Western foreign policy, when push comes to shove: Democracy sacrificed for Stability?

[Fragony]

My best bet would be that it's easier to make deals with nations, political islam has no national borders it's more of a movement. Just a guess, if it would be just Egypt with an islamist government it wouldn't really be a problem, but what if it's neighbours also do

[rory_20_uk]

Let's not forget the Gaza strip, where the wrong lot were democratically elected.

[Hax]

snip

Brilliant post.

[Subotan]

Why does the US and others balk at the idea of even a mildly Islamist government? Would the US be as safe (less or more?) if it relaxed a bit about political Islam, recognising as Mr Grenier does, a difference between AL Qaida type violent jihadis and other Islamist political organisations?

I wonder if the US would rather have, say in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood in power, an neo-Nasser in power, or the status quo...I'm guessing the latter, since it's the least risky in the short term. At least there's none of Rmsfelds unknown unknowns regarding the current regime.

Do remember that some people also refer to their own countries as (Judeao)Christian, here in the west. Notable examples? Geert Wilders, for example, or what about Ann Coulter or Bill O'Reilly. They are like the radical imams of the American right wing, if you forgive the simile. Hell, George W. Bush himself said he had been inspired by God and he called the Republican Party "God's party". You know how that would translate to Arabic?

Hizbollah.

Zing! Very nice :D

The iranian revolution was mostly communist and Islamic (the communists were consumed, or their cause hijacked later on), and you're wrong, the west supported the islamic revolutionaries over the shah, who was actually worse, and they do export terror, the shia aligned revolts in the arabian peninsula, and hizbollah in lebanon is apparent, they aim to create an unfavourable environment for a whole lot of folks, and there is little reason to believe the IRI's interest in the welfare of shia minories, let alone the region is well intentioned.

The US does not really fear an Islamic government, they simply do not want the status quo to change for a whole lot of reasons, but long story short, stability, business, the whole deal and i guess a little bit of nepotism and buddy buddy relationships with countries like saudi, morroco and egypt since the early 1900s.

Maybe the US is too tempted to thing that change is incompatible with stability. Sometimes the move to a more stable system can only come from a revolution (E.g. Velvet Divorce, Meiji Restoration, establishment of the French Fifth Republic etc.) Rather, what appears to be stability in countries in the Middle East is in fact the kind of rule which characterised Latin American pro-USA dictatorships, frozen in time long after the threat of communism receded.

The US talks a lot about democracy - but in truth they are absolutely terrified of it. Because, strangely enough, poor and abused populaces in other parts of the world, with other cultures, have the odd habit of electing people who they believe represent their interests, rather than that of the US military or economy.

So why did the USA allow Latin America to democratise, rather than continuing to support military rule and juntas?

[Idaho]

So why did the USA allow Latin America to democratise, rather than continuing to support military rule and juntas?

I don't claim to have all the answers. Off the top of my head I might suggest that the US isn't against democracy providing they control the political hegemony?

[Subotan]

OK I admit it was unfair for me to ask you about something specific like that. But I still feel it shows that the USA wants to spread democracy, but doesn't see the support of autocratic regimes a terrible thing in comparison to the alternative (Communism, Radical Islamists etc.), which I would say isn't that bad for the world's only super power.

[Idaho]

My best bet would be that it's easier to make deals with nations, political islam has no national borders it's more of a movement. Just a guess, if it would be just Egypt with an islamist government it wouldn't really be a problem, but what if it's neighbours also do

That's a very niaive view based on a very sketchy understanding of history.

Political Islam is the product of the "our men" policy. Go back 80 years and take a look at the creation of the countries of the middle east. Most of which were created in the aftermath of the first or second world wars. All of them were created as client states of the west with propped up leaders in the form of the House of Saud, the Hashemite monarchy, etc. Fast forward 20-40 or so years and you will find the dominant political movement in the middle east was secular and leftist. Often in the form of Ba'athist pan arabism. This was of course suppressed by "our men". The Suez crisis is an excellent case in point. A popular middle east leader who wasn't under direct control and who played off east and west for the most despicable of motives - getting a good deal for his own people.

The aggressive suppression of all political movements in the Arab and Persian world created a vaccuum of political aspirations. You couldn't stand on a soap box and make political statements. If you did you'd end up in the CIA sponsored torture chambers of the Shah of Iran or the their equivalents in the Gulf. How could political thought and aspiration get round this? How could ordinary people in these places express the natural human desire for change, justice and political expression? The answer is religion. Hence political Islam was born. The house of Saud can cart off a political firebrand never to be seen again - but could the protectors of Islam do the same to a respected cleric?

Look at the socio-economic make-up of the 9/11 bombers. Poor urchins? No - politically deprived middle classes. The same class that caused such a fuss in the US in the 1770s.