With the Democrats running both houses and Rumsfeld out of the Pentagon, the neo-conservative movement has crash-landed. The final nail in their coffin came in early December, when the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, made up of experienced diplomats including former Secretary of State James Baker, recommended withdrawing American troops regardless of the political situation in Iraq. Although Bush plans to make one last push for victory, his worldview is no longer widely shared.
Neo-conservative foreign policy, dominated by the na’ve belief that liberal democracy can be instilled by force, should go down as one of history’s greatest political failures. Despite their noble aims, Bush and his gurus have been humiliated by the disastrous real-life application of their ideas. America’s post-9/11 escapades in the Middle East have fed extremism and authoritarianism, while actually making the region less receptive to democratic values.
The main problem with the neo-con “liberators” is that they completely neglect how they are perceived by the “liberated.” These starry-eyed freedom fighters assume that if given a little push by the American military, the oppressed of the world will jump headfirst into Enlightenment.
Unfortunately, as witnessed in the last few years, this is hardly the case. Instead, many nations in the Middle East are growing increasingly unfriendly toward the West. The authoritarian governments of Iran and Syria now have a unifying battle cry. East African politics are becoming more radical. International religious conflict is at its height, with an ever-increasing pool of disillusioned Muslims for terrorist groups to choose from. Democracy, freedom, and capitalism have become buzzwords synonymous with imperialism, immorality, and exploitation.
How could those in the Middle East have so badly misinterpreted America’s good intentions? Can’t they see that the Judeo-Christian armies are really just trying to bring freedom and peace?
With fresh memories of colonialism and Cold War meddling, it’s not surprising that so many throughout the region are quick to reach for the closest bazooka and support the local despot. For the last thousand years, they’ve had to fight off wave after wave of encroaching Westerners. As the second Iraq War has proven, it’s crazy and irresponsible to think that the most recent crusaders would be treated any differently. What’s worse is that not only have the neo-con’s goals been unmet, this latest incursion has actually reversed most of the region’s progress towards democracy.
Take Iran. Only several years ago, the country was under the leadership of Mohammed Khatami, a progressive president committed to democratizing state institutions. He encouraged criticism of the ruling clerics and welcomed women and youth into the political process. Internationally, Khatami advocated a “dialogue among civilizations” to promote communication and understanding in the international sphere.
Then came Bush’s War on Terror, the invasion of Iraq, and Iran’s membership in the “Axis of Evil.” The political ramifications were enormous. Khatami had never been very popular with the ruling clerics, but they generally recognized the legitimacy of his command. America’s neo-conservative foreign policy changed all that.
In 2004, after observing the speed with which U.S. forces deposed the governments of Afghanistan and Iraq, the reigning clerics, fearing a similar fate, banned thousands of pro-West candidates from running in Iran’s parliamentary elections. This restriction, combined with the nationalistic fervor spurred by the close proximity of American forces, led to the landslide victory of conservative extremist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Since his election, Iran’s new president has called for the destruction of Israel, denied the Holocaust, pursued a controversial nuclear program, forged alliances with anti-Western nations, encouraged international terrorism, and repealed many of the reforms implemented by his predecessor. Needless to say, the Iraq invasion wasn’t the “watershed event in the global democratic revolution” hoped for by Bush and his ideological brethren.
All is not lost, though-in recent weeks local elections in Iran have revealed some dissatisfaction with Ahmadinejad’s high-octane politics. This popular discontent is all the more reason for the U.S. to seek a different policy in the region, one of diplomacy and compromise.
For if democracy is really going to flourish in that part of the world, it will develop incrementally, however inconvenient that may be for the social engineers who believe-not unlike the Marxists of previous generations-that complex social change can happen overnight.
