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Essay
Dictatorships and Double Standards
BY
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER
Monday, Sep. 23, 2002
Ever since the U.S.
unveiled its radical new policy of bringing democracy to the Islamic
world — whether through reform in Palestine or at the point of a gun
in Iraq — the Bush Administration has come under attack for
inconsistency and hypocrisy. Indeed, when our most critical ally in
the war on terrorism, President Musharraf of Pakistan, gave himself
dictatorial power for at least five years, that earned him but a few
mild words of concern from the State Department.
The critics pounced. New Republic editor Peter Beinart assailed
"the moral hypocrisy underlying America's demand for democracy in
Palestine and Iraq" while "we simultaneously coddle the dictators in
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan." Columnist Thomas Friedman complained
that "the Bush team is advocating democracy only in authoritarian
regimes that oppose America." Washington Post editorial-page editor
Fred Hiatt made the larger point: "The United States cannot fight,
let alone win, a cold-war-style campaign for freedom in the Islamic
world unless, as in the cold war, it is fully engaged throughout the
world, committed to democracy in China as well as in Iraq, to peace
in Chechnya as well as in the Middle East."
But wait. How did we win the cold war? We fought and won the cold
war, and thus liberated tens of millions of people, precisely
because we prudently, albeit reluctantly, tolerated unfreedom in
certain places. Why? In order to win the larger battle for freedom
on the global scale. Today we "coddle" Musharraf of Pakistan,
Mubarak of Egypt, the Saudi princes. Yesterday we coddled Pinochet
of Chile, Marcos of the Philippines, the Shah of Iran, Mobutu of
Zaire and a train of South Vietnamese generals.
Why? First, because, for all their faults, they were at the time
better for their own people than those who would replace them. In
those countries the alternative to autocracy was not democracy but
often totalitarianism. We know all too well the history of the
misery that followed the fall of our very flawed friends: genocide
in Cambodia, boat people in Vietnam, theocratic thuggery in Iran,
catastrophic war in Zaire.
Second, because we often need such dictators to win the larger
struggle against a global threat to liberty — Nazism, communism,
Islamic radicalism. Did we not, after all, join with Stalin, one of
the great monsters of the 20th century, in order to defeat Hitler?
Does anyone doubt not just the necessity but the morality of that
alliance? It is the principle of the lesser evil. As Churchill once
famously said, "If I were told that the devil were on poorer terms
with Hitler, I should find myself making an alliance with hell."
Alliance with hell is justified as long as it is temporary. When
Hitler was defeated, we stopped coddling Stalin. Forty years later,
as communism ebbed, the U.S. helped overthrow Marcos and ease out
Pinochet. We withdrew our support for those dictators once the two
conditions that justify such alliances had disappeared: the global
Soviet threat had receded and a domestic democratic alternative had
emerged.
Such distinctions apply with equal force today. Musharraf is no
democrat. Yet it is necessary to support him for now because he has
enlisted Pakistan in our life-and-death struggle against radical
Islam. And does anyone doubt that his overthrow would lead to more
chaos and suffering within his country?
As for the Saudis, their regime is seriously corrupt and
seriously repressive. Nonetheless, considering the neighborhood, it
is hardly the worst. In time, we should want reform, perhaps even
revolution, in Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately, social democrats are
today in short supply there, and we cannot by sheer act of will
create them.
Everything in its time. We cannot destabilize every regime at
once and hope by some miracle to escape chaos. The idea that we
betray our principles if we do not demand universal democracy —
immediately and everywhere — is as ironic as it is Utopian. America
is daily attacked for cowboy interventionism and arrogant
unilateralism — then simultaneously attacked for not acting
unilaterally to cleanse the planet of all tyranny.
Does that mean that we should do nothing to promote democracy in
friendly dictatorships? No. It simply means that whereas in places
like Iran and Iraq we push for democracy by provoking regime change,
in friendly dictatorships we push for democracy only up to the point
of instability. We dare not risk regime change — yet — because of
the deluge that would follow.
The New York Times denounces America's "dancing with dictators."
Guilty as charged. Dance we do. And without apology. With no more
apology than Franklin Roosevelt offered when he reportedly said of
Nicaragua's Anastasio Somoza, "He may be a son of a bitch. But he's
our son of a bitch."
Roosevelt was a grownup. He made choices. He slew his dragons one
at a time. He understood that we do not live in the best of all
possible worlds. He understood that in an international arena
populated by sons of bitches, you make your distinctions, or you
die.
From the Sep. 23, 2002 issue of TIME
magazine
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