Hypocrisy and Foreign Policy

Any serious observer of international politics has noticed the disconnect between the U.S. Administration's rhetoric on the support of freedom and pluralism, with its policy and benevolent treatment of autocratic regimes. The ideal has been espoused publicly by Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, then flaunted during subsequent meetings, and by financial/military support for leaders that limit the liberal movements in domestic political struggles. During Rice's last visit to Egypt, after the lofty AUC speech that I have written about on these pages, Rice stood hand in hand with the Egyptian Foreign Minister espousing the special relationship shared between the two regimes: with not a word mentioned regarding the most recent human right violations.

In last night's State of the Union Address, George W. Bush, insultingly uttered this fallacy:

To prevail, we must remove the conditions that inspire blind hatred, and drove 19 men to get onto airplanes and to come and kill us. What every terrorist fears most is human freedom -- societies where men and women make their own choices, answer to their own conscience, and live by their hopes instead of their resentments.

Free people are not drawn to violent and malignant ideologies -- and most will choose a better way when they're given a chance. So we advance our own security interests by helping moderates and reformers and brave voices for democracy. The great question of our day is whether America will help men and women in the Middle East to build free societies and share in the rights of all humanity. And I say, for the sake of our own security, we must.

Echoing these remarks in the 2006 State of the Union Address:

All fathers and mothers, in all societies, want their children to be educated, and live free from poverty and violence. No people on Earth yearn to be oppressed, or aspire to servitude, or eagerly await the midnight knock of the secret police.

But America will always stand firm for the non-negotiable demands of human dignity: the rule of law; limits on the power of the state; respect for women; private property; free speech; equal justice; and religious tolerance. (Applause.)

America will take the side of brave men and women who advocate these values around the world, including the Islamic world, because we have a greater objective than eliminating threats and containing resentment. We seek a just and peaceful world beyond the war on terror.

As the fallacy of the Administration's motivation for invading Iraq became transparent, the Administration sought other justification for the costly endeavour: a policy of freedom and liberty, advancing those lofty American ideals around the world. As George W. Bush sought to convince lawmakers and the U.S. populace that we could change the political and social outlook of the Middle East by achieving success in Iraq (installing a pro-Western, democratically elected government); that would ultimately lead to other Middle Eastern nations realizing the benefits of democratic populism, creating a domino effect of pro-western, oil rich nations free from radicalism. A worthy goal, however, in retrospect the naivety is frightening.

The problem with using this motivator for American policy and sacrifice is that it calls for some modicum of consistency. Thus, we could not advocate the policy as a cause for continued sacrifice in Iraq while ignoring the policy in the other Middle Eastern countries. Unfortunately, the majority of U.S. allies in the Middle East are autocratic regimes that routinely limit the personal freedoms of their people, without regard for basic human rights. This presents an interesting dilemma for the Administration; not surprisingly it seems they have chosen to simply ignore the obvious hypocrisy. So while President Bush and Condoleeza Rice go on about the U.S. interest in supporting liberal movements, they simply ignore them and their tragic plight in every country besides Iraq and Iran.

I am not ignorant to realist foreign policy, that by supporting these regimes the U.S. supports stability rather then allowing what happened in Palestine through democratic elections, the election of a group openly hostile to the United States and its allies. That is a logical foreign policy argument, not one that i agree with, but logically sound regardless. The danger comes when America, and its President's words, become meaningless. When the American people and its soldiers cannot trust the motivations of its leaders, when the repressed people of the world on the cusp of revolt do not believe the strongest country in the world will live up to its word and support them. By hanging these friends out to dry we risk alienating the only progressive movements in the region, possibly pushing these moderates to the extreme left, resulting in a two ideology environment: radicals on the far left and fundamentalists on the far right, both somehow disillusioned by the hollow words of the United States.