A long time ago in another life when I labored under the illusion that I could make a difference I wrote an over long but fact filled piece that got about 10 hits. Democracy a fools errand or our only way out? Jeane Kirkpatrick responds In this article I set about tearing up the idea that Democracy was some sort of a good idea. The idea for centering the article around Jeanne Kirkpatrick came to me after her passing while I was catching up on her brilliance as our UN Ambassador. Ronald Reagan knew how to pick them. In the particular piece that caught Reagan’s eye was a absolutely damning argument against forcing democracy onto everyone. You can read this wonderful article for yourself here.
Well I am glad to see that Henry Kissinger has confirmed my belief that this Crusade President Bush has launched in the Middle East will not accomplish our main goal, securing our future from terror nations. Here is Henry Kissinger via the Corner:
Last months election in Pakistan, far from calming the political crisis, has opened a new phase, and the world has a huge stake in the outcome.
Stanley Kurtz translates for us:
Translation: Elections that were supposed to solidify popular and government support for the war on terror have had exactly the opposite result. The effects of Bush�s post-9/11 pressure on Musharraf have been largely nullified and the situation is rapidly slipping out of our control.
Henry Kissinger again:
The goal (of giving democratic backing to the war on terror) was laudable. But the results of the election as in Gaza show that theoretical preconceptions do not necessarily provide practical remedies, especially in the short term.
Stanley with another translation of diplomatic speak:
Translation: You’d think that after the victory of Hamas in Gaza folks would have realized that elections by themselves do not an authentic liberal democracy make. Nope. We’ve been fooled again (by our own naive hopes).
Henry’s piece was in the Washington Post and I have not been able to find a link but his quote ends up:
[In much of the Third World] democratic pluralism lacks a social basis especially in states proclaiming the identity of church and state in the name of a universal religion…..the relation between Pakistans three feudal-type organizations, the military and the two major political parties, has more of the character of those among Italian city-states during the Renaissance described by Machiavelli than of the party politics of traditional democracies….The difference between feudal leaders who wear uniforms and those in civilian clothes is in their constituencies, not in their commitment to a pluralistic process as we understand it.
We do not have the choice between national security and democratic evolution. Both are important objectives but may be achievable only on different time scales.
My translation: Are you people nuts? These folks in the Middle East and the Near East are just getting out of the era of Tribal law and you want to force the highest achievement of Western Civilization down their throats? And you expect anything good to come out of that???
Here is Jeane Kirkpatrick sounding the same theme…man you might think this stuff was obvious if the two heaviest weights of Republican Foreign Policy echo each other across 27 years. Hmmm?
Jeane Kirkpatrick: But once an attack was launched by opponents bent on destruction, everything changed . The rise of serious, violent opposition in Iran and Nicaragua set in motion a succession of events which bore a suggestive resemblance to one another and a suggestive similarity to our behavior in China before the fall of Chiang Kai-shek, in Cuba before the triumph of Castro, in certain crucial periods of the Vietnamese war, and, more recently, in Angola. In each of these countries, the American effort to impose liberalization and democratization on a government confronted with violent internal opposition not only failed, but actually assisted the coming to power of new regimes in which ordinary people enjoy fewer freedoms and less personal security than under the previous autocracy -regimes, moreover, hostile to American interests and policies . (emphasis mine)
And much more:
Jeane Kirkpatrick: Although�most governments in the world are, as they always have been, autocracies of one kind or another, no idea holds greater sway in the mind of educated Americans than the belief that it is possible to democratize governments, anytime, anywhere, under any circumstances.(emphasis mine)
This notion is belied by an enormous body of evidence based on the experience of dozens of countries which have attempted with more or less (usually less) success to move from autocratic to democratic government . Many of the wisest political scientists of this and previous centuries agree that democratic institutions are especially difficult to establish and maintain-because they make heavy demands on all portions of a population and because they depend on complex social, cultural, and economic conditions.(emphasis mine)
How did we get here? Exactly where was the debate within our political class? I thought the idea was to prevent another 9/11 or worse. How is turning over countries to the Islamic Maniacs by vote accomplish that task? Does the fact that they achieved power by the vote mean their goals have all of the sudden become noble?
Are we at war with these folks because we disagree with their values or merely because we disagreed with their methods of achieving a world where only their values are considered valuable? Had Osama achieved his goals by a vote would we have applauded?
The Corner on National Review Online
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