As we’ve watched events unfold this week in the middle east I think a lot of people have felt a combination of helplessness and resignation. What can we do? It doesn’t look good, and we’ll just have to deal with whatever bad outcome results. That sort of thing. But it is time, I think, for a clean break with our past foreign policy.
Over at Haaretz it is reported that Israeli PM Netanyahu is urging world leaders to strive for stability in Egypt. This doesn’t necessarily mean hanging on to the Mubarak regime, but it does indicate a desire for someone who can maintain control of a possibly troublesome population. That is the policy we’ve general held to since the end of the Second World War. Save for a few years under Bush when we really pressed for democracy – only to have it derailed because domestic American politics, a desire on the part of the American left to beat President Bush, America be darned – we have tended to just stick with whomever is in charge, fearful of something worse if we shake things up. But what has this brought us? Right now, the terrible situation of being tied to a dying regime without having any leverage with those who aspire to take control.
An alternative policy has been proposed for some time – namely that we cut all direct efforts and just have free trade with everyone without engaging in alliances or any deeper commitments. This libertarian view of the world is that if we just leave well enough alone, everything will be fine – no one will have a cause to hate us and we, at least, will have peace. Such a policy does not – and cannot – commend itself to me because it is an abdication. It creates a power vacuum which, if not filled by us, will be filled by others – and almost certainly by others who have wicked plans. So, disengagement also isn’t the answer.
To me, the best US policy is ardent support for any legitimate government – but only those legitimate by American standards. We hold that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and that is how our policy should be governed. If a nation is ruled that way, then they can count on us for aid and trade – if a nation is not ruled that way, then no aid and no trade. A policy like this would have spared us from being in any way, shape or form tied to Egypt’s current regime – and would allow us to step in and help if the Egyptians obtain a genuinely free government after the revolution. We would not, you see, be tied to tyrants and would be free, at will, to help people who wish to be free.
Some worry that such a policy would risk people choosing bad governments who wish to do us harm. That is, indeed, a risk – but the answer to that is a clear statement of American policy that any attack upon America or any democratic nation will result in an exceptionally violent American response – not just sanctions or targeted bombing, but the complete destruction of the offending nation. Be a tyrant all you want; elect a government of the most hideous anti-American tenor – we won’t do anything unless you attack. Don’t attack, don’t get attacked. If we make that clear, then I think that US policy will be able to proceed calmly – no revolution will ever worry us, no tyrant will ever have a claim on us.
No trade, no aid – no connections with unfree regimes. I’d prefer it if we didn’t even maintain diplomatic relations with them. Don’t allow their people to visit us, ban American travel to such places (essentially, a statement that if you’re fool enough to go to a tyrannical regime and get in to trouble, you’re on your own). We Americans have enough to do with our own troubles – we don’t need to entangle ourselves in the troubles tyrants breed for themselves.
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