The Blue State

Democracy, just as long it's a government we like

Bush's rhetoric about democracy versus his actual policies.

One of the half-dozen attempted justifications for our invasion of Iraq was that a democratically-elected moderate state in the center of the Middle East would act as a regional instrument of peace, making it more safe for America to conduct its business in that area of the world.  Little did the Administration know that after our invasion, Iraq turned out to be neither democratic nor moderate.  Nonetheless, the democratization argument was something that George W. Bush based his entire presidency on.  To him, democracy automatically leads to peace -- following the neoconservative claim that free nations don't fight one another.

Or do they?

Over the summer in Lebanon, the terrorist organization known as Hezbollah lobbed hundreds of rockets into Israel, killing a large number of innocent civilians.  Israel responded with raids in Lebanese territory, killing Lebanese civilians.  To some, Hezbollah is only a terrorist organization.  But in reality, they are members of the Lebanese Parliament, which as of 2005 became a democratic government.

So if you have a political party in a democratically-elected parliament attacking Israel, which is also a democracy, then maybe the claim about democracies never fighting one another does not hold.

But there is something much deeper about all this.  It has to do with an inherent contradiction between Bush's rhetoric and Bush's actions.  Bush says that the United States supports all free nations.  But according to Time Magazine, the Bush Administration is working hard to support the opposition government in Palestine, even though Hamas was elected by a democratic vote.  Let me write that again, just in case the significance takes awhile to set in: Bush is opposing a democratically elected government.

This apparent double-standard in the West's stances on Lebanonand on Gaza has not gone unnoticed by Arab commentators."How could the U.S. support the democratically elected government in Lebanon and do just the opposite in Palestine?" asked Talal Salman, the publisher of Lebanon's As-Safir newspaper.

The U.S., wrote Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi, opposes the toppling of the elected Siniora government in Lebanon, but "is in favor of toppling Hamas's government which is also an elected one and, more dangerously, is even starving over four million Palestinians to punish them for electing it. What kind of hypocrisy is that?"

This isn't to say that President Bush should support Hamas.  Hamas is a terrorist organization.  The point here is the Administration's double-standard of speaking one way and acting another.  In any walk of life, when you are hypocritical and inconsistent in your logic, then others are less likely to ever take you seriously.  It is difficult to say with a straight face that the world takes us seriously.

President Bush sure missed a great opportunity after September 11th.

Lebanon on the verge of civil war

When you talk tough about freedom, yet choose to turn your back on a fragile democracy like Lebanon, you are only asking for trouble.  As violence rages in Iraq, Lebanon is on the verge of an all-out civil war, reports Time Magazine.  This is getting very scary:

There are worrying signs, in fact, that Lebanon may be closer to a total meltdown than at any time since the 1975-90 civil war. An Arab diplomat told Time that General Michael Suleiman, the commander in chief of the Lebanese Army, recently admitted that his troops would be able to contain a series of demonstrations "for only a few weeks." If Hizballah organizes protests around the country similar to those in Beirut last week, "We will not be able to cope," Suleiman reportedly said. His concern was that because many of his troops are Shi'ite, they would refuse to act against their brethren within Hizballah.

The nightmare scenario is that Hizballah's show of strength could provoke a backlash against its mostly Shi'ite supporters by Lebanon's Sunni Muslim, Christian and Druze communities. If that happens, most Lebanese believe the situation could quickly escalate into all-out civil war.

The political crisis has worsened over the weekend.  Supporters of Hezbollah marched through the streets on Saturday, even as the pro-western Lebanese Prime Minister received strong backing from the international community.

Although the idealists in the Bush Administration see international politics differently, political realists believe that the U.S. should promote stability first, then democracy -- not the other way around.  In order to achieve that stability, you need a balance of power.  Think of it as Newton's Third Law.  When one side pushes too far, it is only probable that the other side will react.  Our occupation of Iraq has helped cause an anti-west reaction that has sent shock waves throughout the region.  There is not a balance of power in the Middle East as a result of the Iraq war.  The longer the war continues, the more polarized that the Middle East region will continue to become, and we will see other civil wars emerge (Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan). 

We should have seen this coming.  But idealistic foreign policy theorists don't believe in balance of power theory.

Helping Lebanon before the chaos was a lost opportunity

As countries beg Hezbollah to stop launching rockets into Israel, maybe the White House needs to consider what would have happened if the U.S. gave money to prop up the pro-western government in Lebanon before all this went down?  Last year, if you recall, Syria lost control over Lebanon.  They were forced out as a pro-western revolution took shape. 

This was such a great opportunity for the United States.  Instead of leaving the new democracy to struggle for itself, we could have lended aid to it.  But no, our attention was diverted elsewhere.  During that entire year before this Mideast violence all of a sudden erupted, the United States spent $9 billion per month in Iraq.  Think if just half of that monthly money went to Lebanon.  Think how it could have been used to strengthen their infrastructure, put kids in school, kick gangs off the streets, and force Hezbollah back into Syria.

This is what happens when we look at Iraq and lose focus of everything else.  While our backs have been turned, Iran and North Korea are expanding their nuclear programs.  Hamas won majority in the Palestinian cabinet.  Even though we have been in Iraq, the place is in the midst of a civil war.  Meanwhile, Lebanon was just sitting there by itself without any help, even though its neighboring country is Syria.  What were we thinking?

After this Middle East conflict is over, if Syria has not reclaimed Lebanon, then we need to help the pro-western Lebanese government.  When President says he wants to protect democracy around the world, he had better mean it.
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Other blogs writing about this issue: Gorilla's Guides, Democratic Space, Poetic Remi, Global Justice Online, The Glass House.