Seeker Blog

In If you are not part of the solution… Dr. Demarche writes

The anti-war left of the 1960s produced the ubiquitous phrase from which today’s title is drawn, and made very effective use of it. It seems, however, that many of the current liberal elite have no desire to look in the mirror and ask what, exactly, they are doing to make the world a better, safer, place. The constant anti-Bush rhetoric and America blaming by the likes of Noam Chomsky produces great sound-bites and catch phrases, but as far as I can tell offers little in the way of useful problem solving. They want America out of Iraq, NOW! OK. Then what? I keep expecting someone, anyone, on the left to make a well reasoned, thoughtful suggestion. I am repeatedly disappointed.

To this end I try to keep up with the writings of the faithful opposition, which lead me to Common Dreams today, a site which bills itself as “Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.” I found a piece there by Juan Cole (professor of modern Middle Eastern and North African studies at the University of Michigan) that was originally published in the L.A. Times, titled “The Downside of Democracy: What if the U.S. doesn’t like what the voters like in the Mideast and beyond?” An excellent question, one with which I have struggled myself. The Iraqis could very well elect a mullahcrocy, if not now then in the near future. As Mr. Cole asks:

…What if the newly elected regimes are friendly to states and groups that Washington considers enemies? What if the spread of democracy through the region empowers elements that don’t share American values and goals?

As I read the beginning of this article I thought that today was the day, at last, where I would find what I have long yearned for- a legitimate contribution from the left, no whining, no brow-beating, but a useful piece of thinking that might help America, Iraq and our allies move forward. Of course, I was let down once again. Mr. Cole abandoned his opportunity to be part of the solution with the rest of the article…

In closing Dr. Demarche challenges his readers "to answer the good professor’s questions posed above".

I undertook to answer, but the answer grew too long-winded for the comments section. So I’ll post it here.

My answer is that we have no viable alternative strategy that will reverse the spread of Islamist hate. The press latches onto the idea that the Bush doctrine is about democracy. It is, but what will stop the geometric growth of jihadis is jobs and cultural integration - both of which are a consequence of economic integration. Besides the widely agreed benefits of democracy, it is overall the most successful form of government for economic progress. So I support the policy. I recognize that departing from the old "stability first" policy opens the possibilities Prof. Cole describes. While I don’t think there is an alternative, I do think we can "manage through" the possible outcomes.

What if the newly elected regimes are friendly to states and groups that Washington considers enemies? I think this part of the question is a straw man. The US "enemies-list" is very short:

1) states that (a) have or are attempting to achieve WMD capability, and (b) are not considered deterrable (North Korea, not relevant to our ME case).

2) states that support or provide safe haven for terrorist groups with "global reach" (Iran, Syria, very relevant as they are prime targets of the strategy).

The terrorists of concern are the Islamists (or Islamo-fascists if you prefer) who follow the Wahhabi medievalist teachings. For a current report on what those teachings are, see Saudi Publications on Hate Ideology Fill American Mosques. The Islamists are the primary serious threat because of the product of (muslim Demographics) X (Unemployment) X (Intolerance). That equation means a virtually unlimited supply of jihadis who want you dead or converted.

What if the spread of democracy through the region empowers elements that don’t share American values and goals? Well, that definition would include at least France and Belgium. I propose that we don’t need to be concerned about every detail of the form of government. Our criteria for a good/bad result in each State "X" is a silly-simple question:

Are companies such as Macdonalds, Dell and Nike wanting to launch new businesses in "X"?

A positive answer tells us a lot:

1) risk is acceptable: which means there is established rule of law, a stable government, government policy is hospitable to foreign investment, and there is an absence of military conflict.

2) that State "X" is moving from the "Gap" to the "Core" because the economy is integrating with the global economy.

Point #2 is to me the only practical option for defeating the Islamists, and I believe forms the core of the Bush policy. The "stability at all costs policy" has brought us the current situation: the Islamists will out-populate the west with age 15 to 25 unemployed, uneducated male jihadis. That is, if their societies remain isolated from globalization, and mainly educated by the Saudi-funded madrassas.

So what are the ways that things can go wrong with the promotion of democracy strategy? Personally, of the possible failure paths in the ME, I think the theocracy outcome is the most likely. One can imagine a theocracy that passes the "Macdonalds test", but it’s a big ask. I also find it difficult to imagine a democratic-Islamic-theocracy. Which ME states, if offered free and fair elections, are candidates to choose an Iran-like theocracy (one man, one vote, one time)?

** Iraq? probably not (the Iraqi Shia have a tradition opposite to Iran, clerics do not involve themselves in governing. My recall of the Iraqi polls last year was a max response of 20% favored an "Islamic state", but never more than 1% favored a "Taliban-like state". We don’t know what the pollees thought an Islamic state would be. "Iran-like state" never polled as high as the 20%, and from the Taliban-like result we can infer not much attraction to the Iran model. That said, I worry how much of the new constitution will reflect Sharia law).

** Iran? unlikely (any state that has "enjoyed" a theocracy will not chose that path until the reality is forgotten).

** Afghanistan? unlikely, similar logic - but the demographics are not as favorable as Iran.

** Lebanon? very unlikely given their sectarian and multi-religious history.

** Syria? don’t know, but understand their history to be secular.

** Egypt? don’t know, but a worry - the Muslim Brotherhood is strong there, and because of the suppression we do not know how strong (no useful polls).

** Saudi? very likely, and worse, it will be a Wahhabi theocracy.

I will speculate that the Bush-Rice strategists hope to "manage" a gradual transition in these theocracy-prone cases. Such that unrestricted elections are deferred until real progress has been made to move the state towards economic integration. If the economic integration can get far enough along before the Islamists take control, then I think we can relax about an Islamist outcome. To succeed we have to get a significant proportion of those young males employed, and enough of them educated so they can participate in the global economy beyond making Nikes.

But, suppose it "turns to custard": say Egypt and Saudi go Islamist. How would that outcome be managed back on track?

Both are so hungry for revenue that I don’t think we need worry about the oil-embargo weapon. What we need is a policy that will lead to economic integration in the shortest time, while at the same time prevents the propogation of Islamist-terror. We don’t want a policy that leaves the broken state in economic isolation - that just breeds more jihadis.

As with Iran’s nuclear ambitions today, the most powerful policy tools are the economic carrot/stick combination - which are only effective if there is unity: Europe, Russia and China must agree to cooperate. So managing a bad-actor theocracy entails:

** Job #1 is to forge cooperation on a unified economic carrot/stick (I assume SE Asia, Japan and the Anglosphere will cooperate).

** A zero tolerance policy w/r/t terrorist support. Does this imply a quarantine? If so, again we need a unified coalition - to cut the financial threads, to prevent travel in-out of the quarantined states, etc.

** Anti-terrorism enforcement will be greatly enhanced by the support of the Iraqi government. If the US has reasonably unfettered basing rights, it makes policing the interior and borders of bad-actor Egypt and Saudi much easier.

I think Prof. Cole’s question reflects what seems to be a common assumption on the left: that US policy will be implemented in a stupid way. I.e., we’ll promote democracy by figuratively throwing a bomb into the room. I suspect that the Bush team is more crafty than the left assumes. George Friedman’s Stratfor book "America’s Secret War" reinforced the view that there are layers of counter-moves and deception behind an apparently simple policy.

I also will credit the US team in general with the ability to manage-through unexpected problems. It’s fantasy to think that every eventuality will be anticipated with associated perfect plans. It’s hard at this point to rate the post-conflict handling of Iraq on the civilian side. But for sure the US military demonstrated remarkable learning and adapting skills.

Last point on "managing" the hypothetical Saudi, Egyption theocracies - they would probably respond to credible US power. If so, then success in maintaining an effective military presence in Iraq may prove quite important. In support of that idea, "America’s Secret War" posited that a significant priority in the Iraq go-now-decision was to light a blow-torch under the Saudis. Briefly, the logic was that Saudi cooperation was critical to many aspects of the Al Qaeda campaign. In particular, Saudi Intelligence had the only useful picture of Al Qaedal. And, the flow of funds had to be cut immediately- and by far the majority was coming from Saudi. The Saudis were NOT cooperating - they evidently evaluated the tradeoff between a known internal Islamist threat vs. a threatening US as favoring "talk, but don’t do anything to get yourself overthrown in a coup". Like bin Laden, the Saudis evidently thought the US was talk, but no action. Iraq would demonstrate the US was not a paper tiger. And it would put a serious US military presence on the Saudi frontier. Did this strategy work? Piecing together what I read, it appears that it did change Saudi behavior, and quickly.