We’ve never been particularly good at placing our principals ahead of our self-interests, but is that all bad? George Washington vacillated, eventually picking the British, with a hotly contested treaty, instead of a rebellious and revolutionary France (at war with England) with a new movement patterning itself after the American democratic experiment. We turned a cold shoulder to Haiti (and made life particularly tough for them) after they freed their slaves in 1805, fearing that political reality might spread to our southern states. Indeed slavery itself, within the United States, was a moral inconsistency until President Abraham Lincoln charted a different course that ripped the nation in half. How many dictators in banana republics have we supported with clandestine or even overt aid – arms, advisers and cash? We were financial fomenters of Saddam Hussein until this Iraqi dictator no longer suited our needs, and today, we back one of the most clearly corrupt leaders on earth – Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai – as we press our seemingly losing cause on the other side of the earth.
In the latter half of the twentieth century, at least until the Soviet Union fell, malevolent tyrants could always count on U.S. aid as long as they declared themselves to be strongly anti-communist. Populist left-wingers, even those fully democratically elected, were sliced and diced by our foreign policies; clandestine support for their enemies was quite the norm. It was perceived to be in our self-interest to deny nationhood and continuous support to any faction that remotely sided with communist, usually Soviet, interests. The vestiges of that policy still lives in the politically-charged and continuing embargo of the tiny communist island nation of Cuba, although recent statements from aging dictator Fidel Castro – suggesting the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s denial of the Holocaust and persecution of Jews is an horrific mistake as was his belief that Russia could blast the U.S. with nuclear missiles in 1962 – hint at a détente in the making.
On the plus side of such policies is the denial of a safe harbor to our overt enemies; on the minus is the lingering resentment of the peoples who have been harshly repressed under the crushing boot of petty dictators who held power pretty much based on U.S. aid. Indeed, emotions can run pretty hot and anti-American when a tyrant is toppled (often replaced with another tyrant) by a populist movement; memories of U.S.-made weapons used to repress linger long and hard. The 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, toppling the pro-Western Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi (pictured left above) monarchy, yielded a fierce and well-armed military machine ready to use its growing oil revenues to foment Islami c and anti-American rebellion wherever it could. Regime change can make horrific new enemies out of nations we once counted on as regional allies.
The Senate is again debating another measure – pitting human rights against a consistent and valuable ally in America’s battle against Middle Eastern Islamist hatred of our very essence – this time whether to condemn Egypt (and its leader Hosni Mubarak) for human rights violations. The Washington Post (September 9th) summarizes: “The resolution, under consideration in the Foreign Relations Committee, outlines continuing allegations of abuse by Egyptian security services. It also condemns President Hosni Mubarak for renewing an emergency security law allowing broad arrest powers and indefinite detention of suspects without charges… ‘Authorities in Egypt continue to harass, intimidate, arbitrarily detain and engage in violence against peaceful demonstrators, journalists, human rights activists, and bloggers,’ the resolution says.” Even President Barak Obama, in a recent meeting with 82-year-old Mubarak in the White house, has called for “credible and transparent elections in Egypt.”
Egypt’s repression includes keeping many of the most violent anti-American Islamists under close check if not brutal repression or under lock and key. Lacking oil revenues and facing a large, mostly impoverished population (over 80 million) squeezed mostly into the Nile Valley or delta, Egypt is a place where anger grows fast and fundamentalist violence lives in fertile ground. A disproportionate number of terrorists operating all over the world have Egyptian roots. Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri (al-Qaeda’s number two strongman below Osama bin Ladin) and Mohamed Atta (pictured right above, who piloted American Airlines Flight 11 into the North Tower on 9/11/2001) are two particularly prominent examples.
Egypt also fostered American policies in the Middle East by recognizing Israel, establishing diplomatic ties with this small Jewish nation surrounded by mostly hostile neighbors, a reality that cannot be lost at a time when peace efforts, however challenging, have been resurrected in talks between Palestinian and Israeli leaders. Egypt receives about $1.5 billion a year in U.S. foreign aid, a rather significant sum, spending $1.5 million on lobbying activities in Washington (up from $214 thousand in 2006). Mubarak is old and infirm; there will be a change in Egyptian leadership in the not-too-distant future no matter what.
The human rights resolution has some pretty prominent backers: “The Senate resolution, authored by Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), has garnered particular attention in Cairo because of its prominent list of backers. Co-sponsors include Sens. John McCain (Ariz.), the former GOP presidential nominee; Richard J . Durbin (Ill.), the Democratic majority whip; Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.); and Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.).” The Post. We’ve censored Egypt before and even withheld aid (as recently as 2007), but because of the obvious age and condition of Egypt’s leader, is this resolution different? And exactly where in this mix do you think American foreign policy should settle?
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