Rarely has the Middle East been as distant as it is today from the principles of capitalist culture — a culture of open minds and open markets. Some markets are opening, very gingerly, but by and large the Arab world continues to perfect its reputation as a place where minds are kept resolutely closed.
Enter a recent article by Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations. Haass has always been among the more effective proponents of a realist foreign policy, whereby the US should pursue its international aims according to a cold reading of where its national interests lie, without making it a priority to spread particular values, whether political, economic or social.
Against this stands, supposedly, a more idealistic foreign policy, one focused on values. Idealists believe the US, and the international community in general, must make a priority of advancing human and humanitarian rights, freedom, democracy, and so forth. For this to be effective, it means that powerful states like the US must shape even the internal behavior of states less committed to these values. That is why in his article, Haass writes that no debate is more persistent than that between those who believe that American foreign policy’s principal purpose should be to influence the external behavior of other states and those who hold that it should be to shape their internal nature.
Haass’ argument is a cry of triumph. After eight years of the two George W. Bush terms, during which the US made (or claimed to make) the spread of democracy a national priority, particularly in the Middle East, Haass points out that Barack Obama seems to be a realist, and that this change is both desirable and necessary. Democracy promotion is an uncertain proposition, Haass writes, because mature democracies do tend to act more responsibly, but immature democracies can easily succumb to populism and nationalism. While the US should advance democracy, democracy promotion is too uncertain a proposition, and the world too dangerous a place, for it to occupy center stage in what the United States does.
One can dispute this. The essence of realism is that it breeds a fairly stable international order. Realists believe that if states are left to manage their own domestic affairs, without outside interference, they will generally behave responsibly. However, how true is that proposition? Is a dictator who has few constraints on his power more likely to respect international law, let’s say, than a democracy? Saddam Hussein did not. But even more minor figures, such as Presidents Bashar al-Assad of Syria and Omar Bashir of Sudan, have destabilized the countries around them in order to advance their interests and protect their regimes.
While dictatorships don’t necessarily breed instability, they are more prone to do so because their leaders do not fear accountability. What Haass gets wrong in his injunction that the US should not concern itself with the domestic abuses of dictatorships is that Arab dictatorships on the wane often create the most unstable regimes of all, because the only forces capable of replacing them are radical Islamists. What is the major source of regional instability in the Middle East today but an Iran that believes the time is ripe to impose its will on declining Arab despotisms, which are the same despotisms Haass insists the US should not try to change because that is not in its interest?
However, it is in economics that Haass’s arguments also require closer scrutiny. He writes that while encouraging the rule of law and civil society growth, the US must work with undemocratic governments because pressing problems, such as the economic crisis, nuclear proliferation and climate change, will not wait.
Quite right, but when Haass mentions the economic crisis, is he, similarly, of the view that state sovereignty should prevail? Is he just as clear that the principal purpose should be to influence the external behavior of other states, as realists believe, and not that it should be to shape their internal nature, as idealists believe?
Obviously, these neat absolutes don’t apply when it comes to the global financial crisis, which can only be resolved in a cooperative, global fashion where strictly national priorities, like protectionist measures, may endanger the financial interests of the international community. If ever there was mounting pressure on states to bring their domestic economies in sync with a global need, whether in terms of increasing government regulatory oversight, the loosening of credit, or the preservation of open markets, it is now. Obama may be a political realist, but he has led an international effort to revive the global economy that can only be deemed idealistic, especially in the moral opprobrium directed against those who made the crisis possible.
Realists believe they are back, particularly in the US. But there is much more to state relations than politics. No zero-sum game is possible between realism and idealism, because events invariably intervene to bring the ideologues of both back down to earth.
Michael Young