@the intellect,
the intellect;4830 wrote:How ***ing Dumb R U!!!!!
Ur Obviously Not Gonna Say That Are You. U Have To Sugar Coat It To The Rest Of The World To Gain A Shread Of Legitimacy.
If It Isnt About Oil Why Dont U Promote Democracy In All The Numerous Dictatorships Throughout Asia Or Africa Or Invade Them.
Why Dont U Promote Better Civil Rights In Saudi Arabia.
Ignorant Idiots!!!
Could you please tone down the name calling as I have not called you any names and it really takes away from the debate. Thank you.
The answer to your question is simple. The question of alliances with dictators, of deals with the devil, can be approached openly, forthrightly, and without any need for defensiveness. The principle is that we cannot democratize the world overnight and, therefore, if we are sincere about the democratic project, we must proceed sequentially. Nor, out of a false equivalence, need we abandon democratic reformers in these autocracies. On the contrary, we have a duty to support them, even as we have a perfect moral right to distinguish between democrats on the one hand and totalitarians or jihadists on the other.
In the absence of omnipotence, one must deal with the lesser of two evils. That means postponing radically destabilizing actions in places where the support of the current non-democratic regime is needed against a larger existential threat to the free world. There is no need to apologize for that. In World War II we allied ourselves with Stalin against Hitler. (As Churchill said shortly after the German invasion of the USSR: “If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.”) This was a necessary alliance, and a temporary one: when we were done with Hitler, we turned our attention to Stalin and his successors.
Consider two cases of useful but temporary allies against Communism: Augusto Pinochet in Chile and Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines. We proved our bona fides in both of these cases when, as Moscow weakened and the existential threat to the free world receded, we worked to bring down both dictators. In 1986, we openly and decisively supported the Aquino revolution that deposed and exiled Marcos, and later in the 80’s we pressed very hard for free elections in Chile that Pinochet lost, paving the way for the return of democracy.
Alliances with dictatorships were justified in the war against fascism and the cold war, and they are justified now in the successor existential struggle, the war against Arab/Islamic radicalism. This is not just theory. It has practical implications. For nothing is more practical than the question: after Afghanistan, after Iraq, what?
Some conservatives (and many liberals) have proposed instead that we be true to the universalist language of the President’s second inaugural address and go after the three principal Islamic autocracies: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan.3 Not so fast, and not so hard. Autocracies they are, and in many respects nasty ones. But doing this would be a mistake.
In Egypt, we certainly have liberal resources that should be supported and encouraged. But, keeping in mind the Algerian experience, we should be wary of bringing down the whole house of cards and thereby derailing any progress from authoritarianism to liberal democracy. Saudi Arabia has a Byzantine culture, and an equally Byzantine method of governance, which must be delicately reformed short of overthrow. And Pakistan, which has great potential for democracy, is simply too critical as a military ally in the war on al Qaeda to risk anything right now. Pervez Musharraf is no bastard; but even if he were, he is ours. We should be encouraging the evolution of democracy in all of these countries, but relentless and ruthless means—of the kind we employed in Afghanistan and Iraq and should, perhaps short of direct military invention, be employing in Syria—are better applied to enemies, not friends. ~ Krauthammer
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