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Propping Up Dictators NEVER Works - A Short History Lesson |
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Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is looking more and more like a dictator these days as he imposes emergency rule, suspends the Constitution, cuts off independent media outlets, and arrests thousands of protesters. He’s also pretty soundly unpopular with his citizens, with an approval rating of 38% as of September. That rating is lower than Osama Bin Laden’s among Pakistanis and not that much higher than President Bush’s approval rating in the U.S.
Yet, there has been no serious talk about cutting off aid to Pakistan (most of which goes to the military which is run by Musharraf), and Secretary Rice has been wary of speaking out because she might jeopardize the all important global war on terror. Faced with an unpopular dictator using our rhetoric and fear to consolidate his power, the U.S. is poised to do what it has done time and time again, to strongly support an unpopular authoritarian regime with disastrous results.
It is worth noting, then, that we as a country have gone down this road before. It’s never ended well. In fact, whenever we’ve backed a dictator instead of the people, not only has that dictator been removed from power, but we’ve actually worked against the interests that led us to back the dictator in the first place. Let’s take a look at some examples, shall we:
The Dictator: Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran
Our Interest: To prevent the spread of communism
The Outcome: After ruling under an undemocratic one-party system, the Shah was ousted in an embarrassing Islamic revolution in 1979. Iran is now an Islamic republic with a largely centralized, socialist style economy. To top it off, the U.S. now has to deal with the spread of Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism emanating from Iran.
This one didn’t turn out so well. Not only did we fail to prevent the spread of communist ideas, we also sowed the seeds of our later terrorism troubles by supporting a deeply unpopular dictator in the face of popular democratic sentiments. Largely because of our support for the Shah, Iran today refuses to work in any helpful way with the U.S. They are deeply suspicious of our motives, and perhaps they should be. Because of this impasse, the U.S. has to deal with Iran meddling in Iraq and threatening to develop nuclear technology and presumably nuclear weapons as well. Without any decent diplomatic way of dealing with the issues, we’ve resorted to talk of war.
The Dictator: Saddam Hussein
Our Interest: To combat the spread of revolutionary Islam in the newly independent Iran.
The Outcome: After screwing up our relations with Iran, the United States backed Saddam Hussien’s Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War. After using chemical weapons and losing hundreds of thousands of people, Iraq and Iran ended the war with a stalemate. Revolutionary Islam continued to spread throughout the Middle East, and after the United States turned on Saddam and invaded Iraq, we actually backed Islamic revolutionaries (Iranian backed Shiites) against Saddam’s more secular Sunnis.
As everyone today is well aware, our efforts to prevent the spread of Iranian influence in the Middle East has been an abject failure.
The Dictator: Manuel Noriega, leader of Panama
Our Interest: To prevent the spread of communism in Panama and neighboring countries
The Outcome: Noriega was eventually found to be a double agent, working for the communists as well as the U.S. The U.S. then invaded Panama in 1989, deposing and arresting Noriega. He was charged in the U.S. with racketeering, drug trafficking, and money laundering (nice guy…). Communism and socialism spread throughout Latin America and is currently being kept alive by Hugo Chavez, among others.
Our intervention in Panama, not to mention many other Latin American countries, failed to stop socialism from taking hold. Like Iran, these interventions also set the Latin American people against the United States, making it harder to compromise in the present. To this end, witness the animosity between Hugo Chavez and President Bush, who really have nothing to be mad at each other about.
The Dictator: Various leaders of Apartheid era South Africa
Our Interest: To prevent the spread of communism (see a theme here?)
The Outcome: Apartheid was eventually ended and the white governing minority overthrown by Nelson Mandela and the ANC. South Africa adopted socialist policies (by our standards anyway) after a return to self-rule. Today, disparity between races remains high and most South Africans distrust Western influence, leading President Thabo Mbeki to advocate for tribal medicine as a cure for aids, a policy that has led to infection rates of up to 30%.
The Dictator: Mobutu Sese Seko, President of Zaire
Our Interest: To prevent the spread of communism
The Outcome: Mobutu, propped up the United States, turned Zaire into a dictatorial nightmare. He hung his opponents, stole from the state, and staged numerous coups and countercoups. He also didn’t turn out to be the anti-communist hope the West thought he was. He nationalized foreign owned companies and led a culture of corruption and kleptocracy. Today, the Democratic Republic of Congo (Zaire’s new moniker after Mobutu’s overthrow) is rife with corruption, unfair elections, and record levels of sexual violence.
This is more than a trend. In every case, backing a dictator has worked against our interests. We largely failed to prevent the spread of communism in the regions where we backed dictators. More importantly, we damaged our ability to work with these countries after our pet dictator was deposed.
Pakistan will likely be no different. President Musharraf has proved to be a poor counter-terrorism ally, as terrorist attacks have increased and the Taliban has been in resurgence. In fact, Musharraf’s aides have said he has no plans to use his newfound dictatorial powers to take on terrorism:
Musharraf aides have said the government has no plans to use the emergency to launch an offensive against insurgents in the northwest, where the military has suffered embarrassing losses recently. On Sunday, authorities freed 30 Taliban fighters in exchange for more than 200 captured soldiers, even as police continued to round up activists from the mainstream political parties.
Musharraf clearly isn’t furthering our goals, even in the short term. Moreover, Pakistan is a nuclear weapon state and a key player in Middle Eastern and South Asian politics. It is strongly in our interests to remain on good terms with whoever is running Pakistan’s government in the future.
Chances are, if Musharraf continues his crackdown, he will be deposed. If we do want to conduct counter-terrorism operations (or anything else for that matter) with Pakistan in the future, let’s not get caught with our pants down again by backing an unpopular and tyrannical ruler and thus alienating ourselves from the new (perhaps more democratic) regime.
This isn’t about stability. Pakistan is getting more unstable by the minute. Here, our interests and promoting democracy abroad align. We need to learn the lessons that history teaches us. Propping up dictators NEVER works. Not ever. Therefore, we need to drop support for Musharraf like a bad habit.
Very interesting post, J-Ro.
On a related note, folks should take a look at this talk by Naomi Wolf, on her book “The End of America.” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjALf12PAWc) Unfortunately the speech is 45 minutes long (you can see shorter versions of her talking about the book elsewhere on You Tube…or you could just read the book) but basically she outlines a FASCINATING “predictive blue print” for how democratic societies transition into fascism, persuasively arguing that the US is headed that way. It’s interesting, in light of your observations that the US slyly lends its support (as it has done in the past) to leaders who are also going down this path.