Today, everyone and his cousin supports the “freedom agenda.” Of course, yesterday it was just George W. Bush, Tony Blair, and a band of neocons with unusual hypnotic powers who dared to challenge the received wisdom of Arab exceptionalism — the notion that Arabs, as opposed to East Asians, Latin Americans, Europeans, and Africans, were uniquely allergic to democracy. Indeed, the Left spent the better part of the Bush years excoriating the freedom agenda as either fantasy or yet another sordid example of U.S. imperialism.
Now it seems everyone, even the Left, is enthusiastic for Arab democracy. Fine. Fellow travelers are welcome. But simply being in favor of freedom is not enough. With Egypt in turmoil and in the midst of a perilous transition, we need foreign-policy principles to ensure democracy for the long run.
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No need to reinvent the wheel. We’ve been through something analogous before. After World War II, Western Europe was newly freed but unstable, in ruin, and in play. The democracy we favored for the continent faced internal and external threats from Communist totalitarians. The United States adopted the Truman Doctrine that declared America’s intention to defend these newly free nations.
This meant not just protecting allies at the periphery, such as Greece and Turkey, from insurgency and external pressure, but supporting democratic elements within Western Europe against powerful and determined domestic Communist parties.
Powerful they were. The Communists were not just the most organized and disciplined. In France, they rose to the largest postwar party; in Italy, the second largest. Under the Truman Doctrine, U.S. presidents used every instrument available, including massive assistance — covert and overt, financial and diplomatic — to democratic parties to keep the Communists out of power.
As the states of the Arab Middle East throw off decades of dictatorship, their democratic future faces a major threat from the new totalitarianism: Islamism. As in Soviet days, the threat is both internal and external. Iran, a mini-version of the old Soviet Union, has its own allies and satellites — Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza — and its own Comintern, with agents operating throughout the region to extend Islamist influence and undermine pro-Western secular states. That’s precisely why in this revolutionary moment, Iran boasts of an Islamist wave sweeping the Arab world.
We need a foreign policy that not only supports freedom in the abstract but is guided by long-range practical principles to achieve it — a Freedom Doctrine composed of the following elements:
The United States supports democracy throughout the Middle East. It will use its influence to help democrats everywhere throw off dictatorial rule.
Democracy is more than just elections. It requires a free press, the rule of law, the freedom to organize, the establishment of independent political parties, and the peaceful transfer of power. Therefore, the transition to democracy and initial elections must allow time for these institutions, most notably political parties, to establish themselves.
The only U.S. interest in the internal governance of these new democracies is to help protect them against totalitarians, foreign and domestic. The recent Hezbollah coup in Lebanon and the Hamas dictatorship in Gaza dramatically demonstrate how anti-democratic elements that achieve power democratically can destroy the very democracy that empowered them.
Therefore, just as during the Cold War the U.S. helped keep European Communist parties out of power (to see them ultimately wither away), it will be U.S. policy to oppose the inclusion of totalitarian parties — the Muslim Brotherhood or, for that matter, Communists — in any government, whether provisional or elected, in newly liberated Arab states.
We may not have the power to prevent this. So be it. The Brotherhood may today be so relatively strong in Egypt, for example, that a seat at the table is inevitable. But under no circumstances should a presidential spokesman say, as did Robert Gibbs, that the new order “has to include a whole host of important non-secular actors.” Why gratuitously legitimize Islamists? Instead, Americans should be urgently supporting secular democratic parties in Egypt and elsewhere with training, resources, and diplomacy.
We are, unwillingly again, parties to a long twilight struggle, this time with Islamism — most notably Iran, its proxies, and its potential allies, Sunni and Shiite. We should be clear-eyed about our preferred outcome — real democracies governed by committed democrats — and develop policies to see this through.
A freedom doctrine is a freedom agenda given direction by guiding principles. Truman did it. So can we.
Do not forget freedom of religion and protection for the minority. A dictatorship of the majority in a Muslim country would be a disaster for any remaining Christians or Jews.
Yeah, "So can we". But first we have to vote a true conservative in in 2012.
Obama has a man in the intelligence community who asserts that the Muslim Brotherhood is secular. Oy.
We need a Reagan in 2012 who knows evil when he sees it. That's why Eastern Europe hardly needed our help to set up free governments that contained the things you recommend.
It matters who is president. And the Americans will have to decide whether they want a president who is uncomfortable calling Islamic extremists ugly names or a president who is not uncomfortable calling evil what it is.
We need a president who will appoint people who are confident and happy to praise this country. During the SOTU speech when Obama sounded like Reagan, the applause was tepid because it was clear that Obama was just using words for effect and he was not being sincere. We need someone who, when he sounds like Reagan, really means it.
If all of this push for democracy in the Middle East turns out to be just more of a spread of Islamism instead of individual freedom, I believe the turning points came from the way Obama treated Honduras and Obama's disgusting performance when they took to the streets in Iran.
“Americans should be urgently supporting secular democratic parties in Egypt and elsewhere with training, resources, and diplomacy.”
I agree with Dr. Krauthhammer’s four bullet points above. The quoted portion is the most important point he makes because it’s concrete action in support of America’s rhetorical support for freedom. Bolstering secular democratic parties is the only practical way American can diminish the influence radical Islamicists like the Muslim Brotherhood. Unfortunately, over the last two years President Obama has demonstrated he doesn’t view secular liberal democratic regimes more favorably than dictatorships, or theocracies and he seems to view our allies (e.g., Israel, the UK, Eastern Europe, etc.) less favorably than our enemies. America may one day have a freedom agenda, but that day won’t come until we have a President who is actually committed to freedom.
As usual, Dr. Krauthammer is right on the mark. The only thing I would add to this is that any aid beyond support for the "democrats" is conditional on the acceptance of these principles. Money talks!
Sometimes I can't help but wonder what the world will look like should we survive the next two years. It's about to hit the fan and this Admin doesn't have a clue.
I really like your suggestions. We could benefit from their sincere application here in the United States.
I will not bore readers with the litany of offenses against private property rights and the law of contracts, at Federal, State, and local levels in recent years.
I think a long twi-light struggle with Iran will be quite expensive. I think a much cheaper alternative is to bar further Moslem immigration to the West, and develop alternative sources of energy. The Arab world can work out its own problems without us. At the end of the day, what do we get out of being so involved in the domestic politics of Egypt and the other Arab countries?
The problem is that the leftists at the head of our own government support socialist revolution, both here and abroad. Honduras was not the blunder of an inexperienced Administration, and neither was the lack of support for the uprising in Iran. Our current leaders do not believe in the principles of our founding. They do not believe in pluralism or freedom.
@cdscott:
1) It is entirely unclear that "developing alternative sources of energy" will be cheaper than a twilight struggle with Iran. "Alternative energy" has proven so far to be an economic black hole.
2) Even if it is cheaper, butting our noses out of the ME will do precisely nothing to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Mutual Assured Destruction is not an attractive option in a standoff with a culture that produces suicide bombers in fairly large numbers.
3) At the end of the day, it is quite possible that what we get is to avoid the end of all days.
All comparisons to Europe break down. As long as the Islamic world is Islamic there will be no Democacy. Periodic elections from time to time? yes, but Democracy as we define it? no...We ought not to waste our time,hope, energy or recources in pursuit of such pollyannish ends when we are in a struggle for our own survival. We do have a moreal imperative to call for justice and tolerance in the region, but let's put the prudent pursuit of national interest before idealistic rainbow chasing, please.
To fully move from the realm of theory into reality, add one more key element to the list...
- Since Muslims are unwilling or unable to do it themselves, create a new sect of Islam that renounces, eschews, and deletes all barbaric, non-classically liberal practices from the Koran, Sharia, hadiths, and most especially jihad.
With this one addition, then and only then will the rest of your list have any realistic chance of being accomplished.
Dr. Krauthammer, it's really high time we ceased to conflate "democracy" with freedom.
Democracy is, at best, a mechanism we hope will help to safeguard freedom. It has failed to do so in several cases; it's failing Americans even now. Don't settle for ersatz when the real thing might be available on another shelf.
Oddly enough it took an autocratic American "Caesar" by the name of General Douglas MacArthur to impose democratic order to the defeated Japanese Empire from 1945 to 1950.
The fly in the ointment in this case was that same General was fired by President Truman in overstepping his authority. The October 1950 Wake meeting has gone down in myth. Truman was pleased by the results of the Korean war and MacArthur promised him the Chinese wouldn't intervene in the war. Mac was miffed by having the president take him away from the battle front but everybody was happy at the 2 hour meeting until two weeks later when US units encountered Chinese detactments with NK units.
60 years later the Korean war is the forgotten victory. The Marshall plan succeeded because there was a modicum of western civilization left on the continent of europe to seed democracy again. The Communists did poorly in the early post war Berlin elections because the German women who voted resented the fact that they had been brutallly raped by Russians. Churchill said the gift of the English speaking "race" (yes he did call us a race) was to demonstrate to the rest of the world examples of parliamentary systems as work. Edmund Burke was more chauvenistic in his The Reflections on the Revolution in France when he referred to sucessful stable republics being only realizable if you are an Anglo-Saxon.
“Dr. Krauthammer, it's really high time we ceased to conflate "democracy" with freedom.”
Um…..
“Democracy is more than just elections. It requires a free press, the rule of law, the freedom to organize, the establishment of independent political parties, and the peaceful transfer of power. Therefore, the transition to democracy and initial elections must allow time for these “
Much as I like Krauthammer, he misses the point here. The Beanman & Francis W Poretto point out part of the problem. The worship of "democracy" entails the assumption that it essentially entails other good things, specifically the rule of law, and freedom. It does not. That's just an assumption arising from the US's own polity & history.
We've seen in Russia where policies of market freedom & democratic process can be adopted, but go nowhere without a real understanding--both in the state & in the populace--of the rule of law.
The other problem is specific to the Islamic world: how do you get a rule of law which is compatible with freedom, when the society's notion of law is inimical to freedom?
And John Walker makes a point which is troubling, but plausible. Outside the Anglosphere, we see precious few states of the kind we would like to live under.
The problem is that although this should be our policy, it is not our policy now and it will not become our policy until at least the next federal election. This is because the essential goals (e.g., a free and prosperous world with free and prosperous markets) are directly contrary to what our current President, the leaders of the Democrat Party, and the legacy media want.
"So, we can", says CK; "yes, we can" says Obama -- what is the difference? The West = "a free press, the rule of law, the freedom to organize..." Apparently, there was no "Western" culture before the establishment of these values. Europe was a cultural backwater before Cold War Liberals and Neocons brought them the Truman Doctrine. The Europe of ancient Greece, Latin Rome, Medieval Christendom, Renaissance, Columbus and the Carthographic Revolution, Galilean Science, and Enlightenment...was no different from the Islamic world of today until the Neocons came along with their universal liberal man. I challenge this in External Link
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