Screwing Up Democracy

Hundreds of billions of dollars, 145,000 troops, hundreds of thousands of lives lost or shattered must have reshaped the political map of the Middle East somehow.

So let’s also give him credit for eliciting the monstrous pro-Syria demonstration organized by Hezbollah in response — and reaffirming the powerful and legitimate anti-U.S. forces never far from the surface in the Middle East.

And let’s recognize that Bush’s lazy, cynical exploitation of popular movements in the Middle East has undercut those movements and created an environment of doubt and danger for their participants.

Democracy is a fragile and ambivalent force in the Middle East.

Especially when activists there have to labor with the realization that, thanks to George W. Bush’s grandiose freedom rhetoric, they are perceived as and, what’s worse, possibly acting as, stooges of American interests the same time they promote democracy.

Anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism, and socialist populism are never far from the surface of Middle East politics, and they have much deeper and hardier roots than democracy.

Faced with the violent machinations of the world’s only superpower, they have no problem drowning out “one person one vote” with “Yankee Go Home!”

The funny thing is, the invasion of Iraq had a profoundly destabilizing effect on the Middle East that could have been significantly democratizing.

That would have worked if we had made a democratic success out of Iraq instead of a bloody, purple-fingered fiasco.

But you know what? Looking at Iraq, which used to be a relatively well-to-do autocracy, getting bombed, sanctioned, invaded, violated, and looted into the Middle East’s version of Haiti, I don’t think anybody in Syria or Iran is saying Yeah, man, gimme some of that!

My personal belief is that the ballyhooed baby steps toward democracy in Egypt and Saudi Arabia are also going to backfire in a relatively unexpected way.

The rulers in those countries have dealt with the smoldering resentment of the disenfranchised in their countries and recognize that democracy is fundamentally anti-U.S. in the Middle East — and that rulers are resented in large part because they are perceived as paid-for tools of American interests. As they are pushed to “democratize”, they will realize their future doesn’t lie in being perceived as weak, pro-American clients. The ruling regimes will adopt more overtly anti-American rhetoric in order to legitimize themselves in the eyes of the electorate and co-opt the anti-American forces. The result will be governments that are still essentially socialistic and autocratic in nature, with more popular support, - and, ironically, more anti-American, stronger, less cooperative, and more defiant — than they were before.

That’s not a winner for us.

Bush’s rhetoric of “democratization” in the Middle East is much more effective in stigmatizing and marginalizing opposition in the United States and Europe than it is in promoting freedom in the Middle East.

Industrialized countries settled upon faith in “democracy” as the universal panacea that reconciles poor and rich, labor and capital, and makes any imperialism or class-based analysis of society and its problems superfluous. Especially in America, a rich country that has not endured foreign occupation for over 200 years, we have that privilege — or luxury — or handicap.

Now, trying to figure out what’s good democracy and bad democracy is kind of awkward for us. Nobody wants to dust off their Marxist textbooks and explain why bourgeois democracy can be an instrument of capital and imperialism. Especially when the societies based on that argument fell flat on their asses in the 1980s.

Trying to praise democratization but oppose the way Bush was doing it sounds kind of nit-picky and hypocritical.

The alternative — analyzing the world dialectically, in terms of American imperialism, and classifying democratic movements as bad or good based upon where they align in the nationalistic movement vs. U.S. imperialism equation…

…or understanding why the democratization strategy is much more effective in the ex-Soviet bloc, where the movement is a reaction against Soviet hegemonism and American support, conversely, is welcomed instead of detested…

is icky, communistic, and unpatriotic.

That’s what Bush was counting on.

And all liberals could hope for is that George would screw up — as he usually does — and the awkward questions will go away.

And George came through once again!

It looks like Bush’s sorry-ass incompetence has already produced the spectacular failure that will short-circuit any hard questions about how to oppose Bush-style democracy promotion in the Middle East.

Bush’s doomed, hopelessly premature dead-end opportunism was demonstrated for all the world to see in his appointment of John Bolton to the U.N.

Believe it or not, that — and not the humiliating Hezbollah mega-demonstration cum repudiation of U.S. interference — is the nail in the coffin of the Bush “democratization” movement.

John Bolton is our designated asshole for international affairs. He’s been the point man to make sure that peace doesn’t break out in the Middle East or Asia.

Whenever peaceful negotiations orchestrated by the Europeans vis a vis Syria, or the Chinese and South Koreans vis a vis North Korea show signs of bearing fruit, Bolton is sent there to disrupt the process with inflammatory and confrontational rhetoric.

John Bolton doesn’t deal with allies or peers. His mission is to confront states, organizations, and interest groups that the Bush administration perceives as antagonistic, illegitimate, and susceptible to political, economic, and/or military coercion.

By elevating Bolton to the U.N., Bush sent a clear message to Europe that our relations with the United Nations would be a continuation of his first-term hard power unilateralism.

Bush apparently expected that encouragement of democratic movements in the Middle East would provide him with the pretext and freedom of movement to continue to coerce and bully the international community into acquiescing to his campaigns against Syria and Iran in the name of democracy promotion and protection.

Bush can never be first among equals, a member of a genuine coalition of industrialized countries. In the most obvious and childish ways possible — remember when he tried to upstage the NATO summit on Iraq with that “let freedom ring-a-ding-ding” accelerated transfer of sovereignty stunt? - he is always looking for ways to dictate to the U.N. and the world as their superior and force them to subordinate their selfish local priorities to an absolutely compelling American security (War on Terror/“WMD”) or moral (“freedom”) imperative.

By posing as the Great Helmsman of a Middle East democratic crusade inspired by aggressive U.S. intervention, Bush would bully the U.N. and Europe either to go along or be marginalized and passive as they were during the Iraq run-up.

Well, hurrying to exploit that Cedar Revolution mojo that turned out to be oh too short-lived, Bush has seriously overplayed his hand.

By quickly backing down in the face of the Hezbollah push-back, he revealed that anti-U.S.-imperialism trumps democracy as a political force in the Middle East.

And by appointing Bolton, he revealed that he had eagerly and drastically overestimated the power of the Middle East democratic movements and — hypocritical happy talk during his recent European trip to the contrary — he was eager to apply the same old middle-finger non-diplomacy to the U.N. and the world through Bolton and Condi that got us into Iraq.

Oops.

Don’t look for Europe to sign on to an anti-Syria and anti-Iran crusade orchestrated by an mendacious idiot, an arrogant blowhard, and a spineless enabler when their main muscle comes from a flaccid, conflicted, and essentially hostile popular movement in the Middle East.

Especially when the whole anti-Syria campaign now looks like little more than collusion between Europe’s favorite Middle East bete noire, Israel, and the United States to weaken and expose Hezbollah’s position on Israel’s northern flank:

If anything will ring the death knell for U.S. pretensions to democracy and moral superiority in the Middle East, it’s another tedious iteration of America carrying Israel’s water, this time in a military sphere — southern Lebanon — where Israel has proved unable to cut it by itself.

If it’s on to Damascus and Teheran, we’re going alone, baby — albeit with vociferous verbal encouragement and perhaps some useful provocations by Israel.

It’s the old Bush story.

Faulty policy decisions based on wishful thinking and self-serving assumptions.

Reasoned dissent and legitimate opposition are quashed through intimidation, deception, and protestations of moral superiority.

Both allies and enemies are alienated by his reflexive compulsion to coerce and humiliate instead of understand and accommodate.

Underneath it all is Bush’s — and our — callous indifference to failure and responsibility, with the smug confidence that any unfavorable consequences will be suffered by others.

The good news is that having our main military force bogged down in Iraq, popular movements in the Middle East showing their anti-U.S. colors, and the international community wary and suspicious of the U.S., large-scale unilateral adventures against Syria and Iran are less likely.

The bad news is, captive to his own delusions and determined to ignore the deepening mistrust and contempt of the world, Bush won’t stop trying.

Copyright 2005 Peter Lee

Peter Lee is the creator of the anti-war satire and commentary website Halcyon Days. He can be reached at peter@halcyondays.info.