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THE CONSERVATIVE REVIEW - July 13, 2010
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Is Democracy Overrated?
by: Pat Buchanan
With the disintegration of the Soviet Empire and the Soviet
Union, and Beijing's abandonment of Maoism, anti-communism
necessarily ceased to be the polestar of U.S. foreign
policy.
For many, our triumph fairly cried out for a bottom-up
review of all the alliances created to fight that Cold
War and a return to a policy of non-intervention in
foreign quarrels where no vital U.S. interest was
imperiled.
This was dismissed as isolationism. Seeking some new cause
to give meaning to their lives, our suddenly superfluous
foreign policy elites settled upon a crusade for democracy
as America's new mission in the world.
Interventions in Panama, Somalia, Haiti and Bosnia follow-
ed, plus wars in the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan. To
further advance the great goal, the National Endowment
for Democracy and agencies like Freedom House set out to
subvert authoritarian regimes in Belgrade, Caracas, Kiev,
Tbilisi, Beirut and Bishkek.
Cold War methods and means were now to be conscripted --
for democratic ends.
Yet, considering the high cost in blood, money and lost
leadership and prestige since our victory in the Cold War,
the democracy crusade scarcely seems worth it. For while
we have been bogged down in two wars, China has become the
world's leading manufacturer, steelmaker, auto producer
and exporter, and the second largest economy on earth.
Nevertheless, we are ever admonished, we must not flag or
fail in our pursuit of global democracy, for only when the
world is democratic will our providential mission be
accomplished. And only then can we be truly secure.
But setting aside the utopian character of all global
crusades, why do we think that the more democratic the
world is, the more secure and serene America shall be?
Historically, we have often made common cause with
autocrats and dictators when our vital national interests
commanded it. In our Revolution, our indispensable ally
against the Mother of Parliaments was Louis XVI.
In the War of 1812, where our enemy was the Duke of
Wellington, our de facto ally was the tyrant Napoleon.
During our war with Mexico, the Brits were on their side,
not ours. During our Civil War, Tsar Alexander I wished
us well, while the British wanted to see the United States
permanently divided and weakened.
Democratic Sweden, Switzerland and Ireland were neutrals
in World War II, while the China of Generalissimo Chiang
Kai-shek and the Soviet Union of Joseph Stalin did most
of the dying on the Allied side.
During Vietnam, autocratic South Korea and Ferdinand Marcos
in the Philippines sent troops. The Brits and French traded
with the enemy. Gen. Pinochet, who seized power in a coup
in 1973, was a better friend than Chile's Salvador Allende,
who was elected. While the Nixon White House did not cause
Allende's ouster, neither did they weep over it.
Democratic France denied Ronald Reagan overflight rights
for his F-111s to hit Moammar Gadhafi's Libya in retali-
ation for a terrorist attack, but Portugal's dictatorship
gave permission for Nixon to use the Azores as a fueling
station in resupplying Israel during the Yom Kippur war.
Ought not nations judge friends less by the ideals they
profess than by how they behave when you need them most?
Moreover, any 21st-century democracy must sooner or later,
through elections, reflect the most powerful of the
currents surging through society. And, outside the West,
and even in parts of the West, what are these?
Ethno-nationalism, fundamentalism, anti-Americanism.
When President Bush demanded elections in Egypt, Lebanon
and Palestine, the winners were the Muslim Brotherhood,
Hezbollah and Hamas.
Bush's enthusiasm for democracy seemed to wane after that.
The largest democracies in Latin America, Africa, the
Middle East and Asia -- Brazil, South Africa, Turkey and
India -- are all moving away from the United States.
Brazil and India are lining up with China to oppose limits
on carbon emissions that would impede their growth.
India and China are resisting concessions to save the
Doha Round of trade negotiations. South Africa leads the
continent in sheltering the racist tyranny of Robert
Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Brazil and Turkey launched a joint
diplomatic initiative to help Iran break free of its U.S.
-imposed isolation and of the U.N. sanctions regime.
Turkey is the archetype of a democratic nation moving away
from America, as Ankara more accurately reflects the will
of its people.
By moving Turkey off the secularist course set by Ataturk,
moving closer to Iran and Syria, denouncing and defying
Israel for its war in Gaza and treatment of the
Palestinians, President Erdogan has increased his own and
his Islamic party's standing.
In Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt, anti-Americanism and
fundamentalist fever are both running high. Why would we
want free elections in these nations if the inevitable
result would be regimes far more hostile to our interests
than the present governments?
America would do well to downgrade the ideological
component of its foreign policy and start putting her
national interests first.
Not all autocrats are enemies; not all democrats are
friends.
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