Met the Australian Foreign Minister today, Alexander Downer, who was in town meeting with our Dean and other school administrators to discuss plans to open a campus in Australia. Apparently, Australia is really interested in establishing a public policy program with a strong IT emphasis there.
They held an informal reception for him with a small group of graduating students and he offered his perspectives on Australia, the US, and the world. Pretty nice guy, very observant of cultural differences and values, which I guess is a good quality for a foreign minister. The perspectives he gave, which are obviously aligned with Australian foreign policy, didn't exactly inspire my confidence.
I asked him if he thought that the war in Iraq had hampered opinions of the West within the Islamic world, especially since the State Department has issued a report indicating a rise in terror incidents. His view was first, that the State Department report shouldn't be taken as indication that the absolute number of incidents has increased, but rather that reporting has improved.
Second, he thought that we shouldn't believe the liberal press views that the war in Iraq has inflamed the passions of the Islamic world. He believes that the Arab street either vaguely admires the US or is at worst, ambivalent about it. He thinks that the Arab street hates being under tyranny, since so many people live under autocratic regimes. They therefore welcome democracy in Iraq since it forebodes democracy in their own country. What he finds troubling are the tensions between Shiites and Shia, which he compared to the tension that might be had between a Episcopalian and a Catholic.
I think he's probably right that many in the Arab world would welcome democracy, but I think what he ultimately failed to acknowledge, is that the US and possibly the rest of the Western world, doesn't actually want democracy in the Middle East. Historically, the US has preferred dictatorships, even Saddam Hussein's, because it's much easier to negotiate and deal with one person (or group of persons). Dealing with democracies are much more complex, since they often work at the whim of the people, and we can't control the people.
Look at the Saudis - we're not exactly pushing the royal family to get out of the way for democracy. We practically shunned the Turks for their democratic exercise of their rights to not support US troop deployments in their country. Our efforts in Iraq have been driven mostly towards controlling the kind of democracy that will take place there, out of fear that a true vote of the population would result in a Shia democratic theocracy.
On top of that credibility issue, is just the pure brutality of our presence there. The thoughtlessness and the corruption in managing Iraq, from reconstruction to how we treat people and more specifically, prisoners, there - how can that not provoke an angry and bitter reaction? If a bad customer experience causes that customer to tell 12 people, how many does an improper search, a wrongful detention, or the death of an innocent civilian create? We can control what the news media says about it, we can avoid counting the civilian casualties, but we can't prevent the Iraqi people from telling anyone about their grievances. Won't we get blamed for our own misconduct in that country and won't our mistreatment inspire vengeance?
i love the way u write, or rather your passion.
i will definitely visit again.
stay angry!
Posted by: mamatha | May 19, 2005 at 02:27 AM