George W. Bush's embrace of Vladimir Putin has driven neoconservative hawk Robert Kagan into unbalanced shrillness:
Posted by DeLong at September 15, 2004 12:17 PM | TrackBackStand Up to Putin (washingtonpost.com): Putin's decision on Monday to end the system of direct popular election of Russia's governors, and to have the Russian parliament elected on the basis of slates chosen by national party leaders he mostly controls, is an unambiguous step toward tyranny in Russia.... Putin is imposing dictatorship the old-fashioned way, in the manner of a Ferdinand Marcos, an Anastasio Somoza or a Park Chung Hee. He claims that he needs to strengthen the state to face its enemies. So did they. Russia does need to fight terrorism. But eliminating elections and quashing Putin's political opponents has nothing to do with that fight.
The question now: Does President Bush care about the fate of democracy in Russia? Ever since Sept. 11 he has proclaimed a grand strategy of promoting democracy worldwide. [But]... the Bush administration has turned a blind eye to anti-democratic trends in Russia.... A great deal is riding on whether President Bush can muster the will to denounce the man he has regarded as an ally in the war on terrorism. Some will argue, and Bush may feel, that Putin is "with us."...
Failure to take sides with democratic forces in Russia will cast doubt on Bush's commitment to worldwide democracy. A White House official commented to the New York Times that Putin's actions are "a domestic matter for the Russian people." Really?.... If the Bush administration holds to that line... those hostile to democracy in the Middle East will point to the glaring U.S. double standard; those who favor democracy in the Middle East will be discredited....
There is an even more fundamental reality that the president must face: A Russian dictatorship can never be a reliable ally of the United States. A Russian dictator will always regard the United States with suspicion, because America's very existence, its power, its global influence, its democratic example will threaten his hold on power.... Did the United States help undo Soviet communism only to watch as tyranny takes its place? Is that the legacy President Bush wants to leave behind?...
"Some will argue, and Bush may feel, that Putin is "with us."... "
The all-deciding criterion. Electeed leaders, autocrats, strongmen, tyrants, we take them all. As long as they're "with us", we prop them up.
Always remember: American business interests override girly-manly concerns about democracy promotion.
Posted by: ogmb at September 15, 2004 12:34 PMNow we know why Russia wouldn't vote for the war in Iraq in the UN Security Council. Putin's against democracy and Hussein was his kind of guy, a dictator.
"The all-deciding criterion. Electeed leaders, autocrats, strongmen, tyrants, we take them all. As long as they're "with us", we prop them up."
Hasn't Bush said we aren't going to do this any more, regarding the Middle East and admitted this policy was a mistake and came back to haunt us on 9/11. The Cold War's over. We won.
"Did the United States help undo Soviet communism only to watch as tyranny takes its place? Is that the legacy President Bush wants to leave behind?"
George W. Bush.
Who lost Russia, North Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan,... ?
Posted by: ch2 at September 15, 2004 12:43 PMWe can evidently no longer morally challenge Russia or China. So much for our moral sway in foreign policy. We have set ourselves in a foreign policy bind where we can take few of the moral stances that are needed.
Russia is becoming an authoritarian state. We will not object because we are in a position where we must cater to any government that offers support, but this is not a promising development. China's development movement is an
advance and we should help assure that it becomes more so. Russia's movement has become a regression, and Russia is still a most important state, but we can not criticize.
aren't most of this guy's supporters people who worshiped reagan for ending the cold war and smaller government?
now look what bush is doing!
the end of western civilization.
Posted by: Andrew McManama at September 15, 2004 01:39 PM"Hasn't Bush said we aren't going to do this any more, regarding the Middle East and admitted this policy was a mistake and came back to haunt us on 9/11."
Sarcasm or moronicity?
Posted by: ogmb at September 15, 2004 02:14 PMConservative foreign policy has long been able to discriminate between types of authoritarian governments. Jean Kirkpatrick liked to draw a sharp distinction between totalitarianism and authoritarianism. The former was an all-consuming utopian regime and the later was a Burkeian nation-state where oppression, however horrible, was borne as part of the natural order of things. Because of differences in ideological alignment, and thus degree of cooperation, we could hold the Soviets to one standard and the South American dictators to another. Jesse Helms’ genuine defense of human rights in China is a notable exception.
American toleration of weak democratic institutions is arguably even more pronounced than our relativist approach to human rights. If you agree with Robert Dahl’s thesis, we were the most (only) democratic country in 1790 and today we are the least among the old democracies. While Tony’s Blair’s Labour pushes democratic reforms in the House of Lords and the good people of British Columbia have a Citizens’ Assembly to decide on proportional voting systems, Zell Miller and Alan Keyes called for the repeal of the 17th Amendment.
When Bush says he wants to spread democracy around the world he does not mean democracy=popular representative government. He means just what Lord McCauley meant when he championed British civilization as an antidote for Indian backwardness .
We all saw Bush give Pakistan a big political hug, so why are we all pretending to be shocked, here?
Posted by: Dragonchild at September 15, 2004 05:05 PMImagine that--a world leader who uses an outrageous terrorist attack to advance his personal political agenda...
Posted by: geaurilla at September 15, 2004 05:05 PMBrad
I have to write a letter to my pop in Cincinnati about why he should vote for Kerry or at least not for Bush. Could you start a running feature that succinctly puts the shrill points in a 2-paragraph letter. Everyone in a RED or BLUE state could send it to people they know in SWING America?
Thanks
Wren
Posted by: wren at September 15, 2004 06:34 PMPutin must have visited Florida.
Posted by: Elaine Supkis at September 15, 2004 07:32 PM"American toleration of weak democratic institutions is arguably even more pronounced than our relativist approach to human rights."
Indeed, and let's not forget the latest US efforts to undermine democracy in the Americas, succesfully in Haiti, and unsuccesfully, so far, in Venezuela. Actual democracy in Iraq? Bwa ha ha! They would have never allowed it, and least of all places in Iraq!
Posted by: Jean-Philippe Stijns at September 15, 2004 08:01 PM"I have to write a letter to my pop in Cincinnati about why he should vote for Kerry or at least not for Bush. Could you start a running feature that succinctly puts the shrill points in a 2-paragraph letter?"
In only 2 paragraphs??? Some hard choices will have to be made to get to that level of summarizing... Are we allowed to skip words like 'the' 'and' etc?
Posted by: Jean-Philippe Stijns at September 15, 2004 08:08 PMBull's eye geaurilla and Elaine too. Putin the protege.
Posted by: calmo at September 15, 2004 10:47 PM
Putin has a good (almost) homonym in French
Venky, what you say is even more so in Spanish. The French do a transcription, not a transliteraton, of Russian names, so they end with Poutine. The transliteration like in English, however, would sound unpolite at the least.
DSW
Posted by: Antoni Jaume at September 16, 2004 07:05 AM