Can America really challenge every tin pot despot? Why not?
Whenever America finds itself squared off against a Third World tyrant — Kim Jong Il, for example, or Saddam Hussein, or the latest entanglement with Moammar Qaddafi — someone inevitably floats that sly old rhetorical question:
“Can we really take on every tin pot despot in the world?”
The question, peeled to its squishy core, is an argument in favor of doing as little as possible to make a complicated and often ugly world a little better.
The implication is that our globe is so relentlessly grim, plagued by so many dictators and tyrants and thugs in so many benighted corners, that there is really no point in getting our hands dirty.
And really, trying to foster enlightenment and freedom in Africa or the Middle East or Asia — that’s sort of like moving a mountain of sand with a tea spoon, isn’t it?
But this is one of those many cases where the pessimists — the “realists,” as they like to describe themselves — are on the wrong side of history, and the wrong side of the facts.
Consider this. A few centuries ago, slavery was the norm and the vast majority of humans were the property of other people.
In Adam Hochschild’s brilliant history of the early abolitionist movement, “Bury the Chains,” he quotes the historian Seymour Drescher, who points out that for most of recorded history “freedom, not slavery, was the peculiar institution.”
Indeed, not so very long ago, it was considered a given that this personal despotism was the gold standard of human affairs, a premise accepted with hardly a second thought by the most enlightened Greek philosophers and the most devout Christian sages.
But in the 1700s, activists and the governments they swayed put an end to the network of industrial slavery that was at the center of the world’s economy.
The radical new philosophy was summed up beautifully in our own national charter.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
In many ways, the American Civil War was a sort of final aftershock, as we literally redefined what it meant to be human.
If this all sounds like ancient history, abolitionism isn’t the only evidence that we should think bigger and more boldly about the poential for human freedom in the world.
As recently as the early 1900s, women in most societies were still considered property. They were denied the franchise, and viewed literally as an inferior appendage of homo sapiens.
In a single lifetime, a profound and shockingly swift revolution redefined the way woman are viewed and view themselves.
Women are now poised to match or even eclipse men in many of the most powerful and lucrative professions.
And there is clear evidence that the pace of human liberation — and its role as the dominant trend of the last century — is actually accelerating.
Consider that before 1910, there were a grand total of eight democratic countries in the world, representing a tiny fraction of the globe’s population.
Even many of those “free” societies — including the US and the United Kingdom — made it a common practice to subjugate, displace or even exterminate other peoples who happened to fall under their sway.
As recently as the 1940s, democracy was still in serious question as a method by which great nations could arrange their affairs.
Plenty of thoughtful and well-meaning people were convinced that fascism or communism might prove to be better, more sustainable and orderly systems.
But by 2009, according to one fairly hard-nosed estimate by an organization called Freedom House, there were 89 fully democratic countries in the world where the citizens live largely free of tyranny.
They represent 46% of the world’s population, and comprise the globe’s most dynamic and vibrant economies.
Freedom House also identified another 62 nations where the citizens were “partly free,” which means that democracy exists but there are “restrictions on political rights and civil liberties.” These “halfway there” countries make up another 20% of the world’s population.
Which means that in a single human lifetime two-thirds of humanity has achieved a significant measure of democracy.
(Fascism and communism, so recently in vogue, are now viewed as dead-ends in human affairs, almost as quaint as monarchies.)
It’s important to celebrate the fact that some of these transitions seemed nearly impossible even a few decades ago. When I began my career as a journalist, stable peace and democracy in Northern Ireland was inconceivable.
A functioning, multi-racial democracy in South Africa was the stuff of dreamers and college campus hippies.
Indeed, this happy transformation has been so rapid and pervasive that it has forced many of us to abandon some glaring prejudices.
Many in the West thought it inconceivable that Muslims or Africans or Asians or South Americans– name your particular bias — could ever embrace, or sort through the complexities and ambiguities, of representative government.
A quarter century ago, fully half of Latin America was ruled by despots. But these days, fully or partially functioning democracies exist in all but a handful of those nations.
Democracy has also emerged as the norm in countries where the vast majority of Muslims live, from Indonesia and India to Turkey and Bangladesh.
Events of the past year in the Arab world suggest that this tidal wave of freedom continues.
Ina few short months, people’s movements in some of the most repressive countries on earth toppled tyrants and forced liberalization.
Which brings us back to America’s role. It’s a shameful thing that too often, the “realists” among us have placed our own democracy on the wrong side of this transformational century.
We have thwarted efforts at freedom and propped up dictators, in the hope of advancing our “national interests.”
In his speech earlier this month, President Barack Obama acknowledged the moral dubiousness of our behavior, as well as its practical dangers.
“Moreover, failure to speak to the broader aspirations of ordinary people will only feed the suspicion that has festered for years that the United States pursues our own interests at their expense,” said Mr. Obama.
And really, in an era when terrorism and nuclear proliferation are among the gravest threats to America’s interest, can there be any goal more practical and self-serving than fostering stable democracies?
These trends of the last half-century also pose challenges to the thinking of Americans, on the right and left, who distrust the use of military power as a means of effecting positive change.
It seems fairly obvious that armed intervention should be a tool of last resort, and can often do more harm than good.
But from Panama to Kosovo to Sudan — and perhaps even in Afghanistan and Iraq — there is evidence that military power, wielded professionally and deliberately, can be an effective and moral democratizing force.
(This thorny question is once again being tested at the moment in Libya, where NATO forces are fighting alongside rebels against Qaddafi’s regime.)
Obviously, these fast-moving trends in human history pose even more fundamental questions to repressive countries like China, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Syria.
These are vibrant, complex societies, with educated and productive middle classes.
On some level, their leaders must grasp that they are outliers and anachronisms.
There is literally no evidence in the last century that oppression and military power can serve as more than temporary bulwarks against the hunger for freedom.
Those tyrants who thought otherwise — from Hitler and Mussolini to Pinochet and Ratko Mladic — found themselves marginalized, imprisoned, or worse.
This is also a time for somber reflection in Israel, a proud democracy whose military occupies the legally defined territory of another people, the Palestinians.
Whatever the reasons for this occupation — and the Israelis have legitimate concerns about their security — it is both morally and practically unsustainable. If the last century is any guide, it is a state of affairs that cannot endure.
Indeed, events are moving swiftly now. Industrial slavery was largely abolished in little more than a century.
It now appears that in a comparable span of time — say, from 1940 to 2040 — national despotism could suffer a similar fate.
So next time someone asks that sneaky, lazy question — “Can we really take on every tyrant, every dictator?” — we can shrug and say, “Why not? There aren’t that many left.”
Tags: politics
The real question is HOW we take them on. We simply cannot convert by sword. Our current budget woes are due in a significant part of trying to change just two of the world’s despot states. Trying to change the rest of the world in a similar fashion would bankrupt us quickly.
But we can set an example for the rest of the world to follow and use ‘soft’ diplomacy (bolstering the youth movements in the middle east, for example). I think true isolationism (a la Ron Paul) is a minority position in this country.
Good fences make good neighbors. It’s time for the US to mind its own business and not force change on other countries (who are we to demand that other countries become democracies?).
I don’t think we need to attack every jerk everywhere and strongly believe the best approach is to lead by example.
There was never a better time to lead by example than now. Now with the Internet and all the other forms of mass communication, it grows more and more difficult for despots to control the masses. They try and as the try, they become desperate as is clearly seen by the actions of terrorists and jerks such as Gadahfi.
Good fences may make good neighbors but walls do not. In fact, the best fence of all – and this includes Mexico – is to help create a situation where people want to live where they are, rather than escape to other countries where there is more freedom and better economic opportunities.
“A quarter century ago, fully half of Latin America was ruled by despots. But these days, fully or partially functioning democracies exist in all but a handful of those nations.
Democracy has also emerged as the norm in countries where the vast majority of Muslims live, from Indonesia and India to Turkey and Bangladesh.”
The problem in the past has been that countries went through a democratic transition and then we didn’t like the leaders who were chosen democratically, so we had them overthrown — or tried to. We need to take a longer view of world events. The other problem is the political process in this country only allows planning in 2 year increments or at most 8 years before the other party gets in power and starts to undo the previous policy.
Who is we? The US, the West in general, the G20, the G8? Who is in charge of the world?
You have written an eloquent defense of the invasion of Iraq. Saddam Husain was much worse than quaddafi, so just that in itself under your logic would have justified the invasion, just another tin pot dictator for the US to take down, easy stuff man. It is not a lazy response to avoid imperialism. We are not in charge of Israel. As long as terrorist groups speak for the Palestinians the current state of affairs will continue and it is sustainable why wouldn’t it be?
I would be in favor of Germany or France or the UK taking on some of these dictators they have already paid for health insurance for their people.
Under no circumstances should Obama have given the green light to the Palestinians. That was simply and clearly the wrong thing to do. The Palestinians have been offered everything under the sun and refused. What Obama did is nearly criminal.
“So next time someone asks that sneaky, lazy question — “Can we really take on every tyrant, every dictator?” — we can shrug and say, “Why not? There aren’t that many left.”
Why not? You can seriously say that with the thousands of young American men and women who are dead, disabled and suffering from our interventions, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of civilians who have died? You can shrug at that?
Iraq was a trillion dollars and 10 years. We can only do one or two of those at a time. If I am doing the math ok, 300 million Americans at 100 billion dollars per year, that works out to $300 per year per American per despot.
and Bret – speaking as someone whose cousins fought in that ’67 war and most of whom still live in that 9 mile wide section of pre-67 Israel, what Obama said was only what both sides have agreed to for years. Whether saying it publicly was a good idea or not, time will tell.
I wish just once our goverment would tell it like it is right up front. Bush went into Iraq to get those nasty weapons. When they weren’t there the mission changed into Get Saddam. Two months ago O’Bama said the military intervention was not about regime change but was a humaitarian mission that would last “days not months”. The current mission is clearly Get Qaddafi. Can’t our leaders ever level with us?
President Obama is the President of the United States not Israel. Israel is not the 51st state it is a nation and will make its own decisions in its own defense we may agree with them we may not. I think the most we may want to look at is how much money we are giving them, but we should do that for all of our foreign aid which in my opinion is actually hurting our interests around the globe.
But as far as drawing maps and telling people where their country is or is not, that is what occupiers do not free nations who support the self determination of other people. Our meddling actually hurts the situation as both sides have someone to blame and someone to rely on, if they both really understood that this was their problem alone and no one was going to bale them out or come to their rescue they would likely come to an agreement.
Peter, words from the US Prez carry weight, like it or not. Israel has enough problems without us screwing things up even more.
Another wrinkle: There is a strong theme in American thought that fears democracy.
Who, we ask, are these people that are rebelling against tyranny in Egypt and Tunisia and wherever? Who are they really? Do we know how they will behave if they are free? Will they use their freedom to do what we want? Ohdear. What if they become free to choose their own friends and allies instead of embracing ours? What if they have a free election and choose leaders we don’t like? Ohdear. This democracy thing is a problem.
America doesn’t fear democracy, America fears attacks from her enemies be they democratically elected or tin pot despots. Our mistake is ignoring American exceptionalism and assuming the rest of the world has the character to do as we did over the past 230 years and embrace the possibilities. No, that doesn’t mean we’re perfect, but our lousy system is still better than anyone elses.
Why is America always so afraid? I’m not afraid. But then I don’t listen to fear-mongers very often because it hurts my eyes to roll them so much.
“Fear” is just the word mayflower chose. Call it concern or whatever you want.
I’m sure much of your concern over right wing efforts could be categorized by someone as fear Knuck. Playing word games doens’t change the issue.
B
Part of it is the arrogance of control. We can’t control these things anyway even if we try we end up with an outcome we did not expect. Why would we be smarter than the people who live in these nations we are trying to help?
We should be disengaging from military action around the globe not calling for more. Diplomacy and trade policy are cheap in both lives and money we should focus on those areas. This Libya adventure is something we should totally pull out of. Civil war is part of the Democratic process.
so sensible, mervel! how are you not a democrat?
ahah hermit,
You know there is a strong conservative tradition of not getting entangled in in all of these civil wars around the world. Pat Buchanan was against Desert Storm and the second Iraq war as was Ron Paul.
of course you’re right, mervel, but the kind of conservatism you espouse — and more generally, the deliberate, reasonable way you process the world — has been mostly driven out of the gop. its natural home is now much more with the democrats. it’s not going to stay that way forever, but that’s how it is right now.
It could be, at some base level it is probably the reason I am not a registered Republican.
I also found it kind of ironic that Rand Paul was one of the louder voices trying to stop the renewal of the Patriot Act.
It would be good for the country I think to have groups across the political spectrum that believe in individual liberty and limited government imperial adventures, which is what most “humanitarian” missions are anyway.
Well I hope all of those who think it is easy and important to take on tin pot dictators encourage their children to join the military to be deployed to these places to take on these pesky people.