I’m not paying nearly enough attention to events in Egypt, but from the tweets I’m seeing here & there, it’s clear that things are pretty damn serious. What I can’t figure out is whether I should be #PANIC!!!-ing (instability!), rejoicing (democracy!), or both. Anyway, here’s a live feed of Al Jazeera English (though it may be shut down soon, apparently).
Any time a non-democratic regime undergoes turbulence in the world, you should be rejoicing. Now is the time for the U.S. government to signal to the people of Egypt that we support Egypt, not Mubarak.
The same is true for Yemen, even though the threat of Islamic extremists gaining control is quite a bit higher there.
Yet additional evidence that Dubya had the right strategy with the Bush Doctrine. May the dominoes continue to fall….
“Yet additional evidence that Dubya had the right strategy with the Bush Doctrine. May the dominoes continue to fall….”
Yes, clearly we should invade Egypt next…
AML, any thoughts on Larison’s contrary analysis?
David, the Bush Doctrine was preemptive strikes against regimes that were hostile / dangerous to us, and pushing democracy to undermine autocratic regimes elsewhere in the Middle East under the operating assumption that Islamic extremism in general is fueled by a lack of democratic engagement and freedom in their host societies. I don’t care if you still don’t like the Bush Doctrine, but at least understand what the hell it is first.
Brendan, yes. It’s the same paleo-pragmatist foreign policy bunk that we’ve been subjected to for the past thirty years — only now there is no USSR to actually make their case convincing. I fail to comprehend how lib-Dems can criticize Reagan for having supported right-wing military dictatorships in Latin America in order to stave off the USSR, yet oppose any advancement of the flowering of democracy to undermine the heavily autocratic regimes in the Middle East (and worse than that — cite paleo-conservatives as fellow travelers in their foreign policy concepts!).
Are there risks? Of course. But this is the fire you play with when you follow this advice and support autocrats like Mubarak, and then when all hell breaks loose, you’re forced to make a call: Back the people, or back the dictator. Absent a USSR-like threat, the American answer should every time be: back the people. We have harmed ourselves enough by aligning ourselves in the eyes of the Egyptian people with their oppressive government. We need to force Mubarak to step down, and do everything we can to help them plan as orderly a transition as possible to elections and greater freedom. If we side with Mubarak and Mubarak goes down, we will cede our seat at the table to the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood. I’d rather us be at the table helping build a reformed democratic Egyptian government alongside unsavory elements like the Muslim Brotherhood, than stand aside and watch the Muslim Brotherhood cause Egypt to turn into a repeat of Algeria circa 1991.
I don’t know a whole heck of a lot about Egyptian politics, but I am inclined to agree with AML. Not that I think the US should in anyway get militarily involved in this; but I don’t think AML is suggesting that either. As a general rule I see stuff like this as an internal matter and I don’t think the US should be particularly involved in diddling with the internal issues of other countries. At the same time, I don’t think we should be supporting a government that is behaving in the manner the Egyptian government is at present.
To be clear, I wasn’t endorsing that paleo-con position by linking it; I was merely offering it up as an intelligent articulation of the opposing position and asking you to comment on it, which you’ve done and I appreciate. I’m not saying the Buchananites are right… just that the article raises some points worth considering.
You may very well be right in this case. I will say, though, that I’m deeply uncomfortable with any foreign policy philosophy which proposes that a certain answer is the correct one “every time.” There has to be a balance between ideology and pragmatism. Maybe the paleo-cons are too far to the “pragmatism” side. But the extreme neo-con position you’re seemingly advancing is surely too far to the “ideology” side. The individual circumstances of each situation must be taken into account. There’s way too much complexity, and the stakes are way too high, for a one-size-fits-all answer.
P.S. Also, AML, when you talk about “the paleo-pragmatist foreign policy bunk that we’ve been subjected to for the past thirty years” … some would say that “the hyper-ideological neocon bunk we’ve been subjected to since 9/11” has itself been, let’s say, something less than a smashing success. You’re talking like somebody who has clearly won the argument against a failed philosophy. Seems to me, the debate still rages, and neither side has a monopoly on wisdom across the board.
I do agree with you, of course, about the hypocrisy of liberals complaining about U.S. support of anti-communist autocracies, on principle, and then advocating the support of Middle East autocracies, without explaining why that same principle doesn’t apply. Likewise, I remember lots of talk on the Left after 9/11 about how this was a classic example of “blowback” from the U.S. getting involved in a region (Afghanistan vs. the Soviets), making promises, then leaving the people there to their own devices when our attention gets diverted. I rarely hear that talk anymore, vis a vis Iraq and Afghanistan. Blowback is cool now, I guess.
I’d call Iraq not a “smashing” success, but a success nonetheless. And progress has been made in Libya and Lebanon. Afghanistan will continue to be difficult, but Egypt is what I would call a “quick win”. All of these would be far more successful if we had prioritized regime change in Iran, but it is what it is.
If “liberty and justice for all” and “government of the people, by the people, for the people” are not a one-size-fits-all answer for you, may I suggest you’re living in the wrong country. The following text cannot be true for Americans but not true for non-Americans:
As the Founders noted above, pragmatism “will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes”, and accordingly there exists philosophical breathing room to sometimes support an imperfect but allied government. But the minute our alliance fail to accommodate the principle that said imperfect allied government exists to secure its citizens’ rights and “[derives its] just powers from the consent of the governed”, the alliance ought to be dissolved and America ought to align with the people instead. This is not neoconservative ideology, this is American ideology going back to 1776, and you either buy it whole-hog or you don’t.
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I think, in the long term, more freedom always wins out as the better option. Even if we disagree with the immediate politics of a revolution. (The French Revolution was terribly disruptive to world politics but the long term results of it have been tremendously positive.) Thus the long term goal of true democratic freedom should be supported by our nation. Though we also should not get directly involved in most cases for the same reason. Self determination is vital to democracy. You have to want freedom for democracy to work and for it to endure and take root. In general the result of a truly free and democratic state are, in the long run, tends towards creating a state with which we have relatively little serious diplomatic tension.
Thus we should support those that would protest in Egypt just as we support those that protested in Iran. In the long run autocracy runs counter to the interests of the US. Growing pains pursuant thereto not withstanding, freedom is good.
I support this uprising. I’m always skeptical of what comes after, but it is clear the Mubarak was no good and had to go.
I tend to be more paleo-con then our friend Andrew. I think that our intervention has typically lead to disaster. But the Egyptians can do what they want. And I’m not against some covert support for things like this when possible. But getting our military involved is dumb, expensive, and tends to break things.
Actually B. Minich, we tend to do best where our military has full commitment and involvement. It’s when we send them into places with one arm tied behind their back that we fail and cause more trouble than good. If we wanted to invade Egypt, put our military in charge, and transition it to a democracy, I have no doubt our military would do a better job of that than any other organization on the planet. The problem is, we can’t pay for it, and our body politic would never support it.
I tend to agre with B. Minch more than AML on the last point. Democracy cannot be installed like Windows 7, things simply don’t work that way.
AML, I love it. Every economic problem from 2007 to present in this country is the fault of Obama and Democrats, but regime change in Egypt years after Bush left office is the result of the disasterous foreign policy failures of Bush.
Maybe blowing kisses at Arabs works better than blowing them up.
dcl, you’re putting words in my mouth. I’m not saying nation-building is easy. It’s perhaps the most difficult major project to do. I am just saying that, out of any major organization and force out there, the American military is the best equipped to actually accomplish it.
Sandy, you almost made sense. “Almost” being the operative word here. Pray tell me how either Bush or Obama comes into this discussion about what is going on in Egypt? Supporting Mubarak has been American policy going back 30 years, so I fail to see how this is a partisan issue.
AML, in the first post on this very thread, you wrote, “Yet additional evidence that Dubya had the right strategy with the Bush Doctrine.” So I guess you could answer your own question.
And Supporting Mubarak has been American Policy until Obama backed regime change. But don’t give credit where credit is due, we’d assume your little brother comandeered your LRT account.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/8289686/Egypt-protests-Americas-secret-backing-for-rebel-leaders-behind-uprising.html
Obama has yet to openly back regime change, and even when he does finally come around, you can’t compare policy after a dramatic event like this to what preceded it — witness 9/11 and its effects on U.S. foreign policy.
As far as the Bush Doctrine, I realize this is far too nuanced for your simplistic brain to understand, but my comment had to do with the logic and aims of the Bush Doctrine and how the current Egyptian crisis was support for that; it had nothing to do with Bush, Clinton, Obama, and American foreign policy towards Egypt. The Bush Doctrine was never applied to Egypt by Bush or Obama — Bush was far softer on Egypt than his own doctrine called for, and Obama maintained the foreign policy status quo.
Encouraging freedom and democracy is not “The Bush Doctrine”. He may have referenced it in the Bush Doctrine, but no, the Bush Doctrine was far more about active, US involved regime change, ala Iraq and Afghanistan. The later was supportable, the former was not, and because of it, the later was a bigger problem than it needed to be.
I hope there is positive change in Egypt, but this is far more about the Egyptians. To claim this somehow validate Bush’s largely failed policies is trying to re-write the history of BUsh’s actual legacy.
Encouraging freedom and democracy is not “The Bush Doctrine”.
Oh really?
To reiterate AML @ 4, you really should at least try to understand something before giving your opinion on it.
Bush and Rumsfeld’s poor post-invasion planning strikes again!
Right, because when Ronald Reagan told Gorbachev to tear down the wall, that was just the Bush Doctrine. Or when Pope John Paul II took a stand with the Solidarity movement in Poland, also the Bush Doctrine. Not to mention the Founding Fathers, that was all the Bush Doctrine.
Face it, Bush had jack shit to do with whats happening in Egypt.
Face it, Bush had jack shit to do with whats happening in Egypt.
I’m saving this for when things in Egypt become a disaster and then the Left tries to blame it on Pres. Bush. (unless of course they try to blame it on Gov. Palin instead)
gahrie, tooo late!
David, first, define the Bush Doctrine. I’ll give you a hint: You can find it on Wikipedia. Second, please show me anywhere in this thread where one of us has said that the Bush Doctrine is responsible for what is happening in Egypt. Again, I’ll save you some time — it’s not there.
Regime change requires the will of the people to be successful. Or, put as a proverb, change comes from within.
There isn’t any other way this sort of thing works in the long run. Andrew, my point is that nation building flat out doesn’t work. Or at minimum never has.
That said, things are quite likely to get much darker before they start getting better in Egypt. I think what we saw happen in England and France in the 17th 18th and 19th centuries is the much more likely analogue than what we saw in eastern Europe at the fall of the Iron Curtain. Not good for Israel or oil prices or anything that needs to be transported through the Suez Canal in the short term. Hopefully it will be a net positive in the long run.
…[M]y point is that nation building flat out doesn’t work. Or at minimum never has.
You’re talking out of your ass.
Don’t get me wrong — I am dead-set against nation-building as an instrument of American policy. It’s too expensive, and as you point out, it “requires the will of the people to be successful”, meaning we do not completely control our own destiny if / when we engage in it. But beyond “the will of the people”, it also requires competent administration, powers of martial order, and the know-how to build civic infrastructure, and presently, the American military is the only large organization in the world capable of executing those components successfully in a foreign land.
I’m not sure I buy the Japan example. At the vary lest the situation is not analogous to the situation in Egypt, or even Iraq. Possibly but probably not analogous to Afghanistan.
Supporting a democratic movement is different than nation building. I certainly thing we should support democratic regime change. (I’m not saying that was the case in Japan, which was a completely conquered nation at the point of unconditional surrender to the US after a rather long and bloody war.)
Simply, democracy takes time. And it requires people who believe in the principals of democracy to attain positions of power. And people willing to put them there.
In the case of England, democracy has been an evolutionary thing not a revolutionary thing. In the US it was also more evolutionary. The revolution evolved forward ideas that already existed in England, from whence most of the colonists hailed. And even following the Constitution universal suffrage not weighed down by class or gender or race really is only a recent thing that evolved slowly over, arguably, 150+ years. In France it was more revolutionary but with quite a bit of re-lapss. In either case, the growing pains of democracy were not particularly pretty. Expecting other nations to get there either a) quickly or b) elegantly seems to ignore history.
Certainly worthwhile to support, but we must be realistic in what we expect to see.
dcl, you said nation-building has never worked. I gave you an example of a time that it has. QED.
I never said Japan is anything like Egypt, or Afghanistan, or Iraq, or even Antarctica.
“Yet additional evidence that Dubya had the right strategy with the Bush Doctrine. May the dominoes continue to fall….”
That was easy.
My God you are Dense, with a Capital D. That sentence DOES NOT MEAN that the Bush Doctrine CAUSED the Egyptian protests (and hopefully, peaceful and democratic regime change). It means the Egyptian protests ARE EVIDENCE FOR the LOGIC behind the Bush Doctrine. If there was any question whatsoever with what the sentence was intended to mean, it was dispelled in my comment at #18. You are free to disagree with the Bush Doctrine, and you are free to disagree that the Egyptian protests are evidence one way or another in regards to the Bush Doctrine, but you are NOT free to make a sentence mean something that it clearly DOES NOT STATE.
Seriously, is somebody paying you to be this obtuse, or is that a skill that comes to you naturally?
AML, as I said, I’m not sure I buy Japan as an example of nation building full stop. Further it certainly isn’t applicable to the facts on the ground anywhere in the middle east except for, perhaps, if we took over Israel. Or possibly the UAE.
Despite some semantic similarities, the functional facts of the situation lead one to conclude that it is a completely different task with completely different preconditions and different goals for that matter. When one examines historical instances where the facts for nation building are remotely similar to those in Iraq, Egypt, etc. one discovers very little of anything that looks like success.
Above and beyond your density, this exchange is indicative of something else: Your absolute intellectual laziness. Seriously, if you had taken the hint back at comment #20 — a full 48 hours ago — to actually understand what the Bush Doctrine IS, we’d all be saved from this ridiculous exchange! It’s completely retarded to define yourself as in agreement with, or in opposition to, any thing which you have not yet committed yourself to first understanding.
OK dcl, please define then: What IS nation-building, half stop, and how is Japan post-WWII not an example?
However you may define it, quarter stop, my definitions on these things are rather straight-forward and reflect common political understanding:
Regime change: the actions of one nation-state forcibly removing and replacing the government of another nation-state.
Nation-building: the act of one nation-state occupying another for the sake of rebuilding its civic, political, religious, and/or cultural infrastructure.
Now that we have that settled, let me repeat my question: how is Japan post-WWII not an example of nation-building? Full stop.
Further it certainly isn’t applicable to the facts on the ground anywhere in the middle east except for, perhaps, if we took over Israel. Or possibly the UAE.
Let me repeat, once and for all, I am completely uninterested in debating whether or not UAE, Egypt, Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan, or Antarctica have ever been, are now, or should be in the future examples of U.S. nation-building forays. I am also completely uninterested in debating whether or not nation-building is politically feasible, a good idea, or even practicable in today’s world. No, I am addressing two issues, and these two issues only:
1) Was the U.S. occupation of Japan after WWII a successful example of nation-building?
dcl stated matter-of-factly that nation-building has never worked. I believe Japan is a clear example of where it has.
2) Is the U.S. military the best (if not the only) major organizational force in existence capable of carrying out a nation-building mission?
I have asserted this to be true; nobody has thus far asserted a claim to the contrary.
Any mention of Egypt, UAE, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Afghanistan or any other nation-state(s) is a complete and utter non sequitur.
*Ergh, that second Afghanistan was meant to be Antarctica.
AML, I think the break down in communication is fairly simple. This may be more productive if we separate this into two distinct discussions?
You are talking about a strategic idea, that is at a minimum reasonably sound and in the long term, probably quite sound that the best long term way to fight terrorism is with democratic regimes that foster ideas of freedom democracy, and so on and so forth (it looks like “Bush Doctrine is taken to mean a few different things but I believe this is the general and most basic meaning you are going for.)
David is talking about the abject failure of the person who espoused that idea to put it into functional practice in the two instances where his administration attempted to do so.
Both of those things are, at least, with in the realm of reasoned debate, but they are two different things so you two can argue until you are blue in the face but you are arguing at cross purposes and thus will be unsuccessful in convincing the other.
I would suggest separating the arguments might be more fruitful.
My argument is along those lines that, as a general rule, the concept of nation building and installing democracy does not work thus when Bush went into Afghanistan and to a far greater extent Iraq the project was basically doomed to be rather ill fated. It may be possible to leave a country a democracy after occupation as we democracy as we did in Japan. But that is different than invading a nation for the soul purpose of bringing democracy especially when nobody asked you. But that said, fostering freedom and democracy, even where we don’t like the micro level choices made by it, is in the full measure and long run a good thing.
I appreciate your attempt to ameliorate the disconnect between the “two distinct discussions”. However, it is manifestly untrue that “David is talking about the abject failure of the person who espoused that idea to put it into functional practice in the two instances where his administration attempted to do so.” He may believe that, and he may even think he has a convincing argument, but that is not what he was saying here in this thread. David was misinterpreting the Bush Doctrine to apply only to regime change and not also to proactive support for democracy in the Middle East, and thus setting up a straw man for the purposes of making snide comments about any time there is a popular uprising against an authoritarian regime (past or present), that it is reflective of the Bush Doctrine.
Perhaps I have misunderstood David’s argument then.
Be that as it may, I do think that there is actually common ground on this point. Though I would tend to agree that it would seem David is working quite hard to avoid finding it.
In fairness, when one looks up “Bush Doctrine” on wikipedia we find that it can mean quite a few different things. David seems to be defining it in a way that he sees as advantageous to his argument. I don’t see that, in particular, as a particularly useful thing to argue about though. Bush is out of office, and the concept that AML is calling the Bush Doctrine on this thread, that of supporting democracy and freedom in the middle east, seems sound regardless of what you want to call it.
If the Bush Doctrine was only about supporting democracy and freedom in the Middle East, you’re right, there’s not much there to be controversial — unless you’re of the George Will camp and believe that certain cultures are incapable of successful representative self-government. There is plenty there to raise the ire of leftists like David:
Ack. I mis-executed the /blockquote tag.
I think that’s because in this case it seems that interfering is likely to cause more harm then good. Though it would be nice if Obama came out and supported democracy in Egypt.
People have been supporting and promoting freedom and democracy for centuries before Bush came along, and the fact that groups continue to have revolutions against oppresive regimes does nothing to validate anything Bush did.
If Obama came out tommorow and said “Eradicating disease and illness is important” and called it the “Obama Doctrine” that wouldn’t mean that curing cancer or polio or any other disease was validating his claim, its an obvious claim to make!
If you want to talk about the Bush Doctrine, how about the tenants that he claimed and acted upon as the important factors, like pre-emptive wars? Promoting democractic governments is nice and all, but it was hardly the centerpiece of Bush’s foreign policy given his tightness with Saudi Arabia and continued close relationships with countries like Pakistan and China. I’m not saying those were all BAD moves btw, just that they don’t fall in line with the idea that somehow Bush was all about democracy around the world.
So no, whats happening in Egypt doesn’t somehow validate Bush’s ideas, other than the ones that are pretty much universally accepted in the U.S. anyway. I think you’d find that most people in this country already thought democratic, free nations are better than the alternative and that the U.S. should support the ones that are long before Bush came along. Movements like those for a free Tibet or recognizing Taiwanese independence come to mind.
@gahrie – I doubt Sarah Palin even knows where Egypt is, so no, I won’t blame her for this one no matter what happens. Dumbass.
I think the harm has already been committed, and the best we can do is come out and say, mea culpa Egyptians, we’re pulling the plug on our support for Mubarak, and instead we’ll work to foster an orderly transition to peaceful, legitimate elections and reform. You’re right that Obama should come out and support the people of Egypt — this is one of those cases where words and rhetoric really can make a difference.
David, that is why I said the following:
So, for the hundredth time, Egyptians protesting is not evidence of the Bush Doctrine in action — it is evidence for the logic of the Bush Doctrine, which promotes more coercive actions to democratize the Middle East.
The Bush Doctrine was multi-faceted, and I was straining to get you to see that there was more to it than simply preemptive war and regime change. I was not ignoring that those were foundational aspects of the Bush Doctrine as well. Furthermore, I made no attempt to argue that Dubya upheld the tenets of the Bush Doctrine thoroughly or flawlessly (although he certainly put more pressure on the Mubarak regime to reform than did Obama to date). In fact, I was pointing in the opposite direction and saying that Egypt was an example of the kinds of fruits we might have seen had we pursued the Bush Doctrine more aggressively.
You are trying to claim that it validates the Bush Doctrine, but it was barely even a tenent of what Bush did or claimed he wanted to do.
David, the “freedom agenda” was very clearly a neoconservative aspect of the Bush Doctrine and part and parcel “of what Bush did or claimed he wanted to do.” If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t have stuck around in Iraq for so long after taking out Saddam, and we wouldn’t have stuck around in Afghanistan trying to nation-build there (which may or may not be a feasible goal). Unfortunately, it does seem, however, that Bush expended so much effort and political capital gaining support for those two wars, that his administration must have felt they lacked the energy or the leverage to push reforms on their allies in the Middle East, such as Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.
I’ll buy that setting up democracies in the nations we invaded was part of the agenda, but I don’t buy that simply encouraging democracies was a key part of the agenda. I don’t think he’d be against it or anything, I just think that supporting democratic governments has long been something the U.S. tends to do. Although of course there are the examples where we have other interests. I just don’t see a reason that whats happening in Egypt should be related to Bush, for good or ill. I certainly won’t blame him for it if things go down the crapper for example. The best argument you could probably make would be trying to tie the democratic changes in Iraq to the stuff in Egypt, but I think that would be a stretch, so far I haven’t seen much evidence to link the two. Egypt appears to be more based on domestic dissatisfaction with Mubarak than any external factors.
I just don’t see a reason that whats happening in Egypt should be related to Bush, for good or ill.
For the bazillionth time, I never made that connection:
That aside, I do believe the unstable but flowering democracy of Iraq in the heart of the Middle East does have an indirect role in what is happening in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen. The Saudis and the Syrians are quaking, too.
As I said, let the dominoes fall.
I just think that supporting democratic governments has long been something the U.S. tends to do.
Not necessarily. Condi Rice put it best in her speech in (ironically enough) Cairo back in 2005: the U.S. has too often pursued a policy of stability at the expense of democracy only to end up with neither. One of the main aspects of the Bush Doctrine was to address this problem.
If one looks at the history, Joe is accurate @50. For much of US history the policy has been stability and a known favorable leadership stance towards the US over Democratic principals and freedom etc. At this point I think there is general agreement that that needs to change.
Evidently some at NRO see it differently:
That’s an interesting angle.
I’m not sure it contradicts the point though.
I suppose the basic thing is, we shouldn’t mess with the politics of other countries. And if / where we do we should act to support those nations that support freedom and democracy.
Sorry, should have been more clear, the U.S. public supports democracy. The government has been spotty, although many Presidents have publicly claimed it.
Excellent article on the inadequate intellectual response on the part of American liberals to the unfolding events in the Middle East.
It is a good article. Though I see the failure to deal with the fact that the creation of democracy and invasion were already linked ideas due in part to the not so nice parts of the Bush Doctrine.
It is quite a fine line to try and walk.
“The striking thing about Barack Obama’s “extended hand” is how utterly irrelevant it is to the epochal events in Egypt, and Tunisia, and Iran, and elsewhere. “ – so our First Occupant continues to escalate as Carter-without-*any*-understanding …
I am amazed just how tin an ear the current State department has … if there is one thing to understand about Middle East (and especially Arabic country) politics, it is that public disloyalty/treachery/support for the other side is a Very Bad Thing to be caught practising … doing so covertly is considered to be skilled … doing so publicly is considered to be an insult to the intelligence/honour … if our diplomats cannot come out in favour of one side or the other explicitly, then they should be uttering platitudes … the souk can respect a worthy adversary – and has little or no respect for utterances from a forked tongue …