Condi's "Transformation" Posted by Shadi Hamid

It seems to me that Fred Kaplan’s Wash Post article on Condi’s “transformation” really gets her wrong. Among other problems, Kaplan concludes: “[Rice’s] epitaph will endure: She pursued democracy at the expense of stability, and achieved neither.” I'm going to have to disagree with Ilan, and say that this assessment is plain-out wrong. Rice never seriously pursued democracy at all, and to say that she did gives credit where it isn't due. She talked a lot about democracy, but, on the ground where it matters most, she did very little. There was a brief moment in early 2005 when Condi put some pressure on recalcitrant Arab regimes, particularly Egypt, but this was short-lived. Before long, Condi and the rest of the administration had reverted to a realist approach, where they indulged the so-called “moderate Arab regimes" like Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, the UAE, Qatar – all American allies, and all quite repressive. In short, to pretend that Condi was a true believer is to take her words at face value while totally ignoring what she actually did.

The second issue I have is that Kaplan laments Condi’s turnaround from disciple of arch-realist Brent Scrowcroft to someone who could write that “the fundamental character of regimes matters more today than the international distribution of power." In this, Condi was right, and one wishes that she would have put this rhetoric into practice and ushered a welcome and long overdue break with the foreign policy consensus of the previous five decades – the very consensus that had given us the Middle East of September 10th, a veritable powder keg of economic stagnation, brutal political repression, and religious fanaticism. And then September 11th occurred, and we were right to question this consensus which privileged “stability” over all else, while giving us neither stability nor security. Does Fred Kaplan long for a return to the type of policies which contributed to – or caused – the debacles of 1953 (U.S. sponsored coup of the democratically-elected Iranian PM), the 1980s (Afghanistan), 1991a (when we had a chance to get rid of Saddam but didn’t, because Scrowcroft and Baker didn’t give a damn about Iraqi democracy), 1991b (U.S. tacit approval of the Algerian military coup which effectively ended what was, up until then, the most promising democratic experiment in the Arab world)?

Of course, we have short memories. The Middle East is a mess today, not just because of this current Bush administration, but also because of the accumulated mistakes and tragic calculations of a pre-9/11 foreign policy establishment which rarely, if ever, cared about the democratic aspirations of the Arab people, and instead cared all too much about keeping friendly dictators in power, with our tax dollars no less. Actions have consequences, as we would soon find out. The internal character of regimes does matter, and in recognizing this, Condi was right on target. We shouldn’t criticize her for coming up with the right conclusions; we should criticize her – and harshly – for failing to put them into practice, for saying that she believed in Arab democracy, when her actions, in fact, contradicted that belief in quite a stark fashion.

Comments

[IlanG]

Shadi,

I never accused Condi of competence or argued against democracy promotion and I don't think Kaplan did either. His criticism is similar to your criticism. She never actually understood what democracy promotion entailed and never did what was necessary to make it happen. He writes:

"Democracy, it turned out, was no cure-all. Democratic governments thrive or crumble on whether they can mediate conflicting claims without much violence. Had Rice understood this, she might have done more to shore up those fledgling democracies. She could have bolstered Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's embattled government in Lebanon with investment and aid -- but she didn't."

[Zathras]

Kaplan did assume Rice's competence, the better to argue that her problem was her misunderstanding of what her (or her President's) emphasis on democratization required. As I don't agree with the emphasis and think the idea that an American Secretary of State should be judged on whether she cares about Arab democracy more than the Arabs do is just peculiar, it is easier for me to assess Rice's performance at State using more conventional metrics.

[Fred Kaplan]

Just to set the record straight, in no way did I "assume Rice's competence." This can be verified by reading any of the dozen or so Slate columns I've written about her...Fred Kaplan

[Zathras]

My comments above were intended to apply only to the one column to which Goldenberg and Hamid both linked. It was not intended as commentary on past columns of Fred Kaplan's that I have not and am not likely ever to read. My enthusiasm for discussion of foreign policy is not borne of masochism.

[section9]

Kaplan's article was quite predictable in its repetition of the Current Wisdom running about the Democratic Party right now, much of it full of sound and fury, signifying a distinct lack of original ideas. Kaplan simply doesn't see, as David Brooks gets in today's times that Rice is back to practicing balance of power politics.

Hamid is correct. Rice never seriously deviated from her realist roots, instilled in her by Albright's father decades ago. It was her misfortune to have as a boss George Bush instead of Richard Nixon. Scowcroft famously said that Rice was the National Security advisor George Bush wanted while everyone else pretended that the Scowcroft model could be instantly recreated without Presidential initiative. It was, in the end, the President's responsibility to make the national security system work. Kaplan absolves Bush of any responsibility for the broken system that he created, when in fact, the National Security System works when, and only when the President makes it work. Chaos reigned because Bush never, ever, imposed any order on the system. When there's no penalty on Don Rumsfeld for not even returning phone calls to the national security advisor-that's a broken system.

If, as Sun Tzu remarked, war is the most serious business of the state and martial impulses must be subordinated to political ends, then Rice's diplomacy is understood when seen in a less partisan light. For example, Rice ignored criticism from Democrats and Republicans and pursued the Six Party arrangement with the squalid regime of Kim Jong Il. She empowered the superb team led by Chris Hill and we are now on the cusp of DPRK disarmament, as of this morning. Now Kim has cheated from time to time. But Rice understands, as do most reasonable people, that Kim's regime probably won't be around in 15 years. So if he makes a hundred million dollars off of the Iranians by peddling his surplus bomb material (which is what was picked up by the Israelis back on September 6th), what does she care as long as he's getting out of the business? It goes a long way towards getting the problem of Korea off the table. It was always much more a problem of how to resolve the 1950-53 Conflict and less a problem of atomic weapons.

The Agreement with India was concluded, hanging only on the Marxist Leninist faction of Singh's coalition partner's refusal to agree to ratification. It will come about, eventually. If not this year, then during the next administration. This happened at the same time we enhanced our relationship with Japan and Australia. All this happened during Rice's term as Secretary of State: not only did we enhance our relationship with important Asian states (including, I might add, Vietnam), but we have been adding to our naval and air assets in the Pacific Theater. The naval cooperation agreement with Japan is critical here.

Liberals don't see this because they concentrate too much on what is published in the Guardian and the Independent. Europe isn't where the wealth is being created.

Finally, and this gets to the point Brooks made, Rice is pursuing a containment strategy in the Middle East, made possible by Petraeus' success in Iraq. Were our position collapsing in Iraq, we would have to go hat in hand to Iran and ask for terms. We haven't, for several reasons, having to do with the elimination of Quds force operatives by the Army and Marines and the reduction in EFP smuggling. Rice is also winning her battle against the notion of a vast pre-emptive raid against Iran, preferring to let the Iranians move first and allow the onus of agression to be on Ahmadhi-Nejad.

Criticism of Rice of late, it seems to me, has been more a return to conventional wisdom from the Left and the usual ultramontaine critique from the Israel lobby and their sympathizers on the right. These are exactly the right enemies for Rice to have as she wisely steers a middle course.

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