THE AIMS OF WAR
What Are We Fighting For?
Make the Middle East safe for democracy.
BY NATAN SHARANSKY
Wednesday, October 10, 2001 12:01 a.m. EDT
In any successful war, individual battles must be fought with an eye towards the overriding objective.
That is why it is so crucial that the Bush administration and the free world it hopes to mobilize clearly
define the objectives in the ongoing war on terrorism.
To be sure, victory in this war will demand that the empire of terror run by scores of organizations and
supported by several sovereign states be utterly destroyed.
But our goals must be far more ambitious. The democratic world must also seek to expand the very
freedoms our enemies want to destroy. We must use the torch of liberty they hope to extinguish to
light a path toward freedom in a region where hundreds of millions still live under tyranny.
The democratic world must export freedom throughout the Middle East not only for the sake of people
who live under repressive regimes, but for the sake of our own security. For only when the world is
free will the world be safe.
The consequences of merely eradicating an enemy rather than building a friend were made crystal
clear in the decades following World War II. In Eastern Europe, the evils of Nazism were replaced with
the evils of communism. One dictatorship replaced another and the effect was continued internal
repression and external belligerence.
In contrast, democracy was forced on Germany and Japan and the result has been over 50 years of
peace and stability--both within those states and in their relations with the outside world.
The logic of why democracies do not go to war with each other is ironclad. When political power is a
function of popular will, the incentive system works towards maintaining peace and providing
prosperity.
For nondemocratic regimes, war and terror are essential to survival. In order to justify the internal
repression that is inherent in nondemocratic rule, dictators and autocrats must mobilize their nation
for wars against both internal and external enemies.
Democratic leaders can be corrupt, prejudiced and xenophobic. But they will not survive long in office
if they impoverish their people and sacrifice their sons in wars that are not vital to their nations'
existence. That is why war is always the last option for democratic states.
Ironically, the same reasons that incline democracies toward peace make waging war against
implacable enemies all the more difficult. It is easy for democratic leaders to avoid making the difficult
choice of leading a free people into battle. Compromise is always more tempting.
Winston Churchill fought the forces of compromise in Britain and rallied his country to defeat the
Nazis. Ronald Reagan did much the same when he rejected decades of accommodation with the Soviet
Union and sought to break the back of the Evil Empire. Both men understood that in a battle against
evil there must be no concessions. And both understood that to defeat evil, one must be prepared to
stand alone.
Unfortunately, despite the lessons of the past century, the spirit of expedient interest is alive and
well. Its insidious logic attempts to justify including, in a coalition of freedom, regimes like Iran and
Syria that actively support the very evil we wish to eradicate.
The same spirit continues to convince many that strong dictators are the key to maintaining a strong
and stable peace. The decade-long misguided attempt to forge an Israeli-Palestinian peace by
financing and relying on Yasser Arafat's dictatorship, instead of linking political and economic benefits
to the liberalization of Palestinian society, is more than ample proof of this.
Though most policy makers understand the merits of exporting democracy in principle, few think such
a policy is applicable to the Middle East. Some hide behind the veil of political expedience, arguing
that championing democracy will destabilize the entire region. They say this in spite of much evidence
to the contrary.
I suspect, however, that buried beneath the concern for instability is an erroneous assumption that
sees Arabs and Muslims as incapable of living under democratic rule.
Of course, the same nonsense was spouted about the mentality of the Soviet peoples, or the cultural
differences of the Japanese. Those assessments of the unsuitability of peoples for democracy were as
wrong then as they are today.
What is expected from people who live under dictatorships is not that they abandon their culture,
sacrifice their values, or alter their way of life. It is only that their leaders be dependent on them and
that they be allowed to express their views openly. And just as was the case in Japan--a nation that
had never known democracy and whose culture was said to be antithetical to the idea of popular
rule--Arabs and Muslims can live in freedom and retain their unique identities.
Does that mean that the democratic world must declare war on every nondemocratic regime?
Certainly not. True, there are regimes that must be held directly accountable for terrorism and be
defeated militarily. But if the free world subjects other regimes to economic and diplomatic pressures,
and at the same time links concrete economic and political benefits to the liberalization of their
societies--as it did to the former Soviet Bloc in the last years of the Cold War--then I am convinced
that many nations throughout the region can be induced to begin the long march toward freedom.
I have advocated for a number of years the implementation of a Marshall Plan for the Middle East. The
aftermath of the war against terror may provide the perfect opportunity to mobilize international
support for its implementation.
If the democratic world hopes to wipe the evil it saw on Sept. 11 off the face of the earth, it must
not be satisfied with rooting out the network of terror. It must also plant the seeds of democracy. For
only by planting those seeds today can we hope to secure our tomorrow.
Mr. Sharansky is deputy prime minister of Israel and a former Soviet dissident. |
