Thomas “Airmiles” Friedman, has had enough of pie-in-the-sky democracy-promotion, and is ready for some bracing realism:
We need to rebalance our policy. We still have a chance to do in Iraq the only thing that was always the only thing possible — tilt it in a better direction — so over a generation Iraqis can transform and liberate themselves, if they want. What might an Iraq tilted in the right direction look like? It would be more religious than Turkey, more secular than Iran, more federal than Syria, more democratic than Saudi Arabia and more stable than Afghanistan.
More federal than Syria? Frickin’ awesome! This reminds me of a joke of my grandmother’s on the difference between hell and heaven. In heaven, the cooks are French, the lovers Italian, the cops English, and the bankers Swiss. In hell, the cooks are English, the lovers Swiss, the cops French, and the bankers Italian. Airmiles’ list seems infernal: more democratic than Saudi Arabia? Less theocratic than Iran? Gosh, is such a country even concievable?
And what’s up with the only thing that was always already the only thing possible? To wit, a US-friendly, “democracy-minded strongman“, one imagines? (Now with 50% more mindfulness.) I tell you what: when I go around spending blood and treasure like water, I like a bit more value for money.
{ 11 comments }
DCharles 05.30.04 at 4:15 am
You tasted the pot and told me that you knew how to make it taste better,
I told you very simply that I was happy with the current taste,
But you said you had a secret recipe book and knew how to improve the pot,
So I watched as you added fruits and spices and herbs,
And now the pot still tastes bad or maybe worse,
And now you have lost your enthusiasm for recipes,
And now you want me to give you a recipe to fix your pot of junk.
Next you’ll be giving me the spoon to stir it,
And when the guests come and express their displeasure,
You will be hiding under the table!
Do you think I am an idiot?
nick 05.30.04 at 4:38 am
Is Vladimir Putin’s Russia today a Jeffersonian democracy? Of course not. But it is a huge nation that was tilted in the wrong direction and is now tilted in the right direction.
I suspect that dsquared might have something to say about that, but at the very least, it seems a little presumptuous to count the current kleptocracy in Russia as one ’tilted in the right direction.’
Peter Murphy 05.30.04 at 5:42 am
I though Daniel Pipes was a scholar. I find that hard to reconcile with the following sentences:
The United States needed over a century. Things have sped up these days, but it still stakes twenty or more years to reach full democracy. That was the timetable in countries as varied as South Korea, Chile, Poland and Turkey.
Therefore: Iraq needs – and I write these words with some trepidation – a democratically-minded Iraqi strongman. This may sound like a contradiction, but it has happened elsewhere, for example by Atatürk in Turkey and Chiang Kai-shek in Taiwan.
Umm? Yes, it is true that South Korea (and Taiwan) had strongmen. But the democracy came 50 years after their births – not 20. Turkey also had strongmen as well, and it is a little bit democratic, but not much – and that’s about 80 years after its birth. (Or 550 years if you count the Ottoman Empire, but that’s unfair of me.)
Now onto Poland, where democracy came soon once it knew the USSR wouldn’t do another Czechoslovakia and invade. Transistion time – a few years. No strongmen in sight (unless you count General Jaruzelski).
The oddest example Pipes gave was Chile. Yes, it’s democratic now – and it was also in 1972. There’s no way you can describe the last 30 years as a transistion to democracy. Perhaps a resumption would be a better description.(The Freedom House rankings bear this out).
Strongmen are generally feared as an impediment to democracy, and justifiably so – as displayed by a certain Augusto Pinochet Ugarte. Pipes has to work hard to overcome this common perception, and his essay does not cut the grade.
Jack 05.30.04 at 8:36 am
Doesn’t he think Iraqis are capable of democracy?
Musharraf is Friedman’s role model at a guess. Obviously that’s fairly dismal.
Of course Saddam ticked everyone of the boxes Friedman mentions. Should he have added “more humane than Jordan”?
Why is “more religious than Turkey” even the beginning of a good thing?
Motoko Kusanagi 05.30.04 at 9:42 am
How long before Friedman will reprint his famous July 1991 column?
(“Thomas Friedman, Diplomatic Correspondent of the New York Times, said in July 1991 that economic sanctions would continue until there was a military coup which would create “the best of all worlds”: “an iron-fisted Iraqi junta without Saddam Hussein”. A return to the days when Saddam’s ‘iron first’ held Iraq together, “much to the satisfaction of the American allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia”. (New York Times, July 1991)”)
Ophelia Benson 05.30.04 at 7:29 pm
“Why is “more religious than Turkey†even the beginning of a good thing?”
Yeah, boy is that ever precisely what I was going to ask. Excuse me? Why, exactly?
Phill 05.31.04 at 12:56 am
Jeffersonian deomocarcy? Of course not.
One thing we can be pretty confident of is that Putin is not having an affair with one of his slaves.
Of course the folk in Iran used to have a democracy back in 1953. Anyone know how it got replaced by a military dictator?
msg 05.31.04 at 2:25 am
It’s a kind of slavery to so obediently jump to Sally Hemming whenever Jefferson’s name is mentioned.
His ambivalence toward what we see as abominable from the safety of our own quarters says a lot about his character, in the context of his time. Few politicians in the public eye today have the backbone to challenge something as deeply entrenched and economically powerful as slavery was in Jefferson’s time. As far as having an affair with an employee/slave, that’s maybe not as reprehensible as Dr. Laura would like us to believe.
–
The Shah was gotten nice to by MI5 and the Dulles boys, wasn’t it?.
–
Saddam’s only flaw is sadly so large he won’t be eligible for the handover, otherwise he’d line up perfectly. He’s sure to be the template for all that follow, but he’s so damned anti-Semitic. Or was. God only knows what’s going through his head now.
Mitch Mills 05.31.04 at 4:07 am
The version of your grandmother’s joke I know has heaven with French cooks, English police, Italian lovers, German mechanics, and the Swiss run everything.
In hell the cooks are English, the police German, the lovers Swiss, the mechanics French, and the Italians run everything.
Maybe in hell the trains run on time? And I wonder at how Italy went from great renown for martial prowess and organizational ability (under the Romans) to its present status as the butt of all jokes about military ineptness and complete lack of organization? Was it a long slow slide or were there one or a number of great turning points? They’re still great designers though . . .
msg 05.31.04 at 4:17 am
It’s a kind of Pavlovian slavery to so obediently jump to Sally Hemming whenever Jefferson’s name is mentioned.
His ambivalence toward what we see as abominable from the safety of our own quarters says a lot about his character, in the context of his time. Few politicians in the public eye today have the backbone to challenge something as deeply entrenched and economically powerful as slavery was in Jefferson’s time. As far as having an affair with an employee/slave, that’s maybe not as reprehensible as Dr. Laura would like us to believe.
–
Saddam’s only flaw is sadly so large he won’t be eligible for the handover, otherwise he’d line up perfectly. He’s sure to be the template for all that follow, but he’s so damned anti-Semitic. Or was. God only knows what’s going through his head now.
msg 05.31.04 at 4:22 am
Sorry for that. I was called away from the machine for a while and came back having forgotten I posted it already. Didn’t reload the page.
The edit affords some insight into my process, otherwise it’s merely error. Sorry again.
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