The Democratic Piece

I just saw this interview from last weekend with Barack Obama on the Washington Post site today. The first question was on democracy promotion in U.S. foreign policy:

Q. Do you believe democracy promotion should be a primary U.S. goal? If so, how would you achieve it? How would you balance democracy and human rights priorities against other strategic needs in the case of countries including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, China and Russia?

A. We benefit from the expansion of democracy: Democracies are our best trading partners, our most valuable allies and the nations with which we share our deepest values.

Our greatest tool in advancing democracy is our own example. That’s why I will end torture, end extraordinary rendition and indefinite detentions; restore habeas corpus; and close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.

I will significantly increase funding for the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and other nongovernmental organizations to support civic activists in repressive societies. And I will start a new Rapid Response Fund for young democracies and post-conflict societies that will provide foreign aid, debt relief, technical assistance and investment packages that show the people of newly hopeful countries that democracy and peace deliver, and the United States stands by them.

I recognize that our security interests will sometimes necessitate that we work with regimes with which we have fundamental disagreements; yet, those interests need not and must not prevent us from lending our consistent support to those who are committed to democracy and respect for human rights.

The whole thing is worth a read.

On February 28^th, my partner and I handed a memo to the “National Security Council” – which is the format our class, led by Arturo Valenzuela, Clinton’s former special advisor on Latin American affairs, is styled after – composed of three options for U.S. policy toward Venezuela.  Yesterday, Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez sent 10 battalions of the armed forces to the border with Colombia.  This came in response to a Colombian incursion into Ecuador, in which 17 members of the FARC, a Colombian revolutionary militia that has earned “terrorist” status, were killed.  Fortunately, our memo is still relevant.

The memo began with the following premise: “An opportunity to bolster U.S. interests in Venezuela may have arisen due to Venezuela’s economic disarray, Chávez’s domestic vulnerability after losing a referendum to consolidate his control of [the Government of Venezuela], and the freezing of $12 billion in assets of PDVSA, the state oil company.”   I’ll quickly explain this assessment.

Although the Venezuelan economy has been prodigious in recent years, high oil prices have concealed the catastrophic effect of Chávez’s economic and fiscal policies (featuring: exchange and price controls, an overvalued currency, and decreasing oil output).  Evidence of the damage is manifest in food shortages, rising inflation, and a terrible crime rate.  The Economist predicts that the Venezuelan economy will grow just 5% this year, and 3.7% in 2009. 

In December, 2007, Chávez lost a referendum that would have amended the 1999 Constitution to, among other things, end presidential term limits.  The ‘no’ vote was championed by a loose coalition of oppositionists, including student groups, the urban middle class, the Catholic Church, and business groups.  Even some significant regime supporters came out against Chávez.  His loss imparted momentum to a fairly weak political opposition that Chávez seeks to recapture prior to the regional and local elections coming up later in 2008.  Meanwhile, the freezing of $12 billion of PDVSA’s assets, the result of a lawsuit brought by Exxon Mobil, is a serious problem for a country that lacks investment its oil infrastructure.  Even OPEC doesn’t believe Venezuelan production claims of 3 million b/d in oil; it has the Venezuelan’s quota at 2.5 million b/d (barrels per day).  Aside from being an oil company, PDVSA, thanks to Chávez, provides many Venezuelans with public services.  When the oil boom ends, that $12 billion in frozen assets is really going to be missed.

Given these constraints, my partner and I proposed three options for dealing with Venezuela: engagement, containment, and confrontation (only in the case of an oil embargo against the U.S. or a military attack on a Venezuelan neighbor). 

The engagement option was based on idea that Chávez needs an exit strategy.   We felt that Chávez is unlikely to beg the U.S. for mercy.  If the U.S. were to offer him a way back into the hemispheric order - in exchange for some serious signs of behavioral reform – then he may just be willing to take it.  After all, Chávez is an elected leader and if the Venezuelan government collapses, we don’t know what it will be replaced with.

The containment option was essentially to continue what we are doing now, but this hasn’t really worked.  Our allies in the region have been hard pressed to join the U.S. in isolating Chávez because the U.S. is so unpopular in the eyes of their citizens.  This is not to suggest that the U.S. needs to be “popular,” but we do need to have enough clout to make it within the interests of other countries to do what is in our interest.  But siding with the U.S. is bad politics throughout most of Latin America.  Our containment option also called for increasing democracy and economic assistance for Latin allies to create a ‘reward’ for being on the U.S.’s good side.  The Bush administration’s 2008 budget request for foreign assistance to Latin America has been slashed, and much of what remains is earmarked for counternarcotics and security training.

Finally, the confrontation option was designed to prepare the U.S. for a dip in oil imports and the possibility of a Venezuelan military incursion.  On the latter issue, we thought the U.S. should be prepared for an airstrike on Venezuelan military targets if Chávez attempts to invade either Guyana or Colombia.  Venezuela has a longstanding boarder dispute with Guyana (it actually claims ownership of a good chunk of its resource-laden neighbor), and plenty of tension with Colombia.  I’d be shocked if Bush didn’t have a similar plan sitting in his desk drawer: Venezuela has imported $4.6 billion worth of arms and military equipment since 2006. 

Given that Chávez has a financial crisis looming and no exit strategy, we should not be surprised that he’s flexing his muscles on the Colombian border right now.  As President Bush knows, wartime offers a number of advantages to a sitting president.  For Chávez, the advantages are far more fantastic.  He can augment his decree powers by calling a state of emergency, silence his political opposition, and, perhaps, find a cause around which he can unite his military.  He can also deflect domestic political and economic pressures by blaming Colombia and the U.S. for Venezuela’s increasingly precarious footing.  If he’s lucky, maybe he can convince some worried country or international institute to pay him to take the soldiers back to the barracks. 

Does Chávez’s military maneuver yesterday render option 1, “engagement,” anachronistic?  If this option does actually exist in the Bush administration’s policy quiver, the situation would have to die down before it could be employed.  So far, it appears that the administration is ignoring the threat from Chávez, which I consider a wise move (yes, I just agreed with the Bush administration).   At present, Chávez is little more than a mouth with an overdrawn bank account.  His armed forces are weak and divided, and I’d be shocked if a rebellion doesn’t occur were Chávez to attack.  Someone in the Venezuelan military must realize, if Chávez doesn’t himself, that Bush and Cheney would relish the opportunity to bomb that place.  They are probably swimming in a pool of their own drool right now, just waiting for Chávez to breach the Colombian border. 

President Bush put all of his eggs in the Musharraf basket and the Pakistani people have smashed that basket right in his face by wholeheartedly rejecting Musharraf’s political party. President Bush undermined U.S. standing in the world and our security by believing that the best way to fight Islamic extremism and terrorists in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region was unquestioningly supporting President Musharraf and funneling billions of dollars to the Pakistani military without oversight. The results of the Pakistani parliamentary elections have left the Bush administration with a lot of egg on its face.

As the State Department scrambles to get its bearings in the fluid Pakistani political environment, it is important for us to consider three things. First, why did the Pakistani government allow these elections to be carried out in a relatively unfettered manner? Second, what are the likely outcomes? Third, what should the priorities of the U.S. government moving forward in terms of security and democracy promotion? Continue Reading »

Think again:

“… a considerable amount of the money the U.S. gives to Pakistan is administered not through U.S. agencies or joint U.S.-Pakistani programs. Instead, the U.S. gives Musharraf’s government about $200 million annually and his military $100 million monthly in the form of direct cash transfers. Once that money leaves the U.S. Treasury, Musharraf can do with it whatever he wants.”

Every day our tax dollars go directly to dictators to prop up their regimes. President George W. Bush speaks about freedom in bold terms, but acts with deafening silence when one of his “war on terror” buddies crack some heads. Tell me why the lawyers, journalists, judges, and civil society activists are the first to be rounded up when a state of emergency is declared because of the threat from Islamic extremists.

What a joke the president has become.

There has been much talk in the mainstream US media over the past few days about the dilemmas that face the Bush administration in the wake of Musharraf’s “extra-constitutional” emergency. The dilemma has been characterized as the tough choice between supporting a key ally in the war on terror, and undermining Musharraf only to let the country (and its nuclear arsenal) slip into the hands of Islamists. In fact, there is actually a great deal of congruence between these two supposed opposites.

This supposed dilemma actually confuses the interests of pro-democracy activists and the Islamic extremists. In fact, Islamists in Pakistan have never really questioned Musharaf’s democratic credentials. It is the Pakistani government’s military and tactical support of the US war on terrorism that they have focused on. This support is seen as unholy allegiance to the “great Satan” by an Islamic country. If this had been done by a democratically elected Bhutto, or a military coup leader like Musharraf, the rage would remain the same. Further, the support base for such extremism in the wider Pakistani population remains slim. For now.

However, this scenario could change quickly. The unrest caused by Musharraf’s anti-democratic moves creates the sort of environment where anti-government sentiments can be whipped up. There may well be a growing support base for the Islamic extremists’ agenda in the wake of the emergency. This is the nightmare scenario for the US: an extremist Islamic faction that has widespread electoral support due to Musharraf’s anti-democratic policies.

Thus, the course of action is clear: the US must stop paying lip service to democratic values and yank the financial crutches that keep Musharraf’s policies alive from under him. Mild reprimands will not suffice. It is not Musharraf that keeps US interests intact, but a leader who has Pakistan’s interests at heart; interests which are inherently opposed to those of the Islamic extremists. Only a democratic system can ensure that such a leader is brought to power. The US could do no worse than to endorse Musharraf’s rule. This would catalyze a swell of support for extremists and usher in an era of oppression for the Pakistani people and instability in the world at large.

We may find out. This could be the opening volley of the “Black Tie Revolution.”

For the second time this year the lawyers of Pakistan have demonstrated that they may be the only group ready and willing to oppose Musharraf at every turn. The Pakistani Bar Association has organized protests and demonstrations already in multiple cities around the country, something that glorified Bhutto has yet to do. The Telegraph reports:

In Lahore, the scene of the worst violence, several people have been wounded and hundreds more arrested after police used force to disperse more than 2,000 lawyers who had gathered in the High Court.

Other protests have been reported in Multan, Islamabad, and Rawalpindi. Rawalpindi is essentially a garrison town outside of Islamabad and the location of the Pakistani military government.  Multiple Supreme Court justices are under arrest after refusing to take an oath to Musharraf. Only 5 of the original 17 Supreme Court judges agreed to take the new oath. 

So far I’ve seen two accounts of government agents backing down after groups refused to comply with their orders. The NYTimes reports (emphasis mine):

Earlier, the director of the Aaj channel, Wamiq Zuberi, said a magistrate accompanied by five buses of gun-toting police officers showed up at the studios on Saturday night and tried to confiscate an outdoor broadcasting van. The magistrate did not have a warrant and the workers at the studio stood their ground, forcing the officials to leave empty-handed, Mr. Zuberi said.

And the NYTtimes in a separate story notes (emphasis mine):

The government officials ordered the editor of the newspaper, Nazeer Leghari, not to print a supplement, and police threatened to close down the plant, according to a statement issued by the Jang Group. When the newspaper’s management refused to obey, the officials withdrew, the statement said.

The  bold actions of the Pakistani lawyers and media may hopefully show that Musharraf has no clothes, so to speak. Sometimes it is the seemingly irrational acts of individuals against regimes that demonstrate to the rest of the society that opposition is possible. Let’s hope that the political parties of Pakistan will be inspired to join the demonstrations.

Why did the Musharraf government choose to declare martial law? Allegedly because extremists threatened the nation. Were these Islamic extremists? Hardly, although Musharraf and the Pakistani military have repeatedly failed to defeat rebels in the Northwest Province. Instead of the security of the Pakistani public, the impetus for the state of emergency was Musharraf’s own job security:

A close aide to General Musharraf said the Pakistani leader had decided to declare an emergency when he was told last week by a Supreme Court justice that the court would rule within days that he was ineligible to continue serving as president. The ruling would have been unanimous, according to the aide.

As noted in the Democratic Piece before, the United States was able prevent an previous attempt in early August to declare martial law when Secretary Rice made a brief, 17-minute phone call to General Musharraf. Why did the Pakistani military not balk this time? Because they know that President Bush’s freedom agenda is dead:

In Islamabad, aides to General Musharraf — who had dismissed pleas on Friday from Ms. Rice and Adm. William J. Fallon, the senior military commander in the Middle East, to avoid the state-of-emergency declaration — said they had anticipated that there would be few real consequences.

They called the American reaction “muted,” saying General Musharraf had not received phone calls of protest from Mr. Bush or other senior American officials. In unusually candid terms, they said American officials supported stability over democracy.

The Netherlands is the only country to so far announce and immediate suspension of all aid to Pakistan. The United Kingdom and the United states are merely “reviewing” their aid to the Musharraf regime. The NYTimes noted today that the US has provided more than $10 billion dollars to Pakistan, more than 90% of that going directly to support the military government (emphasis mine):

While the total dollar amount of American aid to Pakistan is unclear, a study published in August by the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated it to be “at least $10 billion in Pakistan since 9/11, excluding covert funds.” Sixty percent of that has gone to “Coalition Support Funds,” essentially direct payments to the Pakistani military, and 15 percent to purchase major weapons systems (me - again, the military). Another 15 percent has been for general budget support for the Pakistani government (me - again, the military); only 10 percent for development or humanitarian assistance.

When will our funding of authoritarianism stop?

So the Kremlin says.

Last week the EU and Russia sat down for a regular summit. Russia made a surprising announcement during the course of the event: Russia would begin to fund think tanks in Europe to protect human rights and promote democracy. The new think tank organization may be located in Brussels or another European capital.

Asserting that the EU and US regularly provide funds to civil society organizations in Russia, the Kremlin argued that their establishment of an Russia-funded organization would be natural outgrowth of Russia’s development as a modern state.

Right…

The institute may focus on the treatment of Slavic populations in the EU, especially in the Baltic states.

The increasing sophistication of the use of “soft power” by Russia is impressive. This development is related to the story that emerged last week about Russia’s proposal for a new set of standards for OSCE election observation missions. Needless to say, these new standards would do nothing more than tie the hands of the OSCE to make the election observation branch more toothless than it is already.

The gaming continues as the authoritarian states of Eurasia adapt. How will Europe, and the United States, respond?

Australian Prime Minister John Howard has set November 24 as the date for the next federal election. (Thanks to Electoral Panorama for the tip-off). STV will be used in 3-seat 6-seat districts for Senate elections, and its single-winner variant, IRV or the Alternative Vote, will be used to elect the Commons.

The Man of Steel, as he came to be known in some circles, was an eager participant in the 2003 Iraq venture. If the reactions to the ABC story on the announcement are remotely representative, he’ll probably pay the price in votes.
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The recent discovery of oil in western Uganda has led to debates about the “oil curse” in Africa, with particular reference to the cases of Nigeria, the Sudan and the lesser known Equatorial Guinea. The oil curse could result in similar conditions of corruption, Dutch disease, and conflict seen in other African oil producers. Despite only being in the exploration phase, several people have recently been killed in the Lake Albert region, where the oil is located, including a British oil contractor.
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According to the Peter Baker’s article “As Democracy Push Falters, Bush Feels Like a ‘Dissident’” in the Washington Post, Bush’s democracy promotion efforts have been hampered by the ole’ Washington bureaucracy. The first six paragraphs of Baker’s article set up the argument that Bush’s plan to “spread democracy around the world… has [been] bogged down in a bureaucratic and geopolitical morass.” Baker states that officials within the administration, including Cheney have “undermined” the president’s “grand project.” He describes the crux of the problem as translating “vision” into “thorny policy.” In conclusion, democracy promotion is tainted by its association with the Bush administration he suggests, citing a Republican presidential candidate’s response to whether he agreed with Bush’s vision: “Absolutely not, because I don’t think we can force people to accept our way of life, our way of government.”

Of course, democracy promotion has very little to do with forcing anyone to accept our way of life or our way of government. If it were, democracy promotion would be called democracy compulsion and that is not what it is or what it was meant to be. In fact, the above quotation has little to do with democracy promotion and a lot to do with regime change and the U.S.’s experiences in Iraq. But regime change is not democracy promotion, so let’s not help our friends in the Kremlin, other autocrats, and aspiring autocrats by perpetuating a myth that suggests otherwise.

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