Soccer Dad

When you meet a crooked road take it

Charles Krauthammer on the Crooked roads to Democracy, (or here.)

These defeats, marking the cresting of the 30-year democratic wave that had swept through Latin America, Eastern Europe, East Asia and even parts of Africa, raise more than theoretical questions. They challenge the core Bush notion that American foreign policy should be predicated on trying to spread democracy. Six years after Sept. 11 there still is no remotely plausible alternative to the Bush Doctrine for ultimately changing the culture from which jihadism arises. But while spreading democracy may be necessary, can it, in fact, be done?

We know that it can, of course, as demonstrated by our success in turning Germany, Japan and South Korea into important democratic allies. But there we had the rare advantage of the near total control that came with uncontested postwar occupation.

What is required in conditions of far less control? A healthy respect for the enduring power of local political primitivism and a willingness to adapt to it.

In Afghanistan, that means accepting radical decentralization and the power of warlords. In Iraq, that means letting centralized, top-down governance give way, at least temporarily, to provincial and tribal autonomy as the best means of producing effective representative institutions.

And in Pakistan, that means accepting both the enduring presence of feudal politics and the preeminent role of the military, Pakistan's one functioning national institution, as a guarantor of the state -- even (as in another secular Islamic country, Turkey) at the cost of giving it extra-constitutional authority. It also means accepting the reality that Pervez Musharraf, however dubious his democratic credentials, is not to be abandoned because his fall would unleash the deluge.

Wolf Howling notes a religious parallel to Krauthammer's observation.

Syncretism was the early Church's custom, during the process of conversion, of initially adapting, as much as possible of the local pagan customs into the overlay of Christianity.

I can buy the argument that right now Musharraf is our best choice in Pakistan, unless it turns out that he was directly responsible for Bhutto's death. In which case we would seem to have no good alternative, as his complicity would mean that he is part of the problem.

Krauthammer brings up the Palestinian Authority and it's worth noting that since the Palestinian Authority was brought into the picture the chance of peace, love and understanding has gotten smaller and smaller. I know that the Arab world (followed by the rest of the world) declared the PLO the "sole legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people. It was also the worlds "sole legitimate terrorist organization." Yet there are many smart people who continue to insist that peace is dependent on propping up its non-telegenic remains.

In the Arab-Israeli conflict resolution will not come from the top on down.

democracy