The idea of establishing a 'beachhead' of anything--democracy, liberty, free markets, whatever--certainly has a long lineage. It is frightening to see the parallels between the current US administration's sanctimonious speeches on bringing 'peace and justice' to the Middle East and the words of colonial British and French administrators in the late 19th and early 20th century describing their 'civilizing mission' in their empires. Similar too to the post-WWII development rhetoric of the US (see particularly Harry Truman's call to arms against 'underdevelopment'). I find it highly suspect that a forcible 'regime change' could ever result in democratization.
Some argue along the Bush lines that to leave Saddam Hussein in power is to both leave a credible long-term threat dormant and to condemn the Iraqi people to a slow death. I think this is patent bullshit. Hussein is a power-hungry, despotic megalomania--but hell, he was that in the 1980s when he was the US's bulwark against Islamist Iran, and when Donald Rumsfeld was Reagan's. Whether he's a threat or not to US security is debateable but creating social and political change through force is a pretty risky strategy. I would look at the change in places like Brazil, where military dictatorships were overcome in large part through the sustained pressure from civil society groups as a much more sustainable and realistic (though more long-term) process. I also thought that Reeve's response to you was far more ambiguous than a simple endorsement of the Bush strategy. He seems to indicate some concern that there will not be a long-term committment to aiding change in the region. It's ironic too, that the Bush team's strategy for invasion was stalled by the response of a (nominally) democratic nation (Turkey) while the authoritarian US ally Kuwait could follow the US lead regardless of internal dissent. I just don't see that the Bush administration has a sincere or genuine committment to democracy (why not try to urge their supposed allies in the region--such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, etc--to become the 'beachheads', rather than launching a war?). Not that I think you can ever bomb someone into democracy. One last point: fundamentalism has a long history, and Islamic fundamentalism (or Christian or Hindu for that matter) certainly doesn't start with the 1980s. Similarly, to suggest that Islamic groups realized the power of terrorism only post-TWA hijacking is to ignore centuries of warfare outside of the 'rules of combat' that Rumsfeld is so fond of. Terrorism has always been about achieving political gains (as opposed to simple extortion and violent crime), but a form that doesn't have the legitimacy or authority of the state. When Arminius decimated the Roman legions in Teutoberger Wald, when the Scots burned Durham and York during their War of Independence, when groups such as the Irgun and the Stern Gang attacked British administrators and Arab civilians alike during the British Mandate of Palestine, when Indian National Congress members bombed colonial buildings and attacked barracks, these were all acts of violence as a way of enabling political ends. I'm not in any way trying to compare Al-Quaeda to freedom fighters, particularly as the world they are trying to inaugaurate is so odious. But this idea that somehow violence and 'terrorism' is a new thing is simply wrong. It's just that some forms of violence are supposedly ok and some are illegitimate. I too am very much in favour of bringing peace and stability to the Middle East. But it is very hard to take seriously the position that greater military force and civilian destruction will accomplish this goal. The US has, through successive administrations, supported dictatorial and authoritarian regimes, ones that have crushed any semblance of internal dissent, debate and democracy (with the singular exception of Israel, which is in many ways a hell of a lot more of a democracy than the US is, even if it is currently being run by a fascist tyrant). There seems to be this underlying racist and paternalistic assumption that 'Arabs' don't know (or don't want?) democracy, that they don't wish to participate in the decisions that affect their daily lives. But it's pretty damned hard to build an egalitarian society when your country is run by tin-pot dictators and authoritarian bullies who exacerbate existing ethnic differences, exploit natural resources, and build vast personal empires, all the while being provided with more and more sophisticated weapons by the 'developed' world (not only the US, but also Russia and western Europe). Why was an arms supply never cut off to these places? Why is democracy invoked only as a precursor to a bloody invasion? Pablo ___________________________________________________________ FoIB Mailing List - Bits, Analysis, Digital Group Therapy http://www.ianbell.com
