do that—the very government of the God America rejects!

The signs are that government will soon bring peace to the whole world (Matthew 24:3). Those prophetic signs, now extant in timely abundance, reveal that Jesus Christ will soon return to this Earth (John 14:3). As prophesied, He will bring universal peace and prosperity as He administers and enforces God’s law—the Ten Commandments—through the loving government of God (1 John 5:3). Only then will man experience the peace he has so fruitlessly tried to attain by his own means.

To learn how you can experience that peace and freedom in your life today by submitting to God’s government now, be sure to read No Freedom Without Law.