Bargains with the devil never end well. For decades, successive U.S. administrations have embraced autocratic, repressive regimes in the Arab world - and now, as we see in the bloody streets of Cairo, it's time to pay the price.
That is the opening paragraph of No more free passes for Egypt and other Arab autocracies, a must-read column in today's Washington Post by Pulitzer Prize winner Eugene Robinson.
But it is about much more than just the current situation in Egypt.
Our support of a dictatorial government in Egypt must be seen in light of our own history.
What can we say about that history?
It is a history of which too many Americans are oblivious.
It is a history which includes ongoing support of dictatorial regimes throughout the Middle East and elsewhere.
It is a history in which we have too often acquiesced in dictatorships in Africa and Asia.
It is a history in which we regularly supported dictatorships and totalitarian regimes in our own hemisphere, just so long as they mouthed anti-communist phrases.
It is a history in which we had a leading official of the Reagan Administration, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, argue that there was a difference between totalitarian regimes - a term which for her included the USSR and its allies/satellites - and authoritarian regimes such as those in Latin America and elsewhere with whom we did business and for whom we offered support.
Robinson reminds us of much of this. He tells us that we should not be surprised that Mubarak is acting like a dictator - and I might note if that words offends you, because he has the veneer of elections, simply replace it with tyrant - his is clearly a tyrannical regime. As for elections, Hitler came to power by election, and the USSR and its satellites regularly had elections to provide the veneer of legitimacy of their brutal regimes.
Robinson reminds us of our willingness, and that of our real allies in Europe, to support tyrants so long as they provided us with some perceived benefit. For example, he writes
You will recall that even Saddam Hussein was once in the "useful tyrant" category, partly because of Iraq's huge oil reserves and partly because he had been considerate enough to launch a war against Iran.
It was only when Iraq invaded Kuwait and thereby also threatened the more useful tyrannies of Saudi Arabia and the smaller Gulf states that we chose to go after the regime of Saddamn.
Robinson's column is as usual well written. He provides a good overview of our history of supporting tyrannical regimes.
I want to quote his final two paragraphs, and then offer some additional thoughts of my own, flowing especially from the final paragraph. After telling us bluntly that everything has changed, he writes
If the Egyptian regime can be challenged by ordinary citizens demanding freedom and democracy, any regime in the Arab world can be so challenged. The United States will not be able to dictate events, but neither will it be able to stand idly by - not where our non-democratic allies are concerned.
When push comes to shove, American officials must uphold American values. We made a bargain whose term has lapsed. Settling final accounts will not be pleasant
When push comes to shove, American officials must uphold American values. This for me is the key point, and one which we have far too often been unwilling to confront, hell, to even acknowledge its importance.
There is something fundamentally immoral about our willingness to support tyrannies in the oil-rich nations of the Gulf region in order to have a ready access to petroleum - it is as if the convenience of our ability to have personal mobility through our automobiles outweighs the suffering of people in such regimes.
It is also more than mild hypocrisy for us to complain about the lack of liberty in the regime in oil-rich Venezuela and to acquiesce in the far worse tyranny in places like Saudi Arabia, or before 1990 in Iraq.
And yet, I do not think that we should be surprised by the way our foreign policy seems contrary to the principles that supposedly define our nation. Much of our domestic policy can easily be similarly categorized as in conflict with our principles. I think our Founders would have been shocked by much of what we tolerate in our current society. Yes, they tolerated slavery, but more than a few spoke out against it and attempted to eliminate it. Some were very wealthy, and certainly they were protective of property, but they had a belief in real opportunity for all and were quite clear that they did not want permanent class divisions, hence the ban on any titles of nobility, whether offered by the federal government or the states.
Despite our historic flaws as a nation - and as one who has taught American History as well as government I am well aware of these - we have for much of our history had a general trend of in the direction of liberty, in attempting to ameliorate the worst impact of economic inequities and suffering.
Yet at the same time there has always been a portion of our society that thinks that they are entitled to maximum liberty even if it restricts the liberty and safety of others. This is most often evident in the assertions by those of wealth and economic power against the interests of the larger population. It is why some have been so virulently opposed to any part of social welfare programs because they argue it is an infringement on their rights of property, even if it means abject suffering for large portions of our populace. By their reasoning we would not only NOT provide any health benefits or social security or unemployment through the government, we should not have minimum wages or occupational health and safety regulations, or perhaps even food and beverage and pharmaceutical safety. All should be subject to the magic invisible hand of market forces. But they advocate only part of Adam Smith, who posited a system in which all players had perfect information, which has never been the case in our economy. Further, these advocates of free markets when regulations might impinge upon their freedom of action have no trouble arguing for government action that protects their economic interest, even if it impinges upon the freedom of others, thus they fight tooth and nail against unions, the only mechanism by which those of lesser individual economic power can have sufficient collective power to avoid being overwhelmed and crushed.
Robinson is right - our foreign policy should live up to our ideals. That is far more than merely whether or not we support tyrannical regimes. It certainly includes whether we use such regimes through extraordinary rendition to do things rightly illegal under our laws, including torture - although apparently illegality was insufficient to rein in the CIA and some in the military for how some in our custody were treated.
But all of our government policies should be consistent with our ideals, otherwise our ideals are meaningless. Many of us objected to things we saw wrong in the previous administration. That included the government spying on its own people through the telecomms. Yet our elected representatives allowed the telecomms and the administration to walk away from proper accountability. Our ideals presume a balance of power among the branches each with its distinct role, yet signing statements and the refusal of the Congress to push back against them tilted power too much to the executive branch.
We had an election in which at least some of these issues were why we had a substantive Democratic victory, for an administration which promised a different way of doing things. Yet we have seen in too many areas where the current administration continues to accumulate power at the expense of the legislative, while at the same time NOT asserting its executive leadership in others. It wants no earmarks, thereby limiting the ability of the Congress to serve their districts and states, while it refused to exercise leadership on health care reform, thus allowing the rise of a tea party movement that is fundamentally anti-democratic insofar as it seeks to crush any point of view with which it does not agree.
Our history is not entirely bleak. Domestically we have been inspired by leadership that led to the New Deal and the Great Society. In foreign affairs we were able to contain the spread of Soviet style communism, and we helped shepherd the independence of nations in Africa and Asia from their status as colonies of several of our closest allies. Yet even in this latter case we often did so for our economic reasons, just as we had in our advocacy for an Open Door policy in China.
America must pay attention to economic interests. But if those are allowed to outweigh all other issues, then perhaps Eugene Robinson is wrong - it is not a question of living up to any other set of ideal about popular sovereignty, or of independent liberty. All that matters is that SOME Americans can get very rich. Perhaps that is the one true American ideal?
If so, then my life work is wasted. Instead I should be teaching my students the words of Gordon Gekko, that greed is good.
If we believe in something more, we must strive as a nation and a society to be somewhat more consistent. We should assert the principles that guide us not only in our domestic policies, but in how our government acts on our behalf beyond our borders.
I started by calling Robinson's column a must read. I still think so. It provides an occasion to start a different kind of conversation, one that includes historical awareness that is far too often lacking in our public discourse.
Read the Robinson.
And thanks for reading me.
Peace.