Kieran Healy

Strategy and Realism

The administration’s declared long-term strategy on Iraq is that “A new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region.” Once Iraq falls, the monarchies and theocratic autocracies surrounding it will topple as well, and a new age of democracy and freedom will be ushered in for the people of the Middle-East. Cue trumpets and Tom Friedmanisms. There is a name for this line of thinking. It’s the domino theory. (Conservative analysts, amongst many others, have found it unconvincing in the past.)

All of this optimistic idealism about the Middle East’s rosy democratic future goes against the grain for right-wing thinkers. Normally they think of themselves as the hard-headed realists on international affairs. The wets on the left are the misguided romantics who want to give peace a chance and believe in the U.N. and all kinds of other woolly-headed, idealistic crap. (As I’ve noted before, for domestic policy the opposite is the case.) Yet they now appear to believe that Jeffersonian democracy will spring from the ruins of Tikrit and spread across the Islamic world. What the hell is happening to them?

If that really is the plan, it’s time to seriously consider dsquared’s three questions

give me one single example of something with the following three characteristics:
1. It is a policy initiative of the current Bush administration
2. It was significant enough in scale that I’d have heard of it (at a pinch, that I should have heard of it)
3. It wasn’t in some important way completely fucked up during the execution.

I’m also wondering (a) Since WWII, how many autocratic or totalitarian countries have been invaded by a democracy, had the bad guys deposed, and a stable democratic regime installed; and (b) How does this number compare to the number of invasions or other interventions that resulted in puppet governments, friendly autocrats, messy long-term military occupations, or outright disasters?

Good Questions

Kieran Healy has two good questions for optimists about war:I?m also wondering (a) Since WWII, how many autocratic or totalitarian

“(b) How does this number compare to the number of invasions or other interventions that resulted in puppet governments, friendly autocrats, messy long-term military occupations, or outright disasters?”

It might also be interesting to count the times the regime that was replaced, or interfered with, was already democratic, and our replacement was not.

“(a) Since WWII, how many autocratic or totalitarian countries have been invaded by a democracy, had the bad guys deposed, and a stable democratic regime installed”

I know it’s just one, but Grenada is a possible answer to this question.

Grenada is arguably an instance of what was described, but one should keep in mind that it had been arguably a democracy until Bishop and the “New Jewel Movement” ousted the “legitimate” (*cough*UFO whacko*cough*) government in 1979, and that this and the Marxist takeover in 1983 (in which Bishop was killed) that the invasion responded to were a four-year period of criminally bad government. In particular, note that the NJM was an active political party which had won seats in the 1976 election, and that some sources claim that the “legitimate” post-colonial government headed by Prime Minister Gairy the NJM replaced was corrupt and that his party, GULP, was in power due to political misdeeds.

The more normal course of elections were resumed in 1984, but perhaps really we’re looking at a four or five year period of tyranny out of a century or so of more regular, if colonial, government. Any experts on the current state of Grenadan democracy in the house? Is there democracy there now, and how does it compare to the years of GULP?

Grenada’s actually been a pretty stable democracy since then, though it’s not perfect. It suffers from the same problems other Eastern Caribbean islands have—small, underemployed populations and a economic climate that is changing in ways the government has nto prepared the population for. (The EU Banana Protocol has existed in various guises for almost 30 years; did they not think it would end someday?) This leads the governments there to engage in sometimes dubious policies like offshore banking (and the corruption that can entail), establishing relations with Taiwan, joining the International Whaling Commission, selling passports and other schemes to get foreign aid or make money.

This is not to say that islands like Grenada are bad places to live—by all accounts they are nice, beautiful places. (I’m from Trinidad, which is industrial by comparison.) I just mean to say that the problems that Grenada faces are not unique, and other islands who did not suffer Sir Eric Gairy and the revolution by the New Jewel Movement are in a similar condition.

Grenada’s actually been a pretty stable democracy since then, though it’s not perfect. It suffers from the same problems other Eastern Caribbean islands have—small, underemployed populations and a economic climate that is changing in ways the government has nto prepared the population for. (The EU Banana Protocol has existed in various guises for almost 30 years; did they not think it would end someday?) This leads the governments there to engage in sometimes dubious policies like offshore banking (and the corruption that can entail), establishing relations with Taiwan, joining the International Whaling Commission, selling passports and other schemes to get foreign aid or make money.

This is not to say that islands like Grenada are bad places to live—by all accounts they are nice, beautiful places. (I’m from Trinidad, which is industrial by comparison.) I just mean to say that the problems that Grenada faces are not unique, and other islands who did not suffer Sir Eric Gairy and the revolution by the New Jewel Movement are in a similar condition.

>>The EU Banana Protocol has existed in various guises for almost 30 years; did they not think it would end someday?< <

Sadly, the Grenadans made the mistake of ignoring Rule Number One for dealing with Her Britannic Majesty’s Government; if you’re brown, get it in writing. They thought that the Brits wouldn’t sell them out.

Panama?

East Timor, but then the Americans weren’t involved in that one. And also, I reckon the distinction must be made between a) liberating an ethnically and socially different section of a larger country, and b) liberating an entire country from itself. a) is a lot easier than b). b) is what we’re trying to do in Iraq.

East Timor, but then the Americans weren’t involved in that one. And also, I reckon the distinction must be made between a) liberating an ethnically and socially different section of a larger country, and b) liberating an entire country from itself. a) is a lot easier than b). b) is what we’re trying to do in Iraq.

US intervention, both official and covert, in almost all hemispheres and continents, has been a litany of disaster. Its laughable to imagine bush and his pals care in the least about democracy….since its all too clear that economic gain and control are the real motors of this administration’s foreign policy. That said, I wonder about the real nature of democracy and often, what people mean when they use the term. The US suffers from a pretty mediated democracy itself….with the Bush election theft and the fact that seemingly only millionaires run for national office. Prisons are full of the poor and the white house full of the very rich. Democracy!

Toby,
Neither the U.S. nor any other democracy invaded East Timor in order to toss out the Indonesian military. Rather, under U.N. pressure and a collapsing economy and crumbling Suharto regime, the Indonesians consented to hold a referendum on independence; when the yes vote triumphed, Indonesian-backed militias ravaged the country until they were discouraged by Australian-led peacekeeping troops. I was glad to see the Australians there, but really, I don’t think any democracy gets credit for “invading” East Timor and giving it democracy – the troops came in after the referendum.
I saw Jose Ramos Horta’s recent NYTimes op-ed, and I know the headline said something like “War Worked For Us”, but that’s not really what the piece said, nor is it quite what happened. ‘Force’ belatedly got the militias to flee to West Timor, but even before the referendum, everyone had understood that the U.N. would be coming in to administer the territory as it transitioned to independence.