Gautam Mukunda wrote: > I was just in a seminar with an Arab political scientist - I don't > want to identify him more closely than that - and he was quite clear in > saying that there was widespread support for eliminating Saddam Hussein, > particularly among the liberalizers in the Arab world.
But what about the current rulers (hardly the most liberal faction in the middle east). While we definitely want to encourage the liberals, we still have to deal with the incumbent powers... It is at least encouraging to hear what you say about support for his removal. Me: Well, I'm not terribly worried about the current rulers. With the exception of Saddam, none of them are _crazy_. They know what would happen to them if they did anything too bad. The incumbent powers will have to respond to the overwhelming fact of American power, and are more likely to do so if we demonstrate in Iraq that we're willing to use it. Meanwhile the liberals can slowly erode their power base from below. That's a good combination from our perspective, I think - as well as from that of the people of the Middle East. Russell: > As for the difficult situation that the US has put you in - maybe that's a > good thing. Maybe you _shouldn't have_ close relations with a government > that supports Hamas and Islamic Jihad, that just attempted to smuggle > weapons into the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in a gross violation of the > Oslo Accords, and that has been pretty clearly shown to be responsible for > the murder of American servicemen in the 1998 bombings. I think I said strong, not close, relations. The day that the US stops spending untold billions in preventing free trade, we will happily sell our wheat to more deserving markets. Since we can produce wheat at a much lower price than the US, it shouldn't be hard, but we don't have the cash to compete with your dumping, so we sell wherever we can get a good price. Quite simply, we need the lamb and wheat sales in the middle east to survive. Me: While I strongly oppose farm subsidies, I find it striking that you choose to criticize the US in this manner. After all our policies are free trade compared to those of Europe, for example. Walter Russell Mead, in fact, memorably commented in the Kennedy School a few months ago that the single Western policy that does the most harm to the world's poor is the European Common Agricultural Policy. While I am actually _in agreement_ with you that the US should end farm subsidies (if Australia is willing to do the same, of course - are you?) we are very far from the worst offenders. Russell: Of course, I'm fairly sure that the CIA finds it useful to have such a close ally with an embassy in Tehran - we're more co-operative than the Swiss when it comes to activities within Iran to assist the liberals and encourage the slow but steady encroachment of western society in Iran. Japan, Germany, France, and South Korea are all allies of the US with more trade with Iran than Australia, all of whom want to encourage the liberals and are reluctant to shut the door and leave them to the militants. Cheers Russell C. Me: Well, that's what they _say_ they want to do. But it's kind of convenient that what they say they want to do also means that they get the profits from trading with Iran and access to Iranian oil. Now, maybe that's all it is - just convenient. But it seems at least fair to acknowledge that there's another possibility. We Americans are always told that our foreign policy is hostage to our business interests. But we cut our businesses off from trading with Iran, Iraq, North Korea, and Cuba, for example. You can debate the wisdom of that (I think it's incredibly dumb in the case of Cuba, for example) but it's impossible to argue that this is an example of the American government kowtowing to business interests. When other countries trade with terrorist governments, I think it's fair to raise the possibility that they are doing so because it's a good way to make profits. It's at least a legitimate question to ask whether trade with Iran or shutting the door would be the most effective way to encourage liberalization. I think that the single most effective thing we could do to encourage that is topple Saddam Hussein, because I can't think of a clearer way to make sure that everyone in the Middle East knows that the day of the dictators and terrorists is over, once and for all, because _we_ will not permit such behavior to continue. Gautam
