Hypocritical Uncle Sam
Pacifist
American political establishment:
Of the "Realist" faction he says this:
Quote
Realism in foreign policy can claim few recent successes.
Support for the Taliban in Afghanistan and eyes-closed pragmatism
towards Saudi Arabia brought us Osama bin Laden. Realism turned its back
on Pakistan's proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. It also
armed Saddam Hussein against Iran. Dealing with the despots has not made
us safer.
Unquote
Of the Bush's Hypocrites, he says:
Quote
Thus, while Mr Bush has declared (prematurely) the triumph of democracy
in Afghanistan, his administration simultaneously backs the ruling
despot in neighbouring Uzbekistan. Liberties are being curtailed rather
than extended in Vladimir Putin's Russia. Democracy is an anathema in
China. Yet Mr Bush boasts of closer relationships with Moscow and
Beijing than any of his predecessors. Meanwhile, to demand that
Palestinians embrace democracy as the price of US engagement in the
Middle East seems a suspiciously convenient way to avoid putting any
pressure on the Israeli government.
Unquote
It's a long was of saying "sag-e zard baraadar-e shoghaaleh"
But both sides are sinking together in the Iraqi quagmire:
Quote
The visitor to Washington is struck by how many supporters of the
administration have come to see the creation of a democratic Iraq as an
unattainable dream. The discussion has turned to damage limitation. The
realists' case - that military victory is impossible and that US voters
have neither the will nor the patience for a long-term US occupation -
has increasing resonance.
Unquote
P
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Philip Stephens: At war with liberal interventionism
By Philip Stephens
Published: November 18 2004 20:47 | Last updated: November 18 2004 20:47
The course of US foreign policy over coming years will be set by the
outcome of a struggle between liberal interventionism and hard-headed
realism - between George W. Bush's embrace of democratic transformation
in the Middle East and the harsher strategic truths confronting
America's power in the region.
Mr Bush started out as a realist. Insofar as he was closely interested
in international relations before the 2000 election, his prospectus
emphasised the robust deployment of American power in the national
self-interest and a withdrawal from nation-building and humanitarian
entanglements. Even after September 11 2001, there was a suspicion that
the administration's conversion to the neo-conservative cause was as
much rhetorical as real, a cloak under which to complete unfinished
business in Iraq.
No longer. Since his November 2 re-election, the president has removed
the doubts. During his White House press conference with Tony Blair last
week, Mr Bush returned again and again to the spread of freedom as the
centrepiece of US foreign policy from Afghanistan to Palestine. The
words were deliberate and unmistakeable: "The reason why I'm so strong
on democracy is democracies don't go to war with each other. I've got
great faith in democracies to promote peace. And that's why I'm such a
strong believer that the way forward in the Middle East, the broader
Middle East, is to promote democracy."
If there was any lingering uncertainty, Mr Bush dispelled it with the
appointment of Condoleezza Rice to that bastion of pragmatism, the State
Department. Ms Rice, too, was once a realist - a believer in the theory
of international relations that says power is all that matters as
nations pursue their selfish national interest. She cut her foreign
policy teeth under the tutelage of Brent Scowcroft, who, as national
security adviser to the first president Bush, was as tough-minded a
pragmatist as any since Henry Kiss- inger. But that was before the twin
towers fell and the present administration set off on the road to
Baghdad.
Mr Bush's advocacy of democratic transformation explains the strength of
his relationship with Mr Blair. The British prime minister has long
believed that it is the duty of the west to do good in the world. In Mr
Blair's words at the White House: "I think what we are learning is that
there is not stability of any long-term kind without democratic rights
for free people to decide their government." The promotion of freedom,
he believes, should be a joint project to bind the wounds of the
transatlantic alliance. As he put it in a speech this week at London's
Mansion House: "Democracy is the meeting point for Europe and America."
France's Jacques Chirac, a European realist, begs to differ.
In Mr Blair's view, their common democratic cause transcends the natural
political divide between a Republican president in Washington and a
Labour prime minister in London. The political labels are different but,
watching the two men, it almost seems as if Woodrow Wilson had met
William Gladstone.
This is a view of the world with which I instinctively agree. The
historical experience of Europeans speaks to the gruesome consequences
of totalitarian regimes and balance-of-power politics. As much as I
admire the international order created after the second world war, the
central premise that states usurp the rights of citizens is no longer
sustainable.
Realism in foreign policy can claim few recent successes. Support for
the Taliban in Afghanistan and eyes-closed pragmatism towards Saudi
Arabia brought us Osama bin Laden. Realism turned its back on Pakistan's
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. It also armed Saddam
Hussein against Iran. Dealing with the despots has not made us safer.
Yet there is liberal interventionism and liberal interventionism. Mr
Blair seemed to acknowledge this when he assured his Mansion House
audience: "I am not, repeat not, advocating a series of military
solutions to achieve it [democracy]." The purpose was to draw a
distinction with the neo-conservatives in Washington. Liberal foreign
policies can too often turn into armed missions - the cause is noble so
any means are justified.
This is the deep divide between a European liberalism that says
democracy should be spread through the projection on to the
international stage of the rule of law, by the adoption of shared norms
and the promotion of multilateral institutions, and a neo-conservatism
that calls for America's unparalleled power to be deployed to order
nations to "democratise or else".
Nor can liberalism entirely escape the real world. It is inevitably
adulterated by realism. Thus, while Mr Bush has declared (prematurely)
the triumph of democracy in Afghanistan, his administration
simultaneously backs the ruling despot in neighbouring Uzbekistan.
Liberties are being curtailed rather than extended in Vladimir Putin's
Russia. Democracy is an anathema in China. Yet Mr Bush boasts of closer
relationships with Moscow and Beijing than any of his predecessors.
Meanwhile, to demand that Palestinians embrace democracy as the price of
US engagement in the Middle East seems a suspiciously convenient way to
avoid putting any pressure on the Israeli government.
I doubt such contradictions much worry Mr Bush. But there is a more
immediate challenge to the neo-conservative mission. Neither Mr Bush's
election victory nor the military pacification of Falluja has dispelled
the deep pessimism in Washington about the prospects for a transition to
democracy in Iraq. The gloom is not the preserve of disappointed
Democrats. Republican realists, still a force in Mr Bush's party, are
openly sceptical about the chances of defeating the current insurgency.
Democracy is not the answer for Sunnis fighting to regain a monopoly on
power in Iraq.
The visitor to Washington is struck by how many supporters of the
administration have come to see the creation of a democratic Iraq as an
unattainable dream. The discussion has turned to damage limitation. The
realists' case - that military victory is impossible and that US voters
have neither the will nor the patience for a long-term US occupation -
has increasing resonance.
Mr Bush insists otherwise. But his policy is Iraq has become an act of
faith. The president is discovering his own truth. Democracy and war are
an unhappy mix.
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