Double take on double standards

As we marked the fifth anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, we were reminded of America's motivations and the level of “reckless'' arrogance which was associated with it.

Though there was strong opposition to the war against Iraq, the Bush administration had the full support of its neo-conservative allies. Among them was Dr Francis Fukuyama — at least till he changed his mind — some say, conveniently.

Fifteen years after writing his book in which he declared, albeit prematurely, history had ended, Fukuyama was back in the spotlight prior to the Iraq war.

Had he abandoned his neo-conservative status? Or was his change of heart simply a PR stunt, as many of his critics proclaim? The debate continues.

Fukuyama was complicit in the Iraq war debacle that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and an open-ended occupation of the country.

He has since distanced himself from the results of the invasion he once supported.

Fukuyama was in Dubai recently as part of the ever-expanding activities of the Dubai School of Government, a research and academic institution set up by His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, in partnership with the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, to help train the next generation of leaders in the region.

The renowned writer and political scientist (who is also a professor of international political economy at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies) spoke to Weekend Review about his assessment of the Bush administration's policy of “spreading democracy'' and whether it was a plausible goal and expressed his views on Iraq.

Starting with the US mission of spreading democracy, I asked Fukuyama if Middle Eastern countries should wait for democracy or seek it internally.

He answered: “Unless the people in the society want democracy, it will not come. The primary driver is always internal, the external forces can only facilitate it occasionally.''

Fukuyama feels the US impact could be important but that democracy would not reign if the people didn't want it.
But does this grant the US the right to go out of its way to expect democracy?

Fukuyama insists that the US has had an idealistic dimension (by granting democracy to countries lacking it) to its foreign policy — a preoccupation that goes back to Woodrow Wilson.

Before I even mentioned Iraq, Fukuyama is quick to argue that President George W. Bush did not invade Iraq to democratise it.

He invaded it because “he mistakenly thought there were weapons of mass destruction there. Democracy promotion was only one of the minor reasons.''

According to him, once the Bush administration realised that there were no weapons of mass destruction and that Saddam Hussain had no ties with Al Qaida, it was left “only with democracy as a justification for this very costly intervention''.

This is why Fukuyama says that by Bush's second term, he began to emphasise democracy promotion as the nucleus of his administration's policies towards the Middle East.

But isn't it very un-American to invade a country to democratise it? Fukuyama agrees, and says he doesn't think the US is ever going to do that again.

So as far as Iran is concerned, a possible military attack will not be associated with regime change. How, then, does America spread democracy?

According to Fukuyama, there are several instances where the US has “leant'' on authoritarian allies to open up political processes.

He lists, among other countries, the Philippines in 1986 as an example, when Ferdinand Marcos was pushed out of the way.

Success stories in South Korea and Chile are one thing, the Middle East another. Has it enjoyed similar treatment?

Fukuyama insists the US has a genuine interest in promoting democracy and opposing terrorism.

Still, Fukuyama says, the Middle East has been a tough case because of American ties to Israel and its interest in oil. But there has been a switch — from Nixon and Ford to Carter and, eventually, Reagan.

That switch, he says, made a huge difference in Latin America, where the US stood by a lot of “pretty nasty dictators''.

Beginning in the 1980s, though, the US really started to “move much more decisively to support democratic forces even if they were Left-leaning''.

In other words, compared to others, there has been greater realism and a downplaying of democracy and human rights in the region.

But who is to say which form of democracy is the right one? After all, democracy is a controversial word with different interpretations in different countries.

Fukuyama says it is liberal democracy that he speaks of, which has got “a set of institutions associated with it that can take different forms''.

“You need the rule of law for some constraint on executive power and individual rights. On the democratic side, you need some form of accountability to popular sovereignty.''

Democracy divisions

So would he consider, say Iran, to be a democracy? Iran, Fukuyama says, is an illiberal democracy and, apparently, that is not what the US tries to promote, because Iran only has “the democratic side of a democracy, not the liberal side''.

Does this mean that the American form of democracy is the right one? Fukuyama predictably says it depends on what the American form of democracy means — there are many “different institutions''.

I asked him if he admired any democracy in the Middle East. Turkey, he said, qualifies as a liberal democracy.

But beyond the region, there are quite a number of Muslim countries, such as Indonesia since 1997, that have developed reasonably good democratic institutions.

More or less, as long as the people of that particular country are content with their governing system, a liberal country such as the US should have no say.

He also says that forcing someone to be democratic is “a contradiction in terms because what democracy represents is popular choice''.

So while you can force people to live under a dictatorship, you cannot force them to live in a democracy.

But as a liberal democracy, the US is not free of flaws. Fukuyama himself is quick to point them out.

He calls them social dysfunctions, which are the result of “the kind of excessive individualism where normative order breaks down due to a lot of change'' and communities are weakened.

The US society may have political citizenship but it is also very fluid and pluralistic.

However, excessive individualism can be overcome, because there exists a desire for moral rule in human nature.

This led me to the next big question. Was America's power now starting to go downhill? In the short term, Fukuyama says Iraq turned out to be a much bigger problem than the US expected.

He adds: “Iraq has also led to budget deficit and economic fiscal problems.''

But the longer trend, according to Fukuyama, is not the weakening of America but the rise of other powers, primarily China, India and Russia.

Indeed, America did lose a great deal of prestige and moral authority as a result of Iraq.

Fukuyama insists: “There's nothing worse then being an incompetent hegemonic power. If you're hegemonic, you want to at least be able to use your power effectively and get the results you want.

"But to throw your weight around and then not get the result you want ... ''

That is his opinion. And spending an hour with Fukuyama, I realised that the man sitting opposite me showed only mild, if any, signs of neo-conservatism.

This is the man who had long been a fixture on the American neo-conservative scene. He no longer sounded like one of the main signatories of a 1998 letter to then US president Bill Clinton, urging him to remove the regime of Saddam Hussain using a much more “aggressive'' policy.

Voting for John Kerry in 2004 and rooting for Obama today is testament to his change of heart, because for Fukuyama, Republicans made decisions that were not successful and, therefore, shouldn't be rewarded.

Food for thought

I walked out, thinking: Fukuyama agreed with most (but not all) of the points I made on the US foreign policy and Iraq. How one could change one's views so drastically was the most intriguing part of the experience.