Albright on Arab Democracy

More substantively, Madeleine Albright mostly said things that I think are true but also a bit banal (Bush has squandered American power, China's rise, Iran's rise, we've "paid for mistakes in Iraq," "Iraq has made everything harder," UN reform is good, but it's difficult) but waded into riskier waters with a forthright defense of the view that we should be backing democratic reform -- elections -- in the Arab world. Crucially, she conceded that "if Arab democracy develops, it will be to advance Arab interests" as understood from an Arab perspective and, in particular, there's no reason to expect elections to "soften attitudes toward Israel."

She didn't follow that up with much in the way of saying how we should be doing those things. Shadi Hamid, for example, thinks the congress should make aid to Egypt conditional on reform. I see some strong arguments on both sides of that issue, and it'd be interesting to hear more people weigh-in on it, since it seems to me that this is certainly the most obvious lever to use if one were to want to put something more than rhetoric behind the idea of Arab reform.

Comments

IMHO, US policy towards Egypt should be an upgraded and more active version of her China policy. Put calls for democratization on the backburner and put all your pressure towards genuine economic reform. Obviously, for anyone who follows middle-eastern politics, the push for economic reform has been a cat and mouse game for more than 20 years.

And yet, I think, affecting economic reform goes more at the core of the issues which cause instability and terrorism (not to mention hitting at the core of the Egyptian's regime base and strategies), while providing for the necessary conditions for establishing a genuine and stable democracy in the long-term.

Posted by Nick Kaufman | June 12, 2007 9:46 AM

Nick K: Personally, I'd be in favour of a unilateral NAFTA style free-trade deal for the entire Med basin from the EU. Unilateral, so that it didn't get bogged down in debates over whether Egypt shd accept EU goods. From the EU, since the EU is - and will always be - the leading trading partner for these countries, not the US. And with the idea that political reform is likely to flow from a wider engagement with the world economy.

Posted by otto | June 12, 2007 9:51 AM

It's all very well to prattle on about "Arab Democracy." Unfortunately, when one looks at the election results in Algeria and the Palestinian Territories, we are faced with the reality that elections can lead to undemocratic victors, much like elections in Germany in the 1920s and early 1930s led to an undemocratic victor. The results are not pretty, an estimated 100,000 dead in Algeria as a result of a civil war between Islamic extremists and the army and the ongoing situation in the Gaza Strip in which we see the two factions tossing their opponents off of high rise buildings.

Posted by SLC | June 12, 2007 10:01 AM

The problem with looking to democracy as the solution to Arab political problems is that, for elections to work, you have to elect people willing to hold more elections. There is no evidence that "democracy" in Iraq and Palestine has resulted in anything like liberal democracy.

Posted by Aaron | June 12, 2007 10:03 AM

Yeah, what SLC said.

Posted by Aaron | June 12, 2007 10:04 AM

It's not clear that the Islamists in Algeria were undemocratic winners. They might well have continued elections - I admit there is some room for doubt. But it is clear that the Algerian army were undemocratic losers - and in fact that is more usually the problem.

Posted by otto | June 12, 2007 10:06 AM

If you believe in Democracy, then you back democracy. It doesn't matter if certain people won't vote how you like. If you only favor holding election when you get the outcome you want, you're not a Democrat, you're a Fascist.

Posted by soullite | June 12, 2007 10:30 AM

Several points:
1) We do not give aid to Egypt out of charity --we give aid as a bribe to induce the Arabs most powerful military power to leave Israel alone and to desert the Palestinians.

2) There is nothing in our history or political philosophy to say that democracy ensures freedom for a people. The USA is not a democracy -- it is rather a deeply corrupt oligarchy in which power, wealth, and control of the press is far more tightly concentrated within a small elite than in many South American dictatorships.

Hence, the US government is the last entity with moral authority to dictate forms of government to countries on the far side of the world.

3) There is something hideously deceitful about members of both parties trying to disguise private agendas (grab the oil, protect Israel,sell weapons at high prices) behind a veil of supporting "freedom" by "spreading democracy". The reason our elites want elections in Iraq is that the CIA can't rig elections if no one holds one. Just look at Florida in 2000.

4) But for any one country to try to establish a veiled global dictatorship -- to micromanage countries on the far side of the world -- is the epitome of tyranny, not freedom.

Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and 18? Saudi citizens did not attack us on Sept 11 for buying oil from Saudi Arabia -- it attacked us for propping up a corrupt kleptocracy that, in partnership with us , is stealing the only wealth --the only future -- that the people of Saud and Yemen have.
Since the 1970s, US defense contractor Vinnell Inc has been helping the Saudi Gestapo surveil and crush domestic opposition within Arabia --that's why Vinnell's office was bombed.

5) The really sad thing is that the murderous acts of the US government in the Middle East are NOT even in the interests of the American People.

Our adaptive free market mechanisms are being disrupted by the huge government subsidy for Big Oil. The price of gas is kept artifically low at the pump ($3/gal) while the real cost --the cost of protecting Big Oil's Middle Eastern investments -- is collected when we file our tax returns and when we receive wages in a dollar which has lost 1/3 of its value in the past few years.

Posted by Don Williams | June 12, 2007 10:30 AM

Well, the situation in Iraq has underwritten the idea that when there's an entrenched undemocratic government, any opposition movement that's not operating from abroad is by necessity radicalised to some extent. Why? Because it's not worth the risks otherwise.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | June 12, 2007 10:55 AM

Funny. Just a few years ago I would have regarded many of the claims of Don Williams as being the ravings of a deranged lunatic.

But now? They sound more and more accurate to me every day....

Posted by RKU | June 12, 2007 10:55 AM

Small-d democracy by itself is not really a desirable end from a liberal perspective. Democracy is a social form of self-determination, but without individual rights and protection of minorities it is not valuable at all. The pre-civil rights era South was "democratic" in the sense that the absolute majority ruled absolutely. It was hardly an ideal society.

Posted by Aaron | June 12, 2007 10:56 AM

Self-determination first

We'll never get to a clear understanding of our proper role in the governance of Middle Eastern countries until we clear up the muddle we've made of the concept of democracy.

Self-determination has to be the foundation of any workable democracy. The people in a society have to believe that governing authority flows from the will of the people for any formal democratic institutions of government to command obedience as the legitimate authority.

If a people do not believe that legitmate authority flows from the will of the people, but that it instead derives from the will of God, or is the hereditary right of a certain lineage, or some other theory, then self-determination will not lead to democratic forms of government.

You can have self-determination without democracy, even if democracy is impossible without self-determination. Insofar as enouraging democracy is a reasonable foreign policy objective for us, we need to encourage self-determination, and not try by any means -- be that force of arms, conditional aid, or any aid to regimes at all -- to any encourage any particular form of government. You could make the case that getting rid of Saddam was simply the removal of a barrier to self-determination, but keeping troops in Iraq any time at all after his removal is clearly a barrier to self-determination. If we truly aim to encourage self-determnation, we need to withdraw all troops immediately from Iraq and the region, then end all aid to all regimes in the area. Anything else only makes sense insofar as we don't want to encourage self-determination in the region, but would prefer to run their affairs for these people. That's called "empire", not "democracy", and is just as much imperial even if the intention is the purely disinterested desire to see democratic forms of government spread elsewhere.

What's really at stake in this discussion is not the well-being of democratic institutions abroad. That will have to be left to foreigners to sort out for themselves. What's really at stake in this discussion is the survival of democracy here in the US. A democracy can't run an empire abroad. We either have to get out of the unthinking habit of assuming that it is perfectly legitimate for Americans to decide how the Mid-East should be governed, or we will soon be out of the business of deciding how our own country should be governed. The only conclusion of a discussion such as that one in this thread that is compatible with preserving democracy at home is to say quite firmly and unequivocally that how any foreign country governs itself is absolutely none of our business.

Posted by Glen Tomkins | June 12, 2007 11:30 AM

Glen, you are quite persuasive, but the situation becomes quite sticky when you ask whose self-determination is the priority? If it is the individual's, one could make the case that U.S. military presence is necessary to ensure that the rights of individuals and minorities are not overrun by unmoderated
"democracy," i.e. rule by absolute majority. I wouldn't, since I don't think that's what U.S. troops are doing, but it's not necessarily the case. U.S. occupation and rule by victors produced fairly- to highly-effective democracies in Europe and Asia following World War II.

On a related note, it is not exactly "none of our business" what goes on domestically in foreign countries. Apartheid was a moral blight and the U.S. should have acted sooner and harder to oppose it. Genocide in the Sudan should not be left up to the Sudanese to resolve. Nor should we look highly upon foreign decisions to imprison ideological opponents of the government. All of these are contrary to individual self-determination, the foundation of the American political identity.

Posted by Aaron | June 12, 2007 11:43 AM

"and, in particular, there's no reason to expect elections to "soften attitudes toward Israel.""

I'm not sure that's actually true, in the long run: To the extent that hard attitudes towards Israel are the result of hideous arab governments fomenting hatred against the other to distract people from, properly, hating them, less hideous arab government would have less reason to foment hatred, and in time it might subside.

"1) We do not give aid to Egypt out of charity --we give aid as a bribe to induce the Arabs most powerful military power to leave Israel alone and to desert the Palestinians."

You know, Egypt could "not desert the Palestinians" by, say, letting them leave the refugee camps and settle in Egypt. "Not deserting" them doesn't have to imply actions against Israel. I've noticed a lot of people seem to have a blind spot when it comes to noticing that arab governments are every bit as complicit in trapping Palestinians in those camps as the Israelis.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | June 12, 2007 12:08 PM

The left has little credibility on this, IMO.

First, regarding Nick Kaufman's post, the Egyptian government has enacted a number of economic reforms over the last several years (I'm not sure to what extent these were prompted by American influence or Mubarak's own rational self interest). Anyone who has invested in the region through emerging markets funds like this one (on which I'm up about 90% in two years) has benefited from this. I imagine a few Egyptians have benefited too, but unlike little Gulf states that have enacted economic reforms, Egypt has a huge population with lots of poor people. The Egyptian government has worked with the economist Hernando de Soto on some of the issues constraining Egypt's poor, but I don't know to what extent de Soto's prescriptions have been implemented. To do so would probably require stepping on the toes of a lot of ruling party lackeys.

Second, regarding pressuring Egypt to move toward democracy, the Bush administration did that a couple of years ago. Mubarak relented, to the extent that he allowed a secular democratic candidate Ayman Nour on the ballot during his last election. Mubarak then backtracked and had Nour jailed on trumped up charges, and he remains imprisoned. Today, Bush is too weak to pressure Egypt on democracy, and since he didn't get much support on this from Dems last time he tried, I guess he figures why bother. Hence, the "realist" approach: keep sending Egypt billions, never mind the diabetic democrat (and potential rival to Mubarak's son) still behind bars.

Posted by Fred | June 12, 2007 12:51 PM

Re: The price of gas is kept artifically low at the pump ($3/gal) while the real cost --the cost of protecting Big Oil's Middle Eastern investments -- is collected when we file our tax returns and when we receive wages in a dollar which has lost 1/3 of its value in the past few years.

It's the other way around: American intervention in the Middle East is a large factor in the rise of the price of oil since 2003.

Posted by JonF | June 12, 2007 4:01 PM

Don Williams,

You are a lefty lunatic. You need to travel more. We are the best thing going. Flawed, because we are all mere mortals, but overall the best thing going in the world. I don't see many countries have the immigration debate that we are having.

Posted by danceswithgoats | June 12, 2007 7:02 PM

Brett,

You can't just re-settle a population that has its own cohesive identity in the midst of another population with a different identity and not expect major political disturbance. I mean, have you seen Israel lately? So stop it with the moronic proposition that one Arab country or another should simply take the Palestinians. They don't need the trouble.

And SLC,

Such wisdom from you, as always. Hamas = Nazis, blah blah blah. You go girl.

Posted by A Guy in Jersey | June 12, 2007 7:07 PM

"Don Williams,

You are a lefty lunatic. You need to travel more. We are the best thing going. Flawed, because we are all mere mortals, but overall the best thing going in the world. I don't see many countries have the immigration debate that we are having.

Posted by danceswithgoats"

Actually, he sounds like he could be a right-wing, proto-fascist populist. A "Pauliac".

If you can't spot the left from the right at home, I'd keep out of the Middle East, ladies - and just mind your damn business. What are you, necons?

Posted by Dick Paul | June 12, 2007 10:01 PM

Aaron,

We didn't create democracy in Japan or Germany. We simply removed, at least in the case of Germany, a barrier to self-determination in a country that was a democracy before Hitler's rise to power. The Germans probably would have done this themselves eventually, so removing Hitler wasn't really justified on the basis of helping the Germans achieve democracy. The removal of Hitler was merely a by-product of our legitimate reason for prosecuting a war with the Axis, that they had attacked other countries, and eventually our own.

We can't reach out and give individuals in foreign countries the right to a democratic govt in those countries. Democracy has to be a shared value in their own society for individuals in a society to have any chance of enjoying its benefits in their own country. Nothing we can do, except perhaps serve as an example, can inculcate such values in a foreign society. But running an empire doesn't create a good example in any respect, from the idealistic to the practical. About the best we can do for individuals is to open our doors to individuals fleeing from countries that they despair of ever sharing the values that allow democracy. But even that openness is under threat in our own country, inevitably, because the propaganda needed to keep our empire going has to be xenophobic.

You put too much faith in the ability to destroy as a power that has much ability to do good, except under very exceptional circumstances. I have no doubt that if we were to send troops to Darfur, we would simply create bigger heaps of dead bodies, mostly theirs, though some of our own as well. Force could only possibly do any good insofar as people needed to be eliminated to make Sudan better, and we understood clearly exactly who in Sudan needed to be eliminated. The first condition is unlikely. The second is impossible. No one has such God-like knowledge of who in Sudan has to die so that more Sudanese will live. Certainly no one in the US would even come close to possessing such knowledge. And in our ignorance, just as in Iraq, we would thrash about blindly, killing indiscriminately, and only adding to the blood debts that the Sudanese will be paying out to one another for generations.

If I thought that I was smart enough to know who has to die so that the rest of us can live in peace, I would start with our own country. Not only do I know the US much better than any American knows Sudan, but the US is clearly the greatest threat to the peace of the world, because we are the most powerful nation. I am not deterred from such a path of pre-emptive political murder by moral considerations. If we could have prevented the murder of the 600,000+ Iraqis who have already died in this war, simply by guillotining a few hundred Republicans, simple arithmetic tells us that we should have set up that guillotine in the Mall. But I know this country and its politics too well to imagine that I, or anyone else, knows it well enough to come up with the right list of victims. If you also would not feel confident of your ability to come up with a list of which Americans need to die, why do you feel so confident that selective violence would help the situation in Sudan? Do you know more about Sudan than your own country?

Democracy works in this country precisely because the vast majority of us have given up on the idea that we know enough about even our own country that any plan we imposed on our countrymen by force would work better than trying to muddle through with persuasion and elections. No matter how hopelessly stupid the voters prove themselves time and again, no matter how craven and criminal the opposition party, the policy of not killing people who disagree with us seems to work better for us in running our own country. I just ask that we apply the same modesty to our dealings with the rest of the world.

Posted by Glen Tomkins | June 12, 2007 10:45 PM

Re "It's the other way around: American intervention in the Middle East is a large factor in the rise of the price of oil since 2003."

Point 1: The price of oil has not increased that much when measured in euros or yen. The increase in dollar price merely reflects the dollar's 31% loss in value over the past few years -- the result of massive deficit spending to finance military adventures.etc.

Point 2: Look at the TRUE cost of gasoline from the Middle East:

1) 1 barrel of oil yields 19.6 gallons of gasoline.
(Ref: http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/ask/gasoline_faqs.asp )

2) In 2006, we imported 806 Million barrels from the Middle East
(Ref: http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/mttimuspg1m.htm )

3) Our defense budget is approaching $600 Billion per year and I estimate about $250 Billion of that is going to military operations
in the Middle East to protect the supply of oil.

4) Hence, we are spending roughly $250 bil / (19.6 x 806 Mil) =
roughly $15 on military operations for every gallon of Middle Eastern gasoline we import. Adding a pump price of $3/gallon
gives a true cost of $18 per gallon.

5) This is highly irrational, but it exists because Dick Cheney's buddies get all the profits whereas all the huges costs --in levied
taxes and dead/crippled relatives -- are dumped off onto us, the poor stupid citizens.

6) The free market isn't developing substitutes because the government subsidy for Big Oil keeps the pump price extremely low-- thereby deterring investors from developing alternatives for Big Oil's products.

The long term malign effect of this is that when oil runs out, we will face disaster --massive loss of life -- because we will not have the time to develop the replacement technology that was within our ability.

Posted by Don Williams | June 12, 2007 10:53 PM

Glen, I hope you read this because I'm afraid you misread my initial post (by no one's fault but my own). It was strange to read because I am almost completely in agreement with you. I didn't say that the US should have invaded Iraq - hell, I was in the streets protesting that decision. I certainly didn't mean the US military occupation is productive or producing democracy, since ceteris paribus I advocate staged but complete withdrawl. I especially didn't mean the US should invade another country, Sudan, to stop genocide.

Perhaps I misread your initial post, too, but it sounded to me like you were advocating moral disengagement from world crises. You "say quite firmly and unequivocally that how any foreign country governs itself is absolutely none of our business." That sounds to me like saying that the US or any other set of people shouldn't advocate for democracy in undemocratic countries, shouldn't try to end torture in terror states, and shouldn't oppose Apartheid-like ethnic cleansing, all in the name of self-determination. That struck me as completely at odds with liberal values, the kind of moral relativism ("different societies can disagree about whether women are humans!") long since rejected by most reasonable people.

Far from calling for military intervention, I was calling for a moral voice in the world.

Posted by Aaron | June 13, 2007 3:38 PM