re: "New Libyan Ruler Proposes More-Radical-Than-Expected Islamic Law"

Ace at Ace of Spades HQ noted the fallability of experts and that social evolution doesn't happen overnight.

Money quote(s):

"Unexpectedly.

I am beginning to note our current cadre of putative "experts" is surprised by "unexpected" news that our non-experts actually expected (and predicted).

Perhaps "expertise" now means "idiocy.""

An "expert," as it was explained to me when I was just a wee street-agent-in-training, is either:

a. Someone from out-of-town with a briefcase; or

b. (etymology) "ex" (former or "has-been") + "spurt" (a drip under pressure).

"I've had mixed feelings about these uprisings. Some say that tearing down despots is a necessary step in the process of political maturation.

Others say that such despots will be replaced by vicious thugs worse than before.

Here's the thing: I think both are right. I think that democracy, for this part of the world, will only come after a long series of violent spasms and failures. I think one purge will give way to the next. I think one tyrant will replace the next, and then share his fate." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

&

"(T)he people of these lands are probably going to have to learn all the lessons of history that the West learned from ca. AD 1300 to the present. The Islamic world has been essentially frozen in the middle ages forever.

I suppose, if they were smart, they could skip over the long, violent process of discovering that a liberal (classic sense) democratic republic is the only system that really works, by studying our example, and applying the lessons our ancestors learned.

But of course they despise us, and despise democracy because they despise us, so they will endeavor to prove that "their" ways can work.

I think they will try virtually everything before attempting the model of the despised Western infidels." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Awhile back CAA attended a brown-bag presentation at Johns Hopkins' Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.

(This is not to brag, it was open to the public.)

The developing country under discussion that day was Congo (formerly Zaire) and academic superstar Francis Fukuyama was one of the speakers (although he disavowed any country-specific knowledge or experience of Congo).

The main speaker was an academic, Dr. Séverine Autesserre. From my notes:

"She noted the difficulties inherent with development and nation-building in a place like Congo due to the interconnectedness of the various mutually reinforcing political elements of nationhood: laws, representative institutions, and an independent judiciary. Perhaps her most crucial observation had to do with the unrealistic expectations of donor nations and international institutions regarding development in Congo and elsewhere. This was that nation-building in Europe and North America was a process which took centuries, five hundred or even a thousand years, to accomplish, uniting tribes and regional groups into a single nation. She deconstructed the European model of state development into three historical phases: state building to establish central institutions, development of a rule of law to limit the excesses of the state through equal protection and rights under the law, and finally institutionalizing of processes of accountability, so that state institutions and officials are accountable under the law to the people or their representatives."

(Bold typeface added for emphasis.)

Unexpectedly!

10/24

re: "FT: Top EU policy-making "Undemocratic and Ineffective" "

Charles Crawford at Blogoir (" A digital hybrid of blog and memoir presented on a daily basis, or not.") reported from front-row seats to the EU's unraveling.

Money quote(s):

"To have tired heads of government and states who themselves barely understand the issues horse-trading the rights and responsibilities of hundreds of millions of people is 'undemocratic and ineffective'. Worse. It's dangerous.

European leaders and their clever formalistic functionaries have created a structure which is now not able to work except by tottering along a policy tight-rope that gets higher and thinner as each day passes. It is hard to see how the radical centralisation of crude power needed to keep the show tottering on can be reconciled with any idea of popular democratic legitimacy as it has evolved in Europe since WW2." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

10/24

re: "Friendless in the Middle East"

Daniel Pipes at DanielPipes.Org ("the Internet's most accessed sources of specialized information on the Middle East and Islam") explains why the "Arab Spring" and "democracy" aren't necessarily good things in the mid- to long run.

Money quote(s):

"(O)ther than in a few outliers (Cyprus, Israel, and Iran), populations are predominantly hostile to the West. Friends are few, powerless, and with dim prospects of taking control. Democracy therefore translates into hostile relations with unfriendly governments.

Both the first wave of elections in 2005 and the second wave, just begun in Tunisia, confirm that, given a free choice, a plurality of Middle Easterners vote for Islamists. Dynamic, culturally authentic and ostensibly democratic, these forward a body of uniquely vibrant political ideas and constitute the only Muslim political movement of consequence.

But Islamism is the third totalitarian ideology (following Fascism and Communism). It preposterously proposes a medieval code to deal with the challenges of modern life. Retrograde and aggressive, it denigrates non-Muslims, oppresses women, and justifies force to spread Muslim rule. Middle Eastern democracy threatens not just the West's security but also its civilization.

That explains why Western leaders (with the brief exception of George W. Bush) shy away from promoting democracy in the Muslim Middle East." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Interesting that Prof. Pipes includes Iran among the outliers whose populations are not hostile to the West, but it's substantially true. It's Iran's governing regime, the mullah-cracy, that hates the West, not the overwhelming majority of the people(s) in Iran.

"Summing up the West's policy dilemma vis-à-vis the Middle East:

Democracy pleases us but brings hostile elements to power.

Tyranny betrays our principles but leaves pliable rulers in power.

As interest conflicts with principle, consistency goes out the window. Policy wavers between Scylla and Charybdis. Western chanceries focus on sui generis concerns: security interests (the U.S. Fifth Fleet stationed in Bahrain), commercial interests (oil in Saudi Arabia), geography (Libya is ideal for Europe-based air sorties), the neighbors (the Turkish role in Syria), or staving off disaster (a prospect in Yemen). Little wonder policy is a mess."

It's very easy to criticize U.S. foreign policies in the Near and MidEast regions.

(It's so easy that even CAA can do it!)

Prof. Pipes does us all a service by pointing out some of the limiting realities that constrain any effort to design and implement a humane, consistent, and non-suicidal foreign policy.

(It's rather like the "you-can-have-this-cheap-good-fast-pick-any-three" conundrum, only with humanitarian, consistence, and self-interest being your "pick-any-two" constraints.)

11/8

re: "Greece's Dangerous Gamble"

James Joyner at Outside the Beltway ("an online journal of politics and foreign affairs analysis") looked at the Greek financial crisis.

Money quote(s):

"As much as the Germans and French resent having to bail out profligate Greece, the Greeks resent having their core political decisions dictated from Paris and Berlin even more."

Likewise for Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, and Iceland. To name a few.

"European integration has been achieved through stealth and technocratic maneuvering on the part of elites, quite frequently bypassing the clear preferences of the ostensibly democratic populations in various countries. The passing of so much authority to the European Central Bank and to appointed officials in Brussels has been inexorable, with little input from the European publics and often against the expressed wishes demonstrated via referenda."

This is not a bug in the European experiment: it's a feature.

11/1

re: "The betrayal of Honduras"

José R. Cárdenas at Shadow Government ("Notes From The Loyal Opposition") has an update about further attacks on the Honduran constitution.

Money quote(s):

"Only the willfully deluded or the dangerously naïve would believe that the return of the disgraced former president means anything more than increased civic disturbances, more violence, and more chaos in one of Latin America's poorest countries.

Why? Because that is the way Hugo Chavez wants it.

The Venezuelan autocrat has bankrolled the two-year exile of his puppet Zelaya, as well the international campaign to force the oligarch-turned-populist's return to Honduras. Chavez has never gotten over the fact that Zelaya's attempt to replicate the Chavez model in Honduras was cut short by his impeachment by the Honduran Congress and his removal from office by order of the country's Supreme Court for violating the country's Constitution and other illegal acts. (Zelaya's apologists insist on characterizing what transpired as a "military coup.") "

Previously, I'd had a reasonable feeling of respect for the OAS. After all, most of its members were/are (finally!) democracies. But the Zelaya-instigated constitutional crisis in Honduras made me re-think that, when the OAS and its membership made it clear that it was much more interested in protecting the rights and privileges of presidents than in the democratic liberties of its member nation's citizens.

"What is noteworthy is the complicity of Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, whose government teamed with Chavez to engineer Zelaya's return. It is now apparent that President Santos cannot run away fast enough from the legacy of his wildly successful and pro-U.S. predecessor Alvaro Uribe. And peace and stability in the region will be the poorer for it.

Santos's foreign minister, María Ángela Holguín, is in Washington this week for a bit of diplomatic back-slapping with Organization of American States (OAS) Secretary General José Miguel Insulza, another co-conspirator in forcing Zelaya's return who can always be counted on to do the wrong thing. (The OAS is scheduled to vote this week to reinstate Honduras, after they were suspended in the wake of Zelaya's ouster.)

So what we have here is that instead of allowing the Honduran people to move on with their lives following the turbulent and polarizing Zelaya years, they are now forced to accept the anti-democratic fox back into the henhouse just so a few Latin American politicians can preen before the cameras celebrating their diplomatic "victory."

And just what message is this "victory" sending to the hemisphere? That it is perfectly acceptable that an elected president can run roughshod over democratic institutions, undermine separation of powers, and rewrite the constitution to seek indefinite re-election? That co-equal branches of government must remain supine before any president bent on aggressively aggrandizing power? That the Chavez model is a paragon of democratic legitimacy and rule of law and any attempts to legally thwart it are ipso facto illegitimate? "

re: "Obama administration preparing for Islamic states in Middle East"

Robert at Jihad Watch ("dedicated to bringing public attention to the role that jihad theology and ideology plays in the modern world, and to correcting popular misconceptions about the role of jihad and religion in modern-day conflicts") considers the likely outcomes.

Money quote(s):

"I thought only greasy Islamophobes thought that the likely outcome in the Middle East would be Islamic states, not pluralistic Western-style democracies!"

It's actually a bit too early to tell, but it wouldn't be outrageous for me to suggest that at least one of the recent upheavels in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya will result an Islamic state, even if it turns out to be a mini-state in a devolved Libya.

"(T)here has never been and is not now an Islamic state that was democratic in the Western sense. Kemalist Turkey established a Western-style republic only by directly and openly restricting the political aspects of Islam. Maybe it will happen now that functioning democracies that guarantee equality of rights for non-Muslims and women, protect the freedom of speech and the freedom of conscience, and yet establish Islam as well, will emerge in the Middle East -- history is full of surprises.

But for that to happen, some aspects of Islamic law will not be implemented, and that will mean there will be pressure in those states from Islamic clerics who will find the new government, whatever its Islamic character, to be just as un-Islamic and hence unacceptable as the authoritarian regime it replaced. And that pressure will lead to continued unrest."

re: "For neocons: Bolton’s democracy primer on Egypt"

Neo-Neocon ("surely leaving the fold and becoming that dread thing") excerpts from Amb. Bolton's advice and comments.

Money quote(s):

"Egypt is probably a walk in the park compared to Libya if the rebels manage to depose Qaddafi. Paradoxically, if the Iranian opposition were somehow successful in getting rid of the mullahs, Iran might even have the best chance of becoming the closest thing to a liberal democracy in a Muslim country in the region (including the nascent and tenuous democracy in Iraq), simply because its people have had such a long and gut-wrenching experience of enduring the opposite after a revolution that briefly promised otherwise."

http://neoneocon.com/2011/02/25/for-neocons-boltons-democracy-primer-on-egypt/

re: "On The Wrong Side Of The Right Man"

Jude at Hugh Hewett ("A blog of Townhall.Com") provided some illumination about the new Honduran president.

Money quote(s):

"Roberto Micheletti is the legally elected president of Honduras who counts among his allies the Honduran constitution, the rule of law, the Honduran Congress, the Honduran Supreme Court and Catholic Bishops, plus a majority of the Honduran people, including the business and political classes. Meanwhile, perched in Nicaragua and seeking to overturn the constitutional government of Honduras is ousted president Manuel Zalaya. Among his allies are Marxists, despots and cocaine cartels, Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega, Castro, and ...President Obama."

&

"How is it possible for our President to get this one so wrong without having ill will toward Honduras and the desires of a democratic people?

Whether the military over-stepped or not by taking Zelaya out of the country, the transfer of power was legally performed."