What Is A Progressive Foreign Policy?
American Prospect on-line has published a thoughtful and provocative essay that goes straight to the heart of our contemporary debates on U.S. foreign policy: “What does it mean to have a ‘progressive’ foreign policy?”An excellent start, but it doesn't really answer the question. Here's another answer.
When I read Shadi Hamid’s piece it reminded me that when I use the phrase ‘progressive foreign policy’ in my posts readers push me hard to define what I mean. So far I have successfully ducked the question. But Hamid’s serious treatments of other people’s efforts, and his own prescriptions, have provoked me to return to this central question.
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?name=View+Author§ion=root&id=1426.
Hamid points out that writers like Michael Tomasky, Peter Beinart and Madeleine Albright, and the congressional Democrats, have recently proposed alternative foreign policy approaches to counter the failures of neo-conservatism. But he finds them lacking because they give insufficient weight to democracy promotion, which he claims should be the core component of progressive foreign policy for Democrats. “Democracy promotion should no longer be viewed as one policy instrument among many.” Instead he calls for “a democracy-centric foreign policy”, and shows how his approach can “clarify other important U.S. objectives.”
These are certainly important issues, and I applaud the author (a contributor to Democracy Arsenal). But Hamid makes four critical errors that leave the essay insufficient as a document to drive Democratic thought and action. He fails to provide a principled rationale for ‘progressive foreign policy’ (PFP); he doesn’t adequately link a PFP to a progressive domestic agenda; his defense of democracy as the core tenet is deeply flawed; and he conflates U.S. policy toward the Middle East with U.S. foreign policy more generally.
These are not just academic concerns of course. Having fought some of these battles as a campaign advisor in 2000, 2004 and earlier in 1992, I saw lots of individuals, interest groups, policy wonks, ideologues and diplomats-in-waiting go to the mat again and again over what the candidate should say and stand for on the stump. Decisions made on the campaign trail get translated into policy priorities and personnel choices during the transition, and then enshrined into what the federal government actually does in foreign affairs. So let me take up these four shortcomings and try to help move the debate forward.
Linking Foreign and Domestic Agendas.
Hamid concentrates almost entirely on international matters. But a progressive foreign policy should be intimately linked to progressive domestic policies. Both should be based on common normative and ethical standards. What do we really stand for? What about fairness, security, participation and growth? Instead of extreme individualism, limited government and preemptive action? Whatever the core values, they should drive administration policies whether in Sao Paulo or St. Louis. Of course, linking the domestic platform of a candidate (and a party) to international priorities is neither automatic nor easy. In many respects they do operate independently, and in the actual world of policy advisors there is the domestic team and the international, often as different as day and night. But they can be meshed, and it’s important to try. This was the essence of the Clinton I priorities – it was “The Economy, Stupid” at home and abroad as Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, NEC chair Robert Rubin and others took the “Exports = Jobs” themes internationally and around the country. A progressive foreign policy begins at home.
Democracy Promotion.
Hamid elevates ‘democracy promotion’ to the very top of the foreign policy agenda. I sympathize with the instinct, but it’s got three serious flaws. First, no single substantive policy should be given pride of place – whether the environment, or trade or a single-minded focus on the war on terror. The world has become sufficiently complicated and interconnected that no president has the luxury of doing only one thing. Even assuming that one policy area should be first among equals, it shouldn’t be ‘democracy promotion’. Scholars pretty much agree that while one can and should shore up democrats against dictators, and support free and fair elections, ‘democracy’ is an extraordinarily messy thing that recedes and advances, and takes generations to take root in hostile territories. Policies need to show some lasting results, and hitching your reputation to a long-term process with as many failures as triumphs is not a good strategy. Third, presidents and their secretaries of state and national security advisors simply don’t ‘do democracy’ once they get into office – at least not in their first years in office. They give it some lip service, and take actions in fits and starts. But don’t count on much action until maybe the second terms. In another incarnation I worked on democracy promotion at the White House, and I believe it really is critically important as a policy and a principle. But beware elevating it to Number One to the exclusion of others.
Failure in the modern world occurs when administrations can’t pursue multiple good things all at the same time – anti-terrorism and diplomacy and trade expansion and energy independence and relations with other great powers. Just declaring ‘democracy’ as central doesn’t make it progressive.
The Middle East, then the World.
Hamid starts his essay calling for new progressive policies for the whole world, but builds his list dos and don’ts only on the Middle East. As important as that region is and will remain, a foreign policy to protect the national interests of America cannot be built on our experiences in one region alone. The dynamics of that region are not the dynamics of East Asia or Africa. What works to reduce religious and political conflicts in the Middle East may inflame tribal tensions in Africa. “Lessons’ and ‘best practices’ in Beirut may not be appropriate for Beijing.
So, What Are the Tenets of a Progressive Foreign Policy?
So now we come to the tough part. The starting point for a progressive foreign policy should be the economic, social and political needs and interests of the American people, by which I especially mean middle class and working class Americans. Not multinationals; not small cliques of ideologues in the Republican party.
This should be obvious. But history shows that the foreign policy prescriptions presented to presidential candidates usually do not start here. Foreign policy experts typically begin their arguments elsewhere: with lots of references to ‘isms. (liberalism, neo-conservatism, muscular multilateralism), accompanied by long descriptions of the international system – is it multi-polar or is there one remaining superpower? Is sovereignty still the central tenet of international order, or has sovereignty eroded? And what then are the implications for a liberal international order? Paradigms and world power are good starting points for international relations journals, but the wrong starting points for a PFP to address directly what most Americans care about. Careful analyses of the foreign dimensions should be tied to our domestic conditions. Having a PFP should require more than declaring oneself in favor of a ‘liberal international order’ or liking the Third World. That is not enough.
A conversation about a PFP should begin with the concerns of working class and middle class Americans; it should articulate norms of fairness, security, participation and opportunity; and then it should describe basic interests that a PFP should serve. For example:
• Make Americans safer by reducing immediate threats from terrorists (at the border and within the homeland) while also reducing the medium to long term conditions most likely to spawn terrorism and virulent anti-Americanism. Re-allocating resources from Iraq into real homeland protection and anti-terrorist programs will make Americans more secure.
• Support job-creation through foreign economic policies that open markets and most especially through policies that re-train and adequately educate the children of working and middle class people so they can keep good jobs. The income gap between the richest and poorest among us is growing rapidly. Current policies worsen the long-term prospects for working Americans; progressive domestic and foreign policies can turn that around.
• Keep Americans healthy and protect them from global pandemics and environmental degradation.
• Protect the interests of American workers and consumers, while being mindful of the rights of illegal aliens by rationalizing immigration policies.
The Means to Achieve a PFP
Making Americans safer, supporting job creation and so forth are just indicative goals of a PFP; there are certainly others. But assuming some set of foundational goals, how does America achieve those goals through its individual, bilateral, and multilateral actions?
• Design an international strategy and take actions to create positive institutional and regime incentives to advance American interests globally. International institutions matter; they help find common interests with other actors.
• Such a global regime should integrate rising powers into its system of norms and values regarding the rule of law, the protection of individual and group liberties, and the expansion of markets. A progressive American foreign policy should support the institutions that promote economic growth and transparency in the non-OECD countries via commitments to trade and aid reforms to achieve long term sustainable growth. A progressive foreign policy should pursue the goals cited above by designing new ways to deal with non-state actors – the good, the bad and the ugly.
• A PFP would apply the principles of fairness, security, participation and opportunity in our dealings with other nations, and would provide incentives for other nations to accept these norms in their own behaviors.
• A truly PFP would also reform the instruments of state craft designed to advance progressive policies that achieve progressive goals. The American diplomatic services are badly broken, under funded and underutilized. Public diplomacy is at low ebb.
Thee particular policies and strategies may or may not be good and progressive by themselves; they should be judged ‘progressive’ only to the degree that they advance the kinds of foundational PFP goals cited above. Those who propose new foreign policy directions that are innovative and progressive should spend more time explaining how their proposals will affect the lives of the average American. Too often those effects are left implicit when experts and advisors talk foreign policy. That’s a luxury we really can’t afford. It’s absolutely fine for academic discussions. It isn’t fine for people who want to give policy advice and convince others of the rightness of their ‘progressive’ policies.
One of the big things Shadi Hamid got absolutely right in his essay is the burning need for Democrats to find a clear, compelling and unambiguous narrative that people can intuitively grasp and support. In this the Republicans have been brilliant, and the Democrats dull. Republicans told a plausible (if wrong) story about terrorism and Iraq; lots of people believed them. The lack of a central organizing message on international affairs was a huge failure of the last Democratic presidential campaign. The Democratic party has to find its own voice, coming from its own convictions, that provides a narrative of fairness, security, participation and opportunity, and tells a story that convinces Americans that Democrats understand their needs, and they are best able to help them lead better, safer, more satisfying lives.
I pretty much always throw up my hands at the pleas for new ideas, but this one in particular just has me puzzled. Sure, the Bushies told a fwe nice simple lies about Iraq, but they weren't the components of a clearly articulated foreign policy for which they wanted public support. Those stories about using U.S. miilitary might to spread democracy and reshape the Middle East emerged only slowly and indirectly, and I see no evidence they've built broad public acceptance that even needs countering.
The lies were simple: Saddam was behind 9/11 and had WMD. The counter that this was full of it, that we had to keep our eye on the ball named bin Laden and located in Afghanistan, that we had to finish the war there we started, that we had to be sure the U.N. inspections of Iraq were continuing backed by every ounce of U.S. might, and that we don't go around committing American lives and untold amounts of money in dangerous, unprovoked wars -- why should any of that require a new narrative?
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
August 29, 2006 9:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
John - The Bushies may not have pushed the democracy-building thing publically in promoting their invasion of Iraq, but it was a major objective. Soon after taking office, Bush/Cheney hired over two dozen neocons from primarily the American Enterprise Institute to head or work in government offices and on advisory panels. Building democracy world-wide is THE neocon mantra. Bush, and especially Cheney are on the same page.
August 29, 2006 10:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
The principle should be universal human rights. Whether that meets the evolving definition of "progressive" is beside the point. It's the right thing to do.
And conveniently, the narrative is already right there in the Declaration of Independence. Self evident truth. Equality. Inalienable rights. These are the building blocks of liberalism, foreign and domestic.
You don't hear these principles articulated much any more, except to misconstrue the "freedom" of Phillip Morris and the "rights" of Wal-Mart.
--
-- All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door. (John Kenneth Galbraith) --
August 29, 2006 11:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
"The Bushies may not have pushed the democracy-building thing publically in promoting their invasion of Iraq, but it was a major objective." Oh, totally, Phelicity. I just meant that it wasn't a successful "rebranding." I fear we're doing something akin to telling the SEC to abandon or reframe their mission after Enron, on the grounds that the public was sold on the idea of being swindled.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
August 29, 2006 11:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
What is meant by promoting democracy? It it more than just having elections? It is more than just elections then aren't we really talking about liberalism and civil society? Both of which would be great goals but require drawing those outside such systems into it and a lot of work.
A couple of years ago there was a book "The Comeback Cities." It focused on the renaissance going on in American cities all across the crounty. They argued that it did not matter what the party of the mayor but how unideological they were. Cities that saw a recovery did so when the political system worked with private developement corporations. The goal was not to end poverty or other mega-goals but to make the lives of people who live in the cities better off on a day to day basis. Perhaps this less grand and less ideological based thinking could be a foundation for U.S. foreign policy.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
August 29, 2006 11:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
According to Peter Galbraith (The End of Iraq), the "kids" that were hired to help run the provisional authority in Iraq with Bremer were Republican ideologues who were to have had senior advisers who failed to show up. So between Bremer who knew nothing about Iraq, Sunnis, Shi'a and Kurds and those young party hacks who knew even less, building Democracy which is a meaningless phrase meant to obscure the privatization of the entire Iraq war, become cant of the worst order. And so it remains as it is regurgitated by Cheney and his ilk.
"...the economic, social and political needs and interests of the American people, by which I especially mean middle class and working class Americans" at one time represented the constituency of the Democratic Party.
To develop their own narrative, the Democrats must first expose the fraud that is the Republican "democracy building agenda". It is clear that Cheney's purpose is to see more and greater international markets, to as Bernanke puts it see integration of those markets. Never mind that what is imbedded in those remarks the gradual death of the American worker.
August 29, 2006 11:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am a Canadian lawyer with an ongoing interest in international affairs and international law. The one thing I have noticed about U.S. foreign policy, particularly under the Republicans, is a rampant disrespect for other nations. It is always assumed that a patriarchal "father knows best" approach is best when dealing with other nations. Even proponents of democracy- building as a central tenant of foreign policy have this assumption weaved through their arguments.
Contrary to popular opinion, there are many countries in the world that are already democratic and I would argue that some of these democracies are functioning more efficiently than the United States. There are many states that have figured out their priorities with respect to education, health care, care of the elderly and poor, respect for the environment and more. Does the United States have all the answers on these issues? These priorities are set by government policies. Wouldn't it make sense therefore to open up communications between governments to work on issues of mutual concern? To use each other's creative resources and the teachings of history to inform our progress? In particular, to work together when confronting issues and nations of mutual concern?
A progressive American foreign policy starts with knowing who your friends are, and treating them as equal players who have something to contribute to the bargaining table.
However, now when the world needs it most, cross-country communication is at an all-time standstill. The Republicans have the nation believing that it is a crime for the Supreme Court to cite foreign judgments, and last year the Republicans introduced at least two bills into the House to try to turn that opinion into law. This head-in-the-sand approach is absolutely ridiculous. In Canada, when our laws or courts haven't decided on a particular issue, we turn to U.S. cases, U.K. cases, Australian cases etc. to try to resolve the issue. The U.K., Australia, and even India will in turn cite Canadian cases when their legal system hasn't turned its mind to a particular issue. This is a perfect example of how cross-cultural communication and open mindedness can truly benefit human society. However, the United States will have nothing of it. Do Americans honestly believe that human beings in other nations are so vastly different?
Currently, U.S. foreign policy is entirely centred around American economic and strategic interests. Thanks to the United States under this approach, there is absolutely no rule of law at the international level now. This administration has torn up or undermined a great deal of important international agreements and processes in the name of American interests. If you don't even know what your own interests are (ie. half of your population does not subscribe to the partisan values profferred by the government), then what business does that government have inflicting these skewed values on the rest of the world?
This partisan cafeteria internationalism flies in the face of history - there was a time when the United States was an architect of and flagship for international law. This approach also undermines the whole system - when for example, countries like Pakistan and Cameroon publicly lament their positions on the UN Security Council in 2003 because the U.S. was pulling out all the stops (and cash) to try to bring them on board with the Iraq war resolution.
These are countries that were, for the first time, sitting at the international table, ready to enter into intelligent democratic discussion with a belief in the power of democracy, only to find that the bully who self-righteously sat himself at the head of the table isn't interested in talking. How much disappointment and disillusionment must these countries have felt when they realized what American democracy is really about?
Perhaps if the people of the United States had had more of a dialogue with the rest of the world, they would have realized before the war started (instead of 3 years later)that the Iraq war was an unprovoked act of aggressive war prohibited by international law. If Pakistan and Cameroon had trouble stomaching it...
Do you hear what I'm saying here? In devising progressive foreign policy, the INTENT and CONTENT of your glossy brochure may be democracy, but if your APPROACH isn't democratic (including an essential respect for the rule of law at the international level) all will be lost.
Let's think of some other examples where the United States under this administration has forced its partisan ideas on the rest of the world contrary to the integrity of international law:
-"unsigning" the Statute of Rome outlawing WAR CRIMES AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY
-disengaging itself from the NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION AGREEMENT and processes
-Other treaties left unsigned/unratified:
-Convention on the RIGHTS OF THE CHILD
-Convention on the Elimination of of all
forms of DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN
-International Convention on SOCIAL AND
ECONOMIC RIGHTS
-the LANDMINES treaty
Do you see what I'm saying? The United States' single minded focus on its own economic interests, not only is a focus on partisan values which are fleeting in their own right, but it is a significant departure from the values of other nations, it is a significant departure from basic human values and ethics, it doesn't represent the values of half your population (or more), and I hate to mention it, but it also works against the interests of regular American citizens! Are there not WOMEN living in the United States? CHILDREN? Isn't there a POVERTY problem in the United States? If you need to sell it to your citizenry, start by telling them its in their own best interests. This is what the Democrats don't do very well at the domestic level either!
I might add that it also has really made the U.S. (and thanks alot - by these shenanigans, the United Nations and international law) look bad in the opinion of the public worldwide.
International affairs, by definition, centres around issues of mutual concern to many advanced countries. I would submit that rather than focussing on partisan ideas in the short term, progressive foreign policy should focus on long term common human values which include, but should not be limited to, advancing the economic well-being of all people in all nations, respect for human rights, protection of the natural environment, building in disincentives to war and militarization, etc. This should be the content of your glossy brochure.
Just remember to hand it out with a handshake, not your wallet or your gun.
August 29, 2006 11:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
An important part of this debate revolves around a point you mentioned, namely, that what might work in one region may not work in another.
The Bush administration's policy towards the Middle East has been less than successful and much of the trouble there, though not all, has been a direct result of these confronational, coersive policies. Yet what about places like China or North Korea?
China, for instance, has emerged as a budding superpower. While the most right-wing idealogues in the Neoconservative administration (Donald Rumsfeld among others) see China as a growing military threat, there are no substantive warning signs of any such thing. Indeed, if Karl Rove and Dick Cheney pay little mind to Beijing, it must truly be no threat at all.
Yet even when the U.S. has cordial relationships with countries like China there seems to be a limited ability to envoke a progressive foreign policy.
When Chinese President Hu Jintao visited the White House earlier this year he was gently pressed by Bush on issues ranging from currency valuation to human rights. Unlike other areas of Bush's foreign policy, these two factors are legitimate concerns to the United States and the president had every right to mention them. And he did, gently and non-confrontationally.
Yet nothing came of it. What's more, everyone knew before Hu Jintao even arrived that nothing would come of it.
Democrats held this as proof that Bush had lost all negotiationg leverage as a result of his failing foreign policy in the Middle East. This charge by the left was inaccurate and a full blown cop out of the issue.
By and large China is a "friend" to the United States. Though Hu Jintao and others have expressed mild displeasure at the actions of the Bush administration, Beijing has never truly had enough vested interest in the matter to take a definitive stand. Indeed, although opposing the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, China merely abstained from voting in the UN Security Council as opposed to using a veto as France opted to do.
But what happens to the idea of a progressive foreign policy when China isn't interested in floating its currency or improving human rights within its own borders?
In other words, what more can we offer to "friends" who do not share our liberal philosophy?
Granted, this would be a much easier problem to solve in the Middle East where the U.S. has enemies. Respecting sovereignty, ceasing continual threats, and a scaling back of an American footprint would be relatively simple things which could gradually lead to improved relations.
Concessions on the part of the U.S. seems to be critical. I mentioned on the Discussion Boards that perhaps it is high time for the U.S. to respect Iranian sovereignty. If they want to enrich uranium, perhaps we ought to let them. Let us put the ball of responsibility in their court for once.
But this is not like the common unity created between the U.S. and Europe following World War II. American and European cultures are inexorably joined at the hip. The same cannot be said for American and Asian culture, or American and Arab culture.
August 29, 2006 11:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
But what happens to the idea of a progressive foreign policy when China --
supports genocide in Darfur?
August 29, 2006 11:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
The most enlightened most internationalist understanding that any politician in this country could ever hold would be a nationalist realism that nonetheless accepted the full moral equality of the citizens of other countries. The mixture of condescension and ignorance with which Americans respond to the rest of the world never ceases to amaze me.
I don't expect much from conservatives, but I'm ashamed for the liberals.
Other countries have traditions of self-mockery that include mockery of national characteristics, but "That's so American" seems a phrase only spoken by foreigners. "Democracy promotion" sounds like a couple of Jehovah's Witnesses knocking at my door; and I rebel against the self-serving condescension of the faithful.
I've had enough of of the Monroe Doctrine. I want democracy promoted in my own country. When this country becomes an example of what democracy should be, democracy will promote itself. In the meantime our pride goeth.
Internationalism is a personal choice. It's my choice. But it has never been the policy of a nation. To say that it is or ever has been the policy of the United States is to lie, and the world putside our borders is more than willing to say so.
August 29, 2006 12:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
How about using foreign policy to set a good example?
Foreign policy is not just a hypocrite holding a big stick...
August 29, 2006 12:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
. . . when I use the phrase ‘progressive foreign policy’ in my posts readers push me hard to define what I mean. So far I have successfully ducked the question. Ernest Wilson
No problem.
Just tell us what we should do with Nazarbayev and Kazakhstan. Then, all is forgiven.
August 29, 2006 12:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
A PFP? First off spreading democracy cannot be done at the point of a gun. Secondly, and I don't know if the dems have the "courage" to do this, is to say clearly that we will abandon the neocon unilateral foreign policy which has a total disregard for the rule of law. Are they brave enough to say that the Bush foreign policy while not only is not promoting democracy it is also having a chilling effect on that effort. And the "democracies" that are being created by Bush run contrary to our country's best interests (i.e. Hamas). We cannot impose our will on the rest of the world on only our terms. We need to be willing to engage the rest of the world on their terms at times. And we would be better able to protect the US's best interests.
August 29, 2006 1:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
I grew up in a time when we were really concerned about enabling the development of self-determination here and abroad. But one hardly hears the phrase anymore. Instead it's been replaced by "democracy" which really doesn't mean democracy at all. "Democracy" has acquired political glitz, like "patriotism," even as it has come to mean international corporatism in which America holds sway. And that's putting it politely. Our military is part of that neo-bubble-economy -- way overblown and overfunded and primarily a tool of the market, not democracy. The size of our "defense" is a measure of just how badly we've gone wrong.
Pushing democracy on people or trying to sell it to them or twist their arms into buying it? No. I'm with Edenbaum:
Progressives should turn firmly away from the intellectual and political arrogance, costly, brutal militarism and the battling head-of-a-pin ideologies which wind up killing thousands. That -- and polishing the discarded tools of statecraft, as Mr. Wilson suggests -- would be the best "foreign policy" we could offer the world, even as we keep on working to become the prosperous, humane, democratic nation we like to say we are.
August 29, 2006 1:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Isn't the problem here the viewpoint conflict between liberalism and progressivism?
A liberal foreign policy would argue that Democracy should be promoted abroad as a theoretical ideal end-state.
A progressive foreign policy would argue that Democracy should be promoted abroad where it presents a viable solution to an existing problem. A progressive foreign policy would not, however, preclude the promotion of other forms of goverment that were better suited to the target population.
A democratic republic works in the US because, apart from *some* individuals, we've long put nationality above ethnicity, religion, and so on. That's not only a byproduct of a Republic, but it was largely reflective of the attitudes when this goverment was formed. That wasn't totally true WRT blacks, but it was at least a point of contention in 1787. Full equality was considered and the nation decided it wasn't yet ready. So we ourselves went down the Iraqi shithole as we worked that out with at least half the public chasing equality. In Iraq, it doesn't seem as though anyone but the US and a handful of marginal players are chasing that goal.
So, the conditions in Iraq look nothing like America in the 1770s and 1780s or even the 1860s. They're not at this time capable of seeing each other as Iraqis above Arabs or Sunnis. It's hard to ask people to trust and respect each other enough to offer up some control over their lives when they haven't yet learned to stop hating each other. Saddam never asked for that to be offered to him. He just took it. Other forms of government lie along that spectrum. Monarchies and theocracies receive it due to a generaly acceptance that it's deserved. Iraq has none of these. There's virtually no common viewpoint to bind them together. It's Serbia all over again.
Forms of government are often incremental. When the populace has addressed certain issues, they're ready to tackle new ones. You just can't jump too many steps ahead. In that way, a liberal policy of spreading Democracy is dangerous because it recognizes the ultimate need for a democracy to exist without necessarily recognizing whether the conditions are right for it to take hold and it almost is never willing to compromise with some middle-state. A conservative (isolationist) policy can be just as bad as it lets problems fester until they explode (WWII anyone?) The progressive approach is to simply identify problems and produce workable solutions. Nothing more.
August 29, 2006 3:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm all for Democracy promotion, but it's not enough to just toss out the militarily enforced forms of democracy promotion. One of the big mistakes of the President's program of democracy promotion is that it has focused way too much on elections.
That may seem like a silly statement, as democracy is, in theory, all about elections. But examining the track record in Afghanistan and Iraq, both of whom had elections which have to be considered wildly successful considering the circumstances, one can see that it's possible for democracy to cross the election finish line and fall flat on its face.
As such, while I agree 100% with those who demand human rights as a fundamental part of a progressive foreign policy, it doesn't go far enough. What we should be promoting in nascent states instead is a focus on the fundamental rights upon which western democracy grew -- that is to say, an independent judiciary, freedom of expression (including most importantly freedoms of speech, assembly, and press), and protection of due process. Given these, I would hypothesize that democracy will take root on its own, rather than being enforced by a military occupation. As evidence, I offer that the first thing any authoritarian regime in the world does is to suspend these.
It is, of course, beyond ironic to the point of tragedy that the President's brand of democracy promotion has not only failed to protect these fundamental pillars of democracy, but has smashed them at every turn, by bombing al Jazeera, holding military tribunals, and "disapearing" people with no evidence.
Turning to Iran, lost in the din of the drums of war has been any recollection that in the 1990s (remember them?) the country was experiencing its own internal dissent against the mullahs, particularly at the universities. By fostering freedom of speech, human rights, and protection of due process, this could have emerged as a more robust conversation on the direction the country should take, which might end in democracy, and might end in form of liberal state unique to the Islamic world, not yet seen in the world yet. And, of course, perhaps the most influential and beneficial voice in all of this could have been that media bete noir itself, al Jazeera.
True, lasting democratic reforms nearly always come not from without, but from within. It should be our foreign policy to foster an environment where those reforms have an opportunity to take hold, whether the authoritarian regime in question is a rightist one, such as Iraq, or a leftist one, such as Venezuela.
August 29, 2006 3:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's my American foreign policy: surrendering to Canada.
August 29, 2006 3:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Shadi Hamad wrote:
There are two choices.
1. Stand with the tyrants suppressing basic democratic rights on the grounds that their people would elect illiberal anti-American forces if they did not. This has been traditional American foreign policy. It results in social stagnation which breeds jihadi terrorists.
2. Stand with the people against the tyrants accepting that the people in each country are entitled to govern themselves and entitled to be anti-American in the light of past American policy.
It is plain that Ernest Wilson and most of the commentators here support the first option. Fulminating against the hypocrisy and inconsistency and speaking of the dangers of "imposing" democracy and the need to wait long historical periods for institutions to develop under the rule of tyrants is merely the mealy mouthed platitudes that have always been characteristic of those who support the traditional American foreign policy that has justly resulted in widespread contempt.
Attaching labels like "progressive" to it won't change the outcome - more 9/11s.
August 29, 2006 5:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
The ntoion that every government is either a democracy or a tyranny is a false dichotomy. And frankly a liberal monarchy (or aristocracy or even theocracy) is preferrable to an illeberal democracy. For the former, examples would be Wilhelmine Germany or present-day Morocco, Jordan, Thailand or Singapore.
August 29, 2006 6:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nazarbayev's not the only one.
Washington Post
August 29, 2006 6:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sounds to me like something I've heard called "realism".
August 29, 2006 8:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
There are two choices.
1. Stand with the tyrants suppressing basic democratic rights on the grounds that their people would elect illiberal anti-American forces if they did not. This has been traditional American foreign policy. It results in social stagnation which breeds jihadi terrorists.
2. Stand with the people against the tyrants accepting that the people in each country are entitled to govern themselves and entitled to be anti-American in the light of past American policy.
Aside from the fact that this is a false dichotomy, as has already been pointed out, there is a further problem.
Presumably, a self-governing country is one whose government is suitably independent of foreign interests and powers, and governs with at least the broad consent of a majority within that country. A country may be self-governing in a stronger sense when the work of government is itself distributed very broadly among the population, who participate in that work either directly or by choosing representatives. The problem is that not every country contains some majority bloc comprising "the people", who a share a common desire to promote "self-government" in either the weaker or stronger sense.
It is true that in many countries a majority of people might be united in the desire to remove their current leaders. Yet in some cases, this majority may be itself divided into a large number of minorities, each with the desire to replace the current leaders with yet other tyrants, despots, dynasts, sectarians, warlords, or clan or tribal chieftains, who would then no more enjoy the consent of the majority of the governed than the current leaders.
The problem with the current crowd of democracy promoters is not just that they sometimes favor the imposition of democracy through force of arms. Even when they disclaim military techniques of democracy promotion, they remain committed to a massive and somewhat frightening program of global ideological reeducation. They look out at the world and see it full of people with "bad values", values that need to be replaced everywhere by wholesome American-style values. They want the US government to function as a sort of democratic/liberal Comintern. Anything less, and we are not being "true to our values". Our values apparently include the supreme value of getting all people to adopt the rest of our values.
Shadi Hamid supports a fanatical "idealistic" foreign policy that is contemptuous of mere interests, and is completely based on an aggressive ideologically-driven program of incentives and disincentives aimed at getting countries to change their systems of governments, until they finally arrive at governments that conform to American standards of political morality and correctness. If we think a country is too undemocratic, we are to sanction them in various ways until they alter their government. If the leaders of that new government then gather power unto themselves and limit democracy again, we sanction them again and make them change the government again. Presumably we keep doing this until they "get it right".
Yet Hamid represents a group of Westernized liberals who are, so far as I can tell, a distinct minority in the Middle East. So the ultimate outcome he favors cannot come to pass until we have succeeded in transforming both the ideologies and political habits of most of the people in the Middle East. There is a vaulting ambition in this program, based on a deeply unrealistic assessment of the power of the United States to effect an ideological conversion of humanity on a massive scale, and an uncompromising ideological and cultural supremacism, that is very disquieting.
And the weird Middle East tunnel vision on display in his essay, his neglect of the majority of global humanity, and his failure to discuss most of the compelling challenges that face us - from energy to environment to disease to poverty and destitution - if these issues do not strictly pertain to the Middle East, suggest that he is not offering a considered and well-rounded foreign policy that takes due account of all the issues facing us, but is rather a parochial partisan seeking to enlist the Democratic party, and ultimately the entire US government, in his cause of choice.
August 29, 2006 8:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Certainly Iraq was in a different category from Egypt and Saudi Arabia which are in a different category from Morocco and Jordan and again different from Thailand and Singapore.
The Wilhelmine German Empire is an excellent analogy for the Bismarckian policies being advocated here.
Kaiser Bill is not however typically labelled "progressive" and the results of the German Empire are well known.
Perhaps you should add Steuart England to the list. Weren't those jolly cavaliers much more liberal than those dour Puritan roundheads, the English (and American) "Party of God"?
It is the sheer arrogance of American prescriptions that people should live under regimes preferred by the United States rather than regimes chosen by themselves that results in justified anti-Americanism.
Egypt needs free elections now. Mubarek is clinging to autocratic power using exactly your argument (the Muslim Brotherhood would win at least initially).
Should I be encouraged that you left Egypt off your list?
Do you support free elections in Egypt, despite the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood would win?
If not, don't pretend to be democratic, let alone progressive because you will remain stuck on the side of tyranny with growing hatred as a result.
"Public Diplomacy" won't convince people that your choices of government are better than theirs.
August 29, 2006 9:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Moonlore,
You Canadians are so sensible, cooperative, constructive and unpretentious. Apparently you have yet to discover the exquisitely pleasurable agonies that come from the pursuit of perpetual "primacy". The problem, of course, is that you are unexceptional. Once you have become "exceptionally excellent", like us, you will realize there is no glory in promoting such banalities as peace, prosperity, security and the rule of law. Only the pursuit of everlasting primacy and lordship, and the quest to turn the whole world into a mirror of your own moral vanity, is a fit occupation for the most excellent.
August 29, 2006 9:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I would like to add my voice to those who have suggested that the reason there is so much contemporary ambivalence and confusion about what constitutes a progressive foreign policy is that there is so much ambivalence and confusion about what constitutes progress here at home. If we all knew what we wanted to accomplish here in America, we would all have much clearer notions about what foreign policies would be conducive to our own progress.
As I see it, there are still some fairly deep divisions on the Democratic side. Some Democrats of a moderate, neoliberal bent think America is a quite swell place, and only needs to be tweaked a little bit around the edges - maybe some more extensive health care guarantees, and a return to basic competence in government are needed. But beyond that, their main domestic focus is on conserving the achievements of the past. In foreign policy, they hope above all to spread American swellness around the world.
Others of us think America is quite profoundly screwed up, and in need of a serious makeover. We see a country filled with endless shades and variations of violence and brutishness; cruel and harsh economic competition; degraded and disintegrating families and communities; mindless and rootless consumerism and carnal addictions; a growing cult of ignorance and stupidity; rapidly diminishing personal liberty and leisure; a debased culture; the abject worship of force; insecurity for the weak, meek and aged; economic and social stagnation; obscene inequality; and the omnipresent political dominance of a very wealthy minority in all areas of our political life.
It's hard for those of us who are in the second camp to even think about spreading our way of life abroad until we have repaired the rot at home, and believe we have something truly worth spreading.
Of course, both camps have a common enemy now in the deeply reactionary, proto-fascist Bush administration, and that will help keep us together well enough to take power back from them. But that degree of common cause is not enough to resolve the deep conflicts.
For the near term, I would like to offer a modest proposal for thinking about foreign policy, rather than a captivating "big idea": The United States is a large, complicated, conflict-ridden and culturally and ideologically diverse country. Any foreign policy we follow must aim at some sort of sustainability over the long run. It is pointless to set overly-ambitious foreign policy agendas that reflect the values and passionate commitments of a minority of Americans, since such policies cannot be sustained through good times and bad, across successive administrations. I believe Democrats should resist the temptations of grand, crusading visions, and learn to emphasize and stick to fundamentals: defending the homeland, promoting prosperity and the general welfare at home, promoting peace and stability abroad, maintaining friendly relations with those who don't attack us, dealing firmly efficiently with those that do, and avoiding wherever possible the foreign entanglements, dependencies and expenses that compromise our security, and deplete our energies and resourses.
We should also cultivate a patient faith that by preserving peace and security we will promote progress - not because we will aggressively "spread" progress, but because progress is what happens in a natural, organic way when societies are not constantly girding for conflict, and thereby empowering their most martial and oppressive elements.
I also think Americans need to reacquire a youthful spirit of curiosity, adaptiveness and willingness to learn from others abroad, and overcome our prideful and obtuse sense that America's sole role is to teach, not learn, because in our great all-seeing superiority to to other peoples and cultures, there is nothing we can learn from them.
I recently read a blog essay by a foreign policy professional. She was describing her first ever trip to China. Now, I personally have never been to China. I have never been to a lot of places. But having read much about China off and on through the years, and knowing a tiny bit about Chinese philosophy, literature, art, social life and culture, I can only imagine that I would respond to a visit with wide-eyed wonder, and a desire to soak up whatever instruction and insight I could receive from that ancient culture.
But all this writer could talk about was what was wrong with China. She seemed to feel it was her duty as an American to instruct the Chinese on how they could "fix" themselves, on only her second day in the country, despite the fact that the Chinese have sustained a highly successful civilization for about 15 times as long as there has even been an America.
Now certainly there are things I don't like about China too, and I'm sure I would notice more such things on a visit. But my natural tendency is to assume that, just maybe, the people who actually live in a place, and know its history, people and traditions intimately and intuitively, have a somewhat better idea about what should be done to make that place better than do a few largely ignorant, yet highly confident visitors from abroad. I tend to assume that working out a path to the kind of future the Chinese themselves want is a job best left to the Chinese.
August 29, 2006 10:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Democracy is a politcal system and capitalism (free markets) is an economic system. American policy, foreign and domestic, has tended to treat each system as separate, competitive spheres while ignoring their actual dependence on each other.
Setting up voting booths where people are starving is not going to solve their immediate problems. Neither is the insistence that the free market will sort out social inequity and promote human dignity through rational competition and firmly enforced property rights.
Conservatives have a saying that a rising tide lifts all boats. As we have witnessed first hand in the US, people who live in poverty don't even have a boat. And clearly, democracy is not up to the task of saving them, either.
It is not clear what goals Hamid hopes to achieve with his insistence on democracy promotion other than a reduction of the terrorism threat to the US, which strikes me as somewhat laudable, if not totally ethnocentric.
A more ecompassing goal is to fuse democractic principles with positive economic rights for the advancement of social justice. Well being (or the happiness quotient) would be the measure of success.
Part 2 after some sleep.
"It is unknowable how long that conflict [the war in Iraq] will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months."Rumsfeld-Feb.2003
August 29, 2006 10:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is all so discouraging. We all want to be Kennanites, writing the "long telegram" on foreign policy, when it is so obvious and simple and fair - we are committed to the fulfillment of our ideals and principles - that all people are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and the inalienable right to self-determination - that we will no longer support covertly or overtly those nations that do not share our committment to these ideals through transparently arrived at mutual agreements. But then, we would actually have to be committed to our principles and ideals...
August 29, 2006 11:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Free elections are not the holy grail of democracy. In fact, they are the last element of what is needed. Let's not forget that Hitler came to power via free elections. Or for that matter, George Bush. Before a society can transition fully to democracy it needs a tradition of liberalism (in the larger sense): tolerance for minorities, the rule of law, an optimistic and reasonbably well educated middle class, reasonaly free markets capable of providing for the population's basic material needs, and some degree of separation between religious institutions and the state. A freely elected government that decides to persecute its minorities and murder its dissidents, or that embarks on a career of imperialist conquest is not what any of us should be hoping for.
And a note about Bismark: As long as the Iron Chancellor held sway the general peace was kept in Europe, and Germany's ambitions were not out of line with those of other European states. Moreover Bismark was also friendly to welfare state policies (Germany social security system). It was Kaiser Wilhelm II who sacked Bismark that steered Germany on its reckless course to ruin.
August 30, 2006 5:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps a bigger dichotomy is not among ends but between means and ends. Supporting democracy or human rights or the interests of Americans is less the issue than how American goals should be persued.
The United States is not Canada, as lovely as Canada is. For starters the Dollar is the reserve currency in the world, and despite suggestions that the Euro is going to displace it there is no sign of that. In many parts of the globe the Dollar is the currency. The U.S. economy is still the engine that drives the world economy. This requires American consumers to be in sound condition and American businesses to sell services and good everywhere in the globe.
The United States also has the largest military in the world. This military even when deployed stupidly in Iraq keeps both Germany and Japan from seeking nuclear weapons and helps keep global stability.
George W. Bush turned his back on decades of foreign policy not by being an activist, who was a greater activist than Jimmy Carter, but by being a unilateralist. As long as the United States needs oil from the Middle East foregn policy realism has limitations. Bin Laden distain for Western Culture was focused on the United States by the American presence in Saudi Arabia despite it being there both to get oil out of the ground and to protect the Saudis from Iraq.
Most issues today from proverty around the globe, to AIDS, global warming all require American involvement but global effort. So too fighting Islamic zealots who use terrorism require a global police effort. Even the reduction in the use of petroleum products would greatly benefit from an international effort. We should recognize that sanctions hardly ever work. Unless you want the choice to be unconditional surrender to the forces of illiberalism or war there needs to be a growing global system of trade, economy and rules.
Anglo-American democracy was a multi-century creation. It grew out of the existence of alternative power centers to the king. An American foreign policy that aimed at creating a liberal international system with rules and cooperation, a very Paine, Jefferson and Madison idea, is likely to lead to both greater human rights and the reduction in the use of force.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
August 30, 2006 7:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't like us when we decide what we want and then use "democracy" as a disguise for imperialism. We're hiding our real motives only from ourselves, not from the rest of the world.
August 30, 2006 7:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Promoting our principles and ideals over time may require some support for nations that don't have ideal governments.
That unfortunate fact can easily-- eagerly, by some-- be twisted into amoral Kissingerianism, or Reaganite support for butchers in far-flung portions of Latin America and Africa.
Still, the point stands. What is the most likely alternative to, say, the current government in Ukraine, to take a non-hot-button, not-quite-perfect government?
We can't just shun everyone. We'll wind up all alone.
August 30, 2006 8:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't worry about China. If there is a trend it is toward openness and protected rights (long way to go, of course). As to culture, true that we are predominantly European but Chinese have been here since the 19th century in a non-trivial way. I'd say we have plenty in common with the practical Chinese as opposed to those depressive romantics, the Russians.
To me it seems that the friendlier the relations with a country (or personally) the easier it is to bring up difficulites and be listened to. Foreign policy should be simply, make friends, not enemies.
August 30, 2006 8:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
“People mistake tradition for religion,” Ms. Kaldi said. “Men are always saying, ‘Women can’t do that because of religion,’ when in fact it is only tradition. It’s important for us to study so that we will know the difference.”
Who said that? A conservative or a reformer?.
There are almost always more that two choices,
---
The link went dead. it's fixed. But also since people seem not to follow links based on hints I'll cut and paste. The quote above is the last line of an article that begins:
August 30, 2006 9:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Moonlore -- I don't know how familiar you are with this site, but I don't think you'd find many here who disagree with most of what you say; in fact, you can probably find much of it already posted...
August 30, 2006 11:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, I see what you mean, but I don't think we should actively promote our principles and ideals.
August 30, 2006 12:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
I take it that "Free elections are not the goly grail of democracy" is your way of saying you are in fact opposed to holding free elections in Egypt now.
While surrounding that policy with a cloud of liberal waffle will make you feel better about it there is no way to disguise what you actually mean from the people demanding free elections and being beaten up for it by Mubarek's police - including much of the Egyptian judiciary.
In Egypt autocracy has not proved very good at fostering " tolerance for minorities, the rule of law, an optimistic and reasonbably well educated middle class, reasonaly free markets capable of providing for the population's basic material needs, and some degree of separation between religious institutions and the state."
Standing on the opposite side to the Egyptian people, who are bound to win in the end is not a recipe for reducing anti-Americanism, or long term prevention of jihadi attacks.
It is certainly consistent with Kaiser Bill's reckless course to ruin which also did rather spectacularly badly at fostering "tolerance for minorities, the rule of law, an optimistic and reasonbably well educated middle class, reasonaly free markets capable of providing for the population's basic material needs, and some degree of separation between religious institutions and the state.".
August 30, 2006 12:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
An excellent description of cases in which normal internal evolutionary or revolutionary development towards democracy is likely to be blocked.
In these cases either democracy is simply not yet historically possible, or requires external intervention to provide conditions in which the different sections are both able and required to establish a workable constitutional settlement rather than fighting to see who will get to be on top of the replacement non-democratic regime when the old one falls.
Note that it is not necessary for all the competing groups to be minorities.There could be a majority and one or more minorities who are unable to separate territorially into different states and unable to work together in a single state. Also the need for foreign intervention could arise simply due to the likelihood of anti-democratic intervention by neighbours.
A classic example is of course Iraq. While Sadaam's regime was bound to collapse eventually the result would certainly have been both civil war and regional war in the absence of US and coalition troops. Indeed advocates of withdrawing those troops now are divided between saying that is inevitable anyway and nothing useful can be done about it and pretending that the division was created by the presence of foreign troops and will disappear when they are withdrawn.
Consequently we arrive back at my starting point in a military rather than a purely political context.
The choices in such cases are either to accept that democracy is blocked and tyrants will remain in power or to stand with the people by sending troops.
Of course in many other cases it is better to stand with the people without sending troops.
A policy of standing with the people against the tyrants does not involve imposing American values at all. For example in Iraq US troops are assisting a government dominated by Shia islamist parties similar to Hezbollah to defeat islamo-fascist attacks by would be despots from various minorities such as Sunni Baathists, jihadis and tribalists and Shia death squads sympathetic to clericalist sectarian rule.
"Realists" insist this is catastrophically stupid precisely precisely because they do not support democracy unless it is based on shared values and therefore the "wisdom" of holding elections where they would be won by illiberal anti-American forces is "called into question".
The wisdom of letting the region rot in stagnation was called into question by 9/11 and the arrogance and absurdity of expecting or requiring pro-American results as a condition for supporting free elections in a region where America is widely and deeply hated for its past support of tyranny is obvious.
August 30, 2006 12:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let's not forget that Hitler came to power via free elections. JPF311
This view has become the common wisdom on this board and deserves a bit of push back.
Hitler was not elected Chancellor; he was appointed. While the appointment was legal -- Hindenberg had the constitutional authority so to do -- the Nazis did not have a majority in the Reichstag and had spent themselves into bankruptcy in fighting the 1932 election campaign.
Conservative businessmen along with the "palace intrigues" of von Papen convinced an ill, weak von Hindenberg to turn over the government to Hitler.
Hitler owed his appointment to an authoritarian undemocratic German constitution manipulated by its enemies -- the barons and the industrialists.
August 30, 2006 1:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
The choices in such cases are either to accept that democracy is blocked and tyrants will remain in power or to stand with the people by sending troops.
If the people don't want democracy either, then how is replacing one tyrant with others a case of standing with the people? What if there is no "people" to stand with?
I agree with you heartily about the arrogance and absurdity of requiring pro-American results. And I think I'd quite like it the region elected a wave of truly democratic governments that all then gave the US the boot. That might be the only way to break the back of the unholy alliance of conservative buccanner capitalists, ultraconservative Christian holy warriors, Israel First special interest groups, and liberal missionary do-gooders who run our Middle East policy right now. (I actually doubt it would have this back-breaking effect, but it's fun to dream.) I'd like nothing better than to get the United States out of the Middle East quicksand altogether.
So what don't we just forget about "providing conditions to establish a workable constitutional settlement", something we probably cannot provide even if we try,and leave the people of the Middle East alone to work out their own future without further interference from abroad?
August 30, 2006 5:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
The institutions of democratic liberalism took centuries to evolve in Europe. A very few other parts of the world (Japan, India, etc.) are also beginning to catch up. The Middle East, unfortuantely, has only just set foot on that road. Let the process run its natural and normal course. Trying to hurry history along is exactly the mistake Bush and the neocons are making. What you advocate would be as disastrous as the Iraqi War as means of liberalizing these miserably illiberal cultures. Besides which, is it really our place to play deus ex machina in Egypt or anywhere else, providing free elections like manna from heaven?
I don't think so.
August 30, 2006 7:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Clearly replacing one tyrant with another is not standing with the people. Doing that has been historically typical of US military interventions and is a major reason for widespread hatred towards the US. It has also been an enabler for the bizarre alliance between paleo-conservative isolationists, the traditional liberal/conservative foreign policy establishment and the pseudo-left in opposition to the Iraq war.
Opponents are able to unite on mobilizing public opinion to feel defeatist about the war by simultaneously claiming that foreign entanglements are bad in general (isolationists), that the US should have just replaced one tyrant with another since that would cost much less blood and treasure (liberals/conservatives who almost unanimously denounce the "blunder" of suppressing the Baath party and its armed forces and holding free elections instead of using them in a standard "regime change") or insist that the US really is trying to replace one tyrant with another, against all the evidence (pseudos).
This unification of diverse and radically inconsistent oppositions arises in a unique situation where the US went to war on a declaratory policy of "disarming Sadaam" which the liberal/conservative foreign policy establishment thought unconvincing but tolerable, but with an actual policy of "region change" concealed from Congress and the public.
The lying has disabled mobilization in support of the war by those who should support it - the left (a tactical necessity since left support would have hindered the disorientation of the foreign policy establishment and isolationists who could have blocked the war if they had understood what it was about).
But the coalition of disparate oppositions faces a similar problem to the one we are discussing in other countries. Superficially it looks strong, with a majority opposed to the war. But it has no more chance of displacing the existing policies than any of the Sunni Baathists, jihadis and tribalists and Shia death squads have of ruling Iraq. In both cases they all hate each other too much to get anywhere and are only able to slow things down.
So celebrate the fact that the recent election results (Iraq, Lebanon and Palestinian occupied territories) have all been so "disasterous" from the viewpoint of the liberal/conservative foreign policy establishment.
Two reasons why the US administration cannot:
1. The stagnation of autocracy would be prolonged with more jihadis breeding in the swamps. "Homeland protection" and anti-terrorist operations cannot provide a long term solution so eventually jihadis with WMDs would get through and do real damage unless the root cause that breeds them is removed.
2. The regional wars that would result would severely disrupt oil supplies and the global economy.
Many additional reasons why anybody on the left should not want it to, such as actually caring about what happens to people subjected to tyranny and actually supporting democracy.
August 30, 2006 8:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
They didn't just "evolve". It was a period of wars and revolutions, including military support from the French revolution to the American revolution.
The US has been aiding the Egyptian autocracy to the tune of a couple of billion dollars of manna from heaven per year and has acted as Deus ex Machina in "managing" the Bismarckian "old order" of autocracies that has held the region back politically in comparison with Asian countries like Japan, India etc that were once more socially backward. Extricating itself from the historical consequences of what it did, which led directly to 9/11, is not going to be easy and cheap.
Complaints about "hurrying history along" are typically aimed at progressives and liberals by conservatives and reactionaries.
Calling such Bismarckian policies "progressive" simply won't work.
August 30, 2006 8:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Also worth mentioning the reference to George Bush alongside Hitler. Presumably based on recognizing that his current term is the result of a free election and further evidence against the desirability of free elections.
Unlike Hitler it does happen to be true that Bush is President as a result of a free election. This clarifies the objection to free elections that is in fact being argued.
They sometimes result in governments that the author disapproves of.
Opposition to democracy abroad leads straight to opposition to democracy at home.
There is nothing even "liberal" let alone "progressive" about this virulent hostility to democracy.
August 30, 2006 8:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
1. The stagnation of autocracy would be prolonged with more jihadis breeding in the swamps. "Homeland protection" and anti-terrorist operations cannot provide a long term solution so eventually jihadis with WMDs would get through and do real damage unless the root cause that breeds them is removed.
I don't agree. Almost all the jihadis are animated by some combination of local concerns - issues affecting some part of the Muslim world. Once the US has absconded, and ceased to be "the far enemy", they will turn their attentions elsewhere - primarilly to the tyrants you so want to get rid of.
Also, there will still be jihadis if constitutional democratic government is established, since the jihadis no more like that style of government than the governments they currently have. Your root cause theory is highly speculative.
2. The regional wars that would result would severely disrupt oil supplies and the global economy.
I thought this was one of those "realist" sorts of arguments you didn't like.
Anyway, I agree that as long as we are addicted to oil, we have no choice but to tread carefully and avoid major disruptions in supply. I think we therefore have little choice to do the best we can working with the governments that are there, until that glorious day when we have freed ourselves from their chief export.
The regional wars that are going to disrupt those oil supplies in the course of a misguided US effort at "providing conditions to establish workable constitutional settlements", are likely to be just as bad as the regional wars that would disrupt those oil suplies if we left Middle Easterners to work out their problems on their own. There is no reason to think the transformations the people of the Middle East will bring about on their own, without US meddling, will be any more cataclysmic than the ones that seem to be progressing now as a result of US meddling.
But perhaps, then, we should just avoid either course, and seek to work with the governments of Iran and the Gulf as we find them. Are these governments really that bad?
August 30, 2006 8:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
These excellent responses have rightly criticized the simple-minded versions of 'democracy promotion'. Some see it as a thin veil for American imperialism, some think it's just wrong-headed, some think we should do more of it, but better.
However, only a few people yielded to the temptation to talk about a progressive foreign policy (PFP) or even a liberal one.
The original post said previous ways of framing a PFP were wrong. The correct way is to tie it first to what the policy will do for those of us here in the homeland, and only secondarily consider what it does for foreigners.
It's a mistake to start crafting a PFP by reciting the virtues or vices of 'democracy promotion', whether you judge it to be good, bad or ugly. At best, it's only one little piece of a much bigger picture. And the situation of our poor planet is too uncertain and serious to pay attention only to little bitty pieces.
So when do liberals, progressives and critics of the current misguided approach get serious about actually defining an alternative progressive foreign policy?
August 30, 2006 10:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of course, that is why they are currently flocking to Iraq to massacre innocent Iraqi Shia civilians in the hope of starting a civil war that would prevent the consolidation of democratic government.
As you mention, their primary concerns are with local issues in the Muslim world. They are against modernity and especially democracy and their secondary hatred of the West arises mainly because they (correctly) associate the West with the advance of modernity that is undermining and making impossible the social order they dream of. (Or to put it more simply for rednecks "they hate our freedoms").
The point is that modernity destroys the conditions in which jihadis breed. So they will certainly fight against constitutional democratic government until such time as they are destroyed by it. If they won on the other hand, your stand off policies would mean oil rich states like Saudi Arabia capable of acquiring WMDs and governed by the likes of Osama bin Laden
The alternative grand strategy after 9/11 was to just keep trying to avoid them getting their hands on WMDs and delivering them to America for the next century or so. Draining the swamps is a big project but a lot easier than that.
Any aftermath to the collapse of Sadaam's regime without international intervention would be likely to produce civil war. Any such civil war is almost certain to draw in Iran, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Turkey to a regional war in the Gulf region.
Even now, Turkey is champing at the bit to attack northern Iraq and Iran is encouraging death squads against Sunnis. If the Sunnis still had the Baathist armed forces at their disposal there would be a full scale regional war already.
The US presence enables the majority to maintain a constitutional framework in which the Kurds can exercise maximum autonomy while they are still unable to risk independence and in which the Sunnis can adapt to no longer being dominant instead of being suppressed by death squads.
You cannot argue that divisions make democracy impossible and simultaneously believe that these divisions would not be acute if the US did not intervene.
Are you confident that the Shia would accept domination by the Sunnis forever if only the US did not intervene?
Are you confident that Sunni dominated Arab neighbours would not intervene if the Shia majority looked like overthrowing centuries of "natural" and "righteous" Sunni domination, and that Iran would not intervene if the Shia were being massacred (again).
Are you confident that a bloodbath dividing Baghdad would not draw the neigbours in to a regional war.
There is every reason to expect that the transformations in the Middle East would be at least as bloody as those in Europe and North America.
The English and American Civil Wars killed hundreds of thousands.
If that doesn't bother you, the consequential disruption of oil supplies should.
Yes they are. You are probably aware of the fact that Saudi Arabia is wholly owned by its Royal family with nothing resembling human rights, since Bush still hasn't done much directly about it.
You may perhaps be less aware of what kind of regime Iran has, since Bush shouting at it so much naturally makes people a little suspicious as to whether it could really be that bad.
Take a look at this (and follow the links for full stor)..
A progressive foreign policy should stand with the people of Iran against a regime that hangs 16 year old girls for having sex instead of consolidating people behind that regime by focusing on nuclear weapons and on empty threats of military strikes and on supporting Israel against Hezbollah.
August 30, 2006 11:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ok, it isn't polite to just completely ignore the original posting without even explaining why, as most of us "responding" have done.
For my part, here's the reason I don't think there's much much chance of or point in people seriously discussing, let alone adopting your "foreign policy begins at home" approach.
The example suggestions you gave should explain why:
• Make Americans safer ...
• Support job-creation ...
• Keep Americans healthy...
• Protect the interests of American workers and consumers...
Doesn't shed any light on anything and isn't very interesting to discuss. People who want to put forward inspid stuff like that tend to see it is as part of domestic policy platitude mongering rather than foreign policy platitude mongering.
As for your "means", it reads like one of those automatic buzzword generators used to churn out corporate goal statements. Here it is in full so I cannot be accused of distortion.
What strategy, what actions, what new ways to deal? These are the questions you have to answer in putting forward a progressive foreign policy. Handwaving about them doesn't cut it.
Shadi Hamid's article was about foreign policy issues that people can agree or disagree with. Your critique of it was about platitude mongering that isn't worth discussing.
Take a good hard look at what you wrote and shudder before ever doing it again:
Hope this helps.
August 30, 2006 11:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps, but what's needed is a third camp that actually IS progressive.
The smug complacency of neo-liberal "swellness" obviously isn't progressive nor appealing to you judging from your unempathic description. But neither is this, passionate despondency which you seem to empathize with more:
August 31, 2006 12:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, but I see your project if dmeocracy promotion as being just as arrogant and bullying as George Bush's. We shouldn't be overthrowing anyone's government, not Egypt's and not Iraq's.
August 31, 2006 3:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
The point is that modernity destroys the conditions in which jihadis breed. So they will certainly fight against constitutional democratic government until such time as they are destroyed by it. If they won on the other hand, your stand off policies would mean oil rich states like Saudi Arabia capable of acquiring WMDs and governed by the likes of Osama bin Laden
It seems to me that the jihadis are actually products of "modernity". We have seen the rise of jihadism in the UK for example, and contemporary jihadism and revolutionary political Islam are very recent historical phenomena. Jihadis "breed" in circumstances where there are a number of people who are passionately attached to the Muslim ummah, and who see that community and some of its traditional mores under threat.
The jihadis consist of a very small core of truly violent people drawing some support for a broader community attracted to Islamism by the evidence of foreign intervention and domination, which lends support to the jihadis vision of the world and prescriptions for what ails the Muslim community. Nothing the US does that involves pro-active and aggressive intervention in Middle Eastern countries is likely to help, but will only exacerbate the problem by providing further evidence of the truth of Islamist claims. The movement will burn itself out with time if we let it, but it will take much longer if we continue to supply the fuel of overt Western interference and cultural imperialism that provokes the jihadi rebellion.
August 31, 2006 5:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
No, I have plenty of hope. Otherwise I would stop writing about politcs, and stop trying to pound on centrist neoliberal Democrats, and just return completely to philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, poetry and all the other things I find much more intrinsically enjoyable than politics. I have even more hope lately, as I sense the beginning of a very slight drift in the direction I would like to see things go. And I believe completely in progress. I think a person has to be brain dead not to recognize that life for human beings has gotten vastly better, on the whole, over the course of recorded history.
But I just believe there are a number of really rotten things about America that need to be changed, many of which have grown worse in my lifetime. It's a more negative picture than some others might have. But it's not a more pessimistic picture.
August 31, 2006 9:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
I basically agree with you on that and also that they are products of modernity (in fact I see them as a distincively modern tendency that has little in common with conservative fundamentalist islam but much in common with fascism, despite the use of different religious and "folk" mythology).
The "home grown" terrorism in the UK is certainly an important phenomenon. I don't have a good feel for whether it is the same jihadism and whether the measures I support for dealing with the roots in the Arab region by democratic revolution are also sufficient to deal with related phenomena in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia etc, let alone in migrant communities and among new converts in Europe including Britain. Those measures could even be counter-productive with respect to British jihadis as you suggest.
But its clear something has to be done about the situation that made tens of thousands of potential jihadi terrorists available for recruitment by the CIA and Saudis to go to Afghanistan and fight the Soviets in the first place forming "the Base" that became Al Queda and hooked together local jihadi trends in various countries. As long as those social conditions continue more thousands will continue to be generated.
Its also clear that simply getting out of the Middle East quicksand altogether isn't actually going to end that situation.
None of these conclusions follow from any argument you have presented. I suspect you are confusing two issues by loosely using the term "islamism".
The dominant parties now governing Iraq as result of free elections with US assistance are (Shia) islamist but not jihadi. So is Hezbollah (though Bush is currently deliberately confusing that issue for tactical reasons). Hamas and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood are (Sunni) islamist but not jihadi.
The "very small core of truly violent people drawing some support [from] a broader community" has taken root in countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt as a result of suppression of islamists, liberals, communists and pretty well all other political trends in the interests of corrupt rulers who are the "moderate Arab allies" of the West.
Legitimate islamist parties will tend to burn themselves out if they are allowed to govern since they will have to deal with the real problems of the modern world instead of merely promising that islam is the answer to everything.
Western backing for corrupt autocratic rulers, and for Israeli oppression of the Palestinians, certainly supplies fuel for jihadi recruitment from among the legitimate islamist tendencies that are being arbitrarily repressed. Taking the side of the people against their rulers by insisting on free elections is the ONLY way to refute the entirely accurate propaganda about Western hypocrisy.
No amount of liberal theories explaining why you won't support the people against their rulers will change the fact that if you don't you are in fact guilty of the hypocrisy that not only jihadis and islamists but pretty well everyone else outside the ruling circles in the region say you are guilty of.
We can (and must) live (proudly) with jihadi accusations that Western culture undermines the subordination of women, encourages promiscuity etc etc. But we can't beat them by confirming that we are complete hypocrits with no respect for the right of Arabs and muslims to choose their own governments.
Even Arab liberals, who are sorry lot, are beginning to demand this instead of hoping for liberal reforms from the autocrats. It is only Western liberals, who are even worse, that cannot see the obvious.
September 1, 2006 5:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm assuming you are in fact progressive as described. Hopefully you'll agree that there are an awful lot of brain dead people around, who actually do believe that things are not vastly better on the whole and are even convinced that they cannot be and all we can do is fight a rearguard action against them continuing to get vastly worst.
Progressives are bound to challenge smug conservatives and centrists by wanting to change the negative stuff that the conservatives pretend cannot be changed or isn't a problem at all.
But the focus has to be on wanting to change it and being confident that we can. The basic message I get here on "progressive" foreign policy is that it is simply a relabelled version of conservative and reactionary foreign policy but with a more militant certainty that any action to change the world for the better is inherently doomed to failure.
Progressives should be challenging the Bushies from the left by insisting on faster and deeper democratic change with less vacillation and hypocrisy instead of uniting with paleo-conservative isolationists.
September 1, 2006 5:59 AM | Reply | Permalink