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> Comment: 16 Feb 06

American Global Democracy vs.
Self-Determination

Karen Hughes of the U.S. State Department sure has her work cut out for her, fixing America's image in the Arab world. It's not that what we preach is all that bad; it's the practice that leaves so much to be desired.

We protest that there are no plans to meddle with Palestine's government (witness yesterday's New York Times, in which a State Department spokesman insisted that there is no "plan, project, plot, conspiracy to destabilize or undermine a future Palestinian government"), while we confirm our plans to "cut off aid and transfers of tax receipts to a Hamas-led Palestinian government" if it refuses to comply with imposed conditions.

Our highest State Department official is looking for $75 million to fund "social change" in Iran (the Washington Post reports today), while our professed commitment to democracy continues in routine policy statements. (One may be forgiven for naively imagining that democracy implies the right of people right to choose their own way of life, choose their own leaders, and even work out their own problems, without the benefit of foreign "funding".)

Leaving aside the question of whether the incumbent Iranian leader is good or bad, or the electoral victory of Hamas is a positive or negative thing, the disconnect between American protestations of wanting to "spread democracy" and our penchant for actively re-shaping societies whose activities don't measure up to standards set by the U.S. is glaring. Nowhere is this better illustrated in how the American government behaved towards Iraq from the Iran-Iraq war, through the end of the Hussein era, and even now, in the era of its foreign-backed puppet government. And nowhere is this illustration more compellingly made than in the explosive two-volume collection, Neo-CONNED! and Neo-CONNED! Again.

They say that "those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it." While it is not yet certain that we're headed for disaster in Iran or an explosion in Palestine, the catastrophe of Iraq is an accomplished fact that bears close scrutiny. Twenty-three hundred Americans and untold thousands of Iraqis are dead because the realities of domestic and international law, Iraqi national pride, foreign policy prudence, and historical truth are of less interest to our policymakers than is a fantasy about "spreading democracy." Unless and until the American citizenry becomes outraged over the ongoing violation of law and justice in Iraq -- contrary to the popular rhetoric -- the bloodshed will continue, and the possibility of another foreign policy debacle will loom ever larger.

Were it not so tragic, it would almost be laughable that on the day that more gut-wrenching photos of detainee degradation in Abu Ghraib were released by Salon.com, the U.S. ambassador of America's chief ally in the Middle East warns the Palestinians of their obligation to "abide by international norms." What a novel idea.