What Have We Learned?

On the blog for the Human Rights Committee that I am a part of, I talked a little about the situation in Pakistan where General Musharraf has declared emergency rule and imprisoned 500 people from the opposition party. What I want to talk about here though is the broader foreign policy involved.

Throughout our history, we have used our power to judge and influence foreign governments. Countries we support get financial aid, and those we don't can be ignored, sanctioned or sometimes overthrown. What I want to talk about is when and why we support certain governments.

Our main criteria for support include economy (socialist of market), friendliness to US and US businesses, and democracy. Since it is obvious that a country with a market economy, functioning democracy, and friendly relations with US and our businesses would warrant our support, and a lack of all three would not, I will not bother discussing them. What is more interesting to me are the countries in the middle.

In many situations, we have countries that, if democratic would choose either socialism or to spurn the US (I am lumping both of these together because I think they are similar in that by being either socialist or not supporting our interests, a country runs contrary to our interests) and if not democratic would support a market economy and welcome American businesses. The question is, which of these alternatives should the US push for.

To date, we have obviously chosen the later; we are willing to support (if not create) governments that are not democratic - and can in fact be very brutal - so long as they are pro-US and have market economies. I think that if we look to history it is clear that not only is it better for our reputation to support democracies even when they oppose us (like Venezuela), but it is in our interest. Iran is of course the glaring example of this, but we could also look to Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. In fact, the argument could be made that Chavez's anti-American rhetoric is so popular because of our history in South America (Chile, for example).

Unfortunately, our leaders are much better at working for short-term gains instead of focusing on the long term. A leader like Musharraf will pay immediate dividends as a supporter of the GWOT (supposedly) and as always there is less risk in dealing with someone you know as opposed to someone you don't. But in the long term, our reputation and our security will be much better served with a population in Pakistan that remembers that we supported their democracy instead of allowing a military dictator to continue.

I want to finish though by noting that this issue extends beyond Pakistan. Political parties affiliated with strong Islamic groups are making grounds in countries like Palestine and Egypt. I think that we would do better to support the governments that get elected rather than supporting democracy only when it leads to the outcome we favor.