Between DemocracyArsenal and PoliticalAnimal, there's quite a debate raging over U.S. policy to the Middle East, more specifically, about democratization. The immediate trigger was this month's Washington Monthly , in which numerous Dems were asked to opine about democratization in the Middle East. Unfortunately, it's yet another example of the wholesale acceptance of the Bush strategic concept by centrist Democrats who would rather create the perception of toughness than address the real problems facing America.
It's not hard to predict where the debate was going to end up when the lead article was penned by Senator Joe Biden. Biden was lionized as the model of the modern democratic hawk by Peter Beinart in his call to embrace Bush-lite back in December. And he continues that role modeling in his piece :
Some Democrats, after nearly a century of efforts to inject the ennobling quality of universal freedom and human rights into the heart of our foreign policy agenda, seem uneasy about this president's recent focus on the idea. President Bush spoke with great eloquence in his second inaugural address about expanding freedom, and I was a little frustrated by the reception it received from some of my Democratic colleagues and friends around the world.
Biden wants Democrats to embrace Bush's rhetoric (the title of the piece is: Credit Bush's Rhetoric, Not His Actions ). But apparently, Biden has forgotten that Bush's rhetoric in 2002 was part of a program of mass deception. Or perhaps, Biden agreed that the president of the United States was right to deceive the American public into war. Either way, embracing Bush's rhetoric only makes it easier for Bush to claim bipartisan support for his policies, harder for Americans to distinguish the difference between the two parties, and harder to stop the rationalization for the next war.
Heather Hurlburt then makes the other mistake common to Democratic rhetoric-firsters. She accepts the Bush frame that democracy in the Middle East is the proper focus of our national security strategy and then assumes that democracy can be brought to these troubled regions, given enough "time and trust."
Well, I'm here to tell you it's a lot more about jobs than time. Where peace and democracy take root, there has been some kind of sustainable economic engine. Germany, Japan, South Korea. I worked for years in the Balkans, Caucasus, Middle East and Africa, and the economics play a much bigger part of it than any of these commentators are willing to admit. It really is the sine qua non of peacebuilding.
If you look at Iraq, what kind of economic future do they have? If they rely on oil revenues, their fate is sealed. No state has managed to have a democracy when the major source of government revenue is from oil. If they rely on the international community to rebuild their schools, houses and infrastructure, it will be built along the lines of an unsustainable economic model, based on cars, suburbs and highways. Soon they'll be caught in the same Wal-Mart trap that we're in. That's not something I'd wish on my enemy.
The sad truth is that we can't rebuild these countries like we rebuilt Germany and Japan after World War II. The global economy has no safe place for them to grow into their democracy without being tattered by the massive forces of cheap Chinese goods and rising energy prices. If we're going to save Iraq, Bosnia, Sudan or wherever, we have to find their people sustainable jobs, and there just aren't any in this version of the global economy.
But it is Wes Clark whose metaphor is the most ironically apt, "But like the rooster who thinks his crowing caused the dawn, those who rule Washington today have a habit of taking credit for events of which they were in fact not the primary movers." Ostensibly, Clark is criticising the Republicans for claiming that the various noises in Lebanon and Egypt represent proof that the invasion of Iraq was vindicated.
But that metaphor should also be turned around on Clark's fellow commentators. Dems who think their tougher rhetoric and loftier idealism will both be the solution to America's problems and help Democrats win elections are just fooling themselves. We're not in 1947--we're neither rebuilding Europe or facing a new communism. The threats today driven by the dysfunction of an economy based on oil and debt, subsidies and suburbs.
So next time you hear the platitudes, just ask: Where are the jobs in that democracy? The silence will be telling.
--Patrick Doherty |
Thursday 12:17 PM
