CUT AND WALK:

In Iraq, don't cut and run. cut and don't run (Jonathan Rauch, 6/09/04, Jewish World Review)

In an influential Commentary magazine article in 1979, Jeane Kirkpatrick, a Georgetown University professor (she later became U.N. ambassador in the Reagan administration), argued that in Iran and Nicaragua and elsewhere, America's efforts to democratize authoritarian regimes too quickly had backfired catastrophically in the face of determined insurgencies. "The American effort to impose liberalization and democratization on a government confronted with violent internal opposition not only failed," she wrote, "but actually assisted the coming to power of new regimes in which ordinary people enjoy fewer freedoms and less personal security than under the previous autocracy — regimes, moreover, hostile to American interests and policies."

She discerned a pattern. The United States would pressure a friendly authoritarian regime to enter into negotiations "to establish a 'broadly based' coalition headed by a 'moderate' critic of the regime, who, once elevated, will move quickly to seek a 'political' settlement to the conflict." Alas, it never worked. "Only after the insurgents have refused the proffered political solution and anarchy has spread throughout the nation will it be noticed that the new head of government has no significant following, no experience at governing, and no talent for leadership." The moderate government collapses, the insurgents win, America faces a new enemy.

The failure, she argued, was based on a fatal U.S. misunderstanding of "how actual democracies have actually come into being."

Typically, they emerge from "traditional autocracies," which she distinguished from radical and totalitarian ones. "Decades, if not centuries, are normally required for people to acquire the necessary disciplines and habits" of democracy, she said. A traditional autocracy, provided it is reasonably friendly to the U.S. and poses no threat to its neighbors, may look ugly, but it can provide the stability that incubates democracy.

In only two modern countries was democracy imposed quickly and successfully from outside: West Germany and Japan, both after World War II. Many more cases have followed Kirkpatrick's model of liberalization within an authoritarian, but not totalitarian, regime. As if to underscore the point, Russia recently tried to leap straight to multiparty democracy and failed. Under President Vladimir Putin, Russia now appears to be moving through a phase of authoritarian consolidation, from which, the West can only hope, real democracy might yet emerge. [...]

In an interview, Kirkpatrick, now at the American Enterprise Institute, said, "We need to set the bar within the realm of the possible. We need to face the fact that [Iraqis] have absolutely no experience with democracy."

The trouble with such realism is that it may be unrealistic.

Given the amount of rhetorical capital Bush has invested in his call to make Iraq a democratic beachhead in the Middle East, settling for even a moderate autocracy might come off as a surrender. The world would hoot at America's enthronement of "Saddam lite." And could America's troops really just stand aside with a shrug if an Iraqi Putin or Pinochet began closing newspapers and arresting enemies?

But realists have three strong rejoinders. First, a Putinized or Pinocheted Iraq, however flawed, would be much better than a Saddamized one. Second, Iraq would be constantly prodded from inside and outside toward genuine democracy, and would probably arrive there within a generation. Third, for outsiders to indefinitely prop up and micromanage a dysfunctional government in an unstable environment may work, sort of, in a tiny place like Kosovo, but it cannot work in Iraq.

Mr. Rauch cites all the examples except the one that matters: Iran. And the Iran example proves once again the wisdom of Ms Kirkpatrick as the rhetoric of democracy and republic leads Iran inexorably towards genuine democracy. The Iraqis seem to have learned the lesson of Iran and show no desire to wait through a 25-year Islamist detour before arriving at the same point where Iran is today.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 9, 2004 1:18 PM