It seems that treating non-democratic regimes with aid, high-tech trade, or even normal diplomatic relations regarding foreign student visas has a habit of coming back to bite the West, and now there’s a new problem developing between democratic regimes, the unclassifiable “government” of the United Nations, and the increasingly questionable N.A.T.O. alliance.
I see some attempts now to demonize the motives behind the French and German reluctance for war with Iraq based on past and future business relations with the Iraqi regime. I also see attempts to demonize the U.S. and Britain as oil thirsty saber rattlers. This link shows that all four countries have helped Iraq in some ways to develop the nuclear knowledge that their scientists now possess.
washdiplomat.com
"He (Khidir Hamza) added that Iraq’s nuclear effort has been aided by the West, with key technologies imported from France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States, especially during Iraq’s war with Iran in the 1980s."
I'm just wondering if we could work on a better policy of containing advanced weapon technology information through education visa policies and enhanced technology security instead of military containment or appeasement of despotic regimes that obtain it. It would be a defensive type of proliferation prevention that might work in more ways than just the spread of sensitive information.
I went to engineering school during the Iran hostage crisis, and had several Iranian and Iraqi classmates. I was mostly unaware of foreign politics at the time, but I noticed that these students, who seemed quite Americanized to me, were much more engaged and opinionated about foreign policy. They were conflicted about the U.S., even while they were enjoying all of its freedoms, but they were also conflicted about their countries. I was just a happy college student wondering what the trouble was about. No conflicts with me.
Now I am wondering what these students have done with their knowledge, and I am conflicted about the U.S. policy of letting students from undemocratic regimes become educated here.
I would classify that as a right wing isolationist type thought, but it seems to have a corollary with the left wing ideas about gun control. Both ideas are designed to limit the potential of the one in a thousand bad actors, but wind up limiting the potential of much more good actors. Not a fair trade off, on the face of it.
However, one side effect of restricting education to these “good” students from “bad” countries might actually be more beneficial than the direct effect of reducing the potential for weapons proliferation. That would be the incentive it might provide for potential students to desire a democratic regime to allow them access to the knowledge. (Just as trying to take away our guns in the U.S. would probably unite the country to throw out whatever government had got us to that point. Bad idea, good side effect.)
If they couldn't take the fruits of democracy for granted, their regimes might not be able to draw on a pool of scientists and engineers for help in planning our demise. Their leaders wouldn't be so spoiled with success drawn on knowledge gained in the West.
These obviously smart potential scientists and engineers might be thirsting not only for knowledge, but also for democracy. There would be no foreign education success to mark them for selection to the "brain slave" pool, and no sampling of a “foreign” democracy to partially quench their thirst, and partially make them feel conflicted. They could put their talents to freeing their own societies and not feel like they could bail out if things got tough, as Khadir Hamza seems to have done.
Furthermore, to be successful, it would require cooperation with all democratic countries, so would it really be an isolationist policy? It would be a giant carrot, rather than a big stick, and right now it looks like much of the West only has carrots, so everyone could pitch in. In fact the carrot itself would be held out to everyone on the other side. The dictator would get nothing- no trained help and no “big stick” threats to unite his subjects, or his fellow despots and business partners in the U.N., against us.
Regarding the issue internal to the West, more and more, the leaders of democratic countries with no realistic means to deter the ultimate bad actors are starting to seem spoiled too. Trying to buy off or trade with the despot to keep him appeased, or to help him fight a possibly worse regime, just doesn't help in the long run.
So it appears to me that the U.S. is ultimately working against itself in foreign policy engagements that are too generous with freedoms and aid to undemocratic regimes, and too generous with military support of democratic regimes.
If the U.N. can't stand on it's own principles and call for enforcement of it's own resolutions, the U.S. should withdraw it's forces not only from Iraq, but from Germany, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia. It should also withdraw from the U.N., call for a reorganization of N.A.T.O., and get prepared for more energy independence and homeland security.
The U.N. either has to tolerate enforcement of resolutions mostly by the U.S. on the offensive side, because no one else can do it, or the N.A.T.O. members have to start sharing the load on the defensive side, and stop making resolutions in the U.N. that they ultimately refuse to enforce. Otherwise it’s a farce, and this should be our last association and resolution with it.
The next 9/11 type attack that will come, or perhaps the increased fear of it outside of the U.S., will hopefully be the wake up call that the rest of the democratic world needs. The U.S. will have all the more respect for following through all the way until the U.N. completely proved its uselessness. The evidence supporting enforcement for U.N.S.C. resolution 1441 will come on its own if it is there, even though I believe a war now could ultimately prove the logic justifying it. Logic doesn’t matter to most of the world. That’s the problem now. We are still too detached.
Eventually, and hopefully soon, a world alliance of democratic nations somehow needs to form as a replacement for the U.N. Despots and dictators need not apply. Perhaps then some reasonable goals, like freedom as opposed to containment and appeasement, can really be accomplished rather than just paid lip service.
Ultimately, I would hope that these goals would be mostly realized by the actions of the people within the societies currently lacking democracy. Since I've met some of the smart people from the supposed axis of evil, I'd be willing to bet that eventually they could reform their own societies if it got intolerable there.
However, they need better assistance and incentive, and a better model to follow than the U.N. currently provides. And for our fellow N.A.T.O. members, reliance on the U.S. taxpayer and military and on trade at the expense of subjugated peoples for security is a model that also has to change. |
