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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (44135)	9/16/2002 3:52:05 AM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

Now, here is the question. Did we do it out of sheer fuggheaded meanness, did we pick the biggest bastard we could find in order to grind the populace down? Or did we pick the best of a bad bunch? None of the above, I’d say. In most cases where we interfered with the process of political evolution in developing countries, we did so in the firm conviction that the direction these processes were taking was inimical to our interests. In many cases we believed (or allowed ourselves to be convinced) that the action we were taking was in the best interest of the countries in question. The development of democracy in any country is a long-term goal. This long-term goal frequently gets sidetracked in the interest of advancing more immediate agendas. These agendas come in many shapes and sizes, and are often unclear or packaged to look like what they aren’t. The US intervention in Iran in 1953 was taken in the firm belief that it was an action against communism, though in retrospect it had less to do with fighting communism than with protecting the interests of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Many dictators contrived to receive abundant American support, in the halcyon days of the Kirkpatrick doctrine, by portraying themselves as the sole alternative to creeping communism, though many of these portrayals were seriously exaggerated. It is easy to subordinate the long-term goal of building a democracy and a nation to short-term goals. Unfortunately, there are many short term goals to be pursued in Iraq these days. We have ours, the war on terrorism being principal among them. The large oil companies have their own. Iraq’s neighbors, notably Turkey and Iran but others as well, will be inclined to meddle. Each of the sub-groups within Iraq has its own agenda, and it is wise to remember that the return of freedom to areas beset with ethnic strife is often accompanied by recurring outbreaks of ethnic hostility. India has been cited here as a model of a multiethnic developing state, but remember what happened when they first set out on that road? Look as well to the former Yugoslavia, where the freedom most welcomed by the populace seemed to be the freedom to kill as many of one another as possible. In Iraq the balance between ethnic/religious groups takes on menacing proportions. New leadership has to come from Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds. The Shiite leadership is heavily tainted by connection to Iran and widely (and not entirely plausibly, IMO) denied Islamist sympathies. The Sunni leadership and the existing army are heavily tainted (particularly in the eyes of other Iraqis) by connections to Saddam. Kurdish leadership is not acceptable to the other Iraqis or to the Turks. The Kurdish situation is quietly shaping up to be a real problem: we have been repeatedly told that the Iraqi Kurds are practicing “democracy” (I have my doubts). The Kurds are saying now that they are not after a state, simply because they have to say that. I personally suspect that the Kurds will resist any attempt to re-integrate them into Iraq under Sunni or Shiite rule, and that any move toward Kurdish independence would be met by incursions from Turkey, doubtless in the guise of fighting terrorism. I digress, but the point is clear: there’s an abundance of short-term interests that could derail Iraq’s progress toward democracy. Cultivating a democracy requires a lot of patience: we are not among the most patient of peoples, and we have urgent interests to pursue. Will we be willing to start what we finish? Whether we choose to install a democracy or a compliant dictator, there are many things that could go badly wrong. A dictator would almost certainly turn to corruption and be very unpopular among certain sectors. A democracy could easily prove to be largely inutile for a number of years (I would say this is more a probability than a possibility – I’ve seen first hand how hard it is to make a government work after a long-entrenched dictator is removed). Serious corruption and abuse of power are also more than likely. In either case, disenchantment among the populace and serious unrest are more probabilities than possibilities. These situations are made to order for exploitation by the Islamists. The last thing we want is to install a government that can’t stand, but which we cannot afford to let fall. You almost sound like a libertarian, but you don't mean it. You believe that good government is possible, as well as desirable I admit to libertarian sympathies, but I could no more be a fundamentalist libertarian than I could be a fundamentalist of any sort. I do have some thoughts, though, on the whole good government/bad government question. They run sort of like this, if the thread master will permit digression into areas a bit outside the brief: Humans are social and hierarchical animals. We seek positions of hierarchical dominance by instinct. Instinct demands that we seek all the power we can get, and that we resist relinquishing it. We instinctively violate or seek to avoid any rules that threaten to constrain this instinctive drive. For these reasons, and other sociobiological causes that I won’t bother to explore here, I believe that bad government is the natural state of human society. Good government occurs only when those being governed force it to occur. Good government cannot be a stable state: it requires constant scrutiny and intervention by a population that has developed both a minimal level of consensus on the sort of government they want and a basic willingness to sacrifice certain interests of individuals and sub-groups in order to achieve it. We tend to assume that bad governments exist because those who govern are bad. I’m not convinced that this is the case. I think that bad governments exist because those being governed are not yet able to force those who govern them to govern them well. Trying to turn a bad government good by overthrowing it and replacing it with another is hopeless: either the new government will turn bad or it will collapse into chaos and a new bad government will emerge. Good government cannot be given to anyone: it must be forced by the governed on a continuing basis. When they are ready to force it, they will take it, and nobody will be able to stop them. How do we achieve it? If you mean “how do we achieve it for the Iraqis, or for anyone else in the Middle East”, my answer is simple: we can’t. They have to do it themselves; we can’t do it for them. We can assist and encourage the process by which they can achieve it, but to do so we, like everyone else involved, will have to subordinate certain interests of our own. Have we the will to do that? Frankly, I doubt it.

To: Ilaine who wrote (44135)	9/18/2002 1:42:22 AM
From: D. Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

It might be wise to recall at this point that the US has never hesitated to install or prop up dictators in 3rd world countries, any time it suited our immediate interest to do so. Yes, this is exactly the criticism I referred to in my immediately prior post. I've read that thought expressed thousands of times, and you've made it so many times yourself that it simply flows out fully formed in one sentence. Well said. Now, here is the question. Did we do it out of sheer fuggheaded meanness, did we pick the biggest bastard we could find in order to grind the populace down? Or did we pick the best of a bad bunch? We really have three choices when dealing with dictatorial regimes: 1. deal with the power structure currently in place and make the best of the situation 2. coercively change the regime to one closer to your ideals 3. don't deal with them at all and go elsewhere During the Cold War, which is the period always referred to when talking about all the dictators we support, #3 wasn't an option. The Left doesn't like #1 OR #2. Which generally leaves the protester without a viable option to offer. Even today, when presented with a vital national interest in a less than savory nation, #3 isn't always an option. I'd say Saudi Arabia falls in this category right now. Derek