'Imposing American-Style Democracy': Iraq, part 2

    Back in 2004-5, I used to post regularly on a UK-based political discussion site named 'Open Democracy'.  (This is the site.) Other than the fact that the site was not particularly open, and anything but democratic, the title was reasonably descriptive. The tenor of the vast majority of the posts was what might be called 'Marxist Triste', i.e, acknowledgment that the Cold War had ended, and - yeah - probably in the right way - but wouldn't it have been nice if . . .? The Iraq War had clearly revived their flagging spirits. To a man and woman, they were convinced that the stated rationales about WMD or regime change was at best secondary, at worst a subterfuge, and that the war was really an exercise in American 'imperialism'.  Resisting the temptation to offer the basic response of an Irish American to British subjects moralizing about empire - 'you oughta know' - I posted back and forth. They were all cynically sure that the various deadlines the US had set for the return of power to the Iraqi people would be postponed or ignored. When they were scrupulously met, one after another, and the cynicism of the comrades remained undented, I lost interest in the site and stopped posting there.

    One striking phrase occurred over and over in the posts. What the United States was doing in its unforgivable empire-building zeal was 'attempting to impose American-style democracy' in Iraq.  The expression  interested me, and particularly the underlined phrases. The connotative sense of the phrase is ominously imperial. 'Impose', of course, means to require someone else do something against their will. The adjectival phrase 'American-style' has a loose relation to the noun phrase 'American life-style'. In the manner of traditional conquerors, the crass Americans insist that the hapless Iraqis adopt their way of life. The crass neocons will not be satisfied until Iraqi girls are walking down the streets of Baghdad in miniskirts, with a pork sausage in one hand and a music video playing on their Ipods. It all sounds as arrogantly smug as Americans are supposed to be, and dreadfully parochial.

    But hold the phone. Let's take the expression apart rationally, before buying into the metaphorical background. The actual phrase is 'American-style democracy''. Just what exactly is 'American-style democracy'? And is there any relevant sense in which such a thing could be imposed? What does the ominous sounding phrase actually mean?

    There is not enough space to analyze 'American-style democracy' in depth, but the Reality Principle produces the salient point instantly. 'American-style democracy' does NOT mean the cloning of American institutions in a foreign culture. Not even the most demented anti-American sloganeers would advance such a contention. In its efforts at nation building, some of which have been more successful than any other in history (Germany, Japan), the United States has never attempted any such thing.

    So what exactly is 'American style democracy' in this context? As noted, too big a topic to do exhaustively. My intuition is that the essence of 'American style democracy' boils down to two central elements - (1) the Jeffersonian notion of egalitarian inalienable right, and (2) the Lincolnian notion of consensual government - in a word, the core of the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address, combined. The institutions of government vary radically - the Iraqi Constitution adopted in 2005 on Islamic principles is as different from the German as the Japanese is from the United States, etc. But the essence of individual right and consensual government is common to all.

    So this 'American style democracy' that is supposedly the point of imperial ambition - an insistence on consensual government. Perhaps the notion is not so ominous after all. But let us return to the verb - 'impose'. How on earth is it possible to impose consensual government on any people? 'OK, buddy, back into that polling booth . . . slowly'?' The concept is preposterous. It would be as useful to talk about 'imposing liberty', which is a nonsense phrase that no one would use - unless they were deliberately trying to obscure the difference between liberation and conquest. This of course was exactly what was going on.

    I have discussed the phrase 'imposing American style democracy' in some detail because it illustrates perfectly the conundrums the Demented Left faces on this issue. Like it or not - and the Demented Left does not like it one little bit - deposing a dictator of appalling cruelty, attempting to establish a nation based on consent of the governed is a Good Thing To Do. There is no way around it. Such an undertaking is not 'imperial' by any normal definition of the word. (My British friends implicitly agreed with this, by defining 'empire' in terms of breathtaking absurdity, engaging in the Glass Bead Game with unrepentant zeal.) The objections are political and practical - not the moral question, 'should it be done? (of course it should), but the realistic one, can it be done - with the resources available and without undue human cost'?

    But this reduction of the issue to its actual prosaic elements means that judgment on the war and the Bush Administration must be left to the voice of history, which may deem it wise or foolish, as time unfolds the matter - and for those who want to condemn now, and unequivocally, and with the vehemence of zealots, that will never do. For that reason, bland political language is absolutely out of the question. The issues must be formulated in terms that make it suitable for instant denunciation - moral language, in short. Thus, the commendable objective of deposing a madman oppressor is transformed into 'imposing American style democracy', 'empire' becomes redefined to something that Caesar Augusts, Napoleon, or Stalin would never have recognized, street gangs engaging in random mass murder become 'revolutionaries' or 'freedom fighters', etc.

                                                                                                                - Genuine Realist

   

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Comments

[lex24]

Great stuff. Well reasoned and well written. The only addition I'd mad to "American style democracy" is the concept of some protection of minority rights. Although that may be covered in the Jeffersonian "notion of egalitarian inalienable rights".

[Otherhand]

Deadlines scrupulously met? One after another? Return to power of the Iraqi people? Surely you don't really believe that? That has to be a very lonely place to be.

What war doesn't wrap itself in meaningless political rhetoric? What do stated rationales matter in a war? Ever?

Your argument boils down to good intentions. Five years and hundreds of thousands of deaths later, not to mention the human suffering, the loss. And you say we meant well? So what?

[Otherhand]

My 'so what' above isn't enough.

What we should be talking about is where do we go from here? How do we start making things better for the people who have suffered so much for so little, whether Iraquis or Americans or whatever.

What would it take to restore order in Iraq?

There's so much bad blood over this that now we have people thinking instant withdrawal is an option, as if that wouldn't create a vaccuum leading to an even worse bloodbath that the one we've already caused.

Patience has run out while there's still no order and no light at the end of the tunnel.

What we need to do is go with hats in hand to whatever powers might still be able to prevent the bloodbath and build something that can hold up order after this disastrous failure destroyed it. Accept responsibility and ask for help.

[Jordan Bassior]

We've not only _meant_ well, but we've also _done_ well. The Iraqis have control of their own country under a democratic government, something Iraq never knew before. And, finally, the Terrorists have been detached from most local support. The insurgency is all but dead; what remains is a blatant foreign invasion by the Terrorists.