Oil, Blood, Democracy... a Point of Clarification

Amidst all the current turmoil in the Arab world, the most violent, bizarre, and enigmatic popular uprising has been in Libya.  Conflict there currently straddles the line between revolt and civil war, as 42-year strongman Muammar al-Qaddhafi has ordered the massacre of demonstrators.  The atrocities Qaddhafi has perpetrated against his own people over the past few days are alarming even in the context of his four decades of rule with complete disregard for human rights, and a full-blown international emergency may soon be at hand.

Some commentators have taken events in Libya as a lesson that rapprochement with dictators seldom works to the advantage of the international community, and can often have disastrous consequences.  After decades as an international pariah, over the past ten years the Western powers have cautiously rebuilt relations with Libya.  These efforts were a result of economic and strategic interests -- once portrayed as a reprehensible villain, Qaddhafi became a reformed figure, an important ally in the war on terror, a poster child for nuclear non-proliferation, and an asset to international business.  An article in The Economist describes this change and its moral costs for the Western leaders who enabled Libya's re-engagement with the international community.  It also recounts the numerous advantages derived from cooperation with Qaddhafi, highlighting the lesson that there is no moral certainty in international politics, and though arguments can be made for many courses of action, few turn out to be ethically satisfactory.

However, the article ends with an error of analysis which bears mentioning.  In the final paragraph, the author describes a dichotomy between amoral Realpolitik and a kinder, altruistic motivation for foreign relations:

"This is not an argument for callousness. The lesson from the Arab awakening is an uplifting one. Hard-headed students of realpolitik like to think that only they see the world as it truly is, and that those who pursue human rights and democracy have their heads in the clouds. In their world, the Middle East was not ready for democracy, Arabs not interested in human rights, and the strongmen the only bulwark between the region and Islamic revolution. Yet after the wave of secular uprisings, it is the cynics who seem out of touch, and the idealists have turned out to be the realists."

While there is an important lesson here -- that the Arab uprising has exposed the short-sightedness of unequivocal support for autocrats in the Middle East -- the implication that support for democracy and human rights is necessarily idealistic is false.


The question of how to handle relations with any foreign leader is a question of foreign policy.  For better or for worse, morality is not and cannot be a major component of most foreign policy decision-making (of course, there are important exceptions).  The question of whether or not an individual action is morally righteous is difficult enough, and enormous tracts have been written with the goal of determining the difference between right and wrong.  When actions are on the scale of international relations, their repercussions are so complex and occur over such long periods of time that it becomes nearly impossible to ever act with moral certainty.  The single-most important factor in foreign policymaking is not morality, then, but expediency.  This is not necessarily because policymakers are heartless, but because they operate in an ambiguous and difficult world where they cannot dwell on esoteric matters of philosophy, but must act in the interests of their government and the citizens it represents.


The problem with the "Hard-headed" strategists who believed "the Middle East was not ready for democracy, Arabs not interested in human rights, and the strongmen the only bulwark between the region and Islamic revolution" was not that they were not interested in implementing the most morally correct policy.  The problem is that they were wrong.  While supporting autocrats in the Middle East may have once served American interests, it has been counterproductive for decades.  Today democracy promotion in the Middle East is the most desirable course for the United States because it is the most advantageous choice, not because it is the right one (whether or not it is truly right in the ethical sense). 


Though the Economist essay presents a nuanced narrative of the dilemmas in isolating or collaborating with a despot like Muammar al-Qaddhafi, it ultimately misses the point.  Democracy promotion in the Middle East is one of the rare elegant solutions to a problem of international politics, because it is amenable to realists and idealists.  Greater liberalization in the region can serve American interests and improve the welfare of the people living there.  In this case, there does not need to be a choice between self-interest and altruism -- rather, the choice is between a theoretically sound strategy and one that has empirically failed.