[Nasional-m] Dancing with dictators

[Ambon]

IHT

 Dancing with dictators

The New York Times The New York Times Monday, September 2, 2002

For a nation that honors democracy and freedom, the United States has a
nasty habit of embracing foreign dictators when they seem to serve U.S.
interests. It is one of the least appealing traits of U.S. foreign policy.
Like his predecessors, President George W. Bush is falling for the illusion
that tyrants make great allies. If Bush is not careful, Washington will be
mopping up for years from the inevitable foreign policy disasters that come
of befriending autocrats who maintain a stranglehold on their own people.
When unsavory governments control strategic locations or resources, the
impulse to join hands with them can be irresistible. In some cases there may
appear to be no practical alternative. It would have been much more
difficult to dislodge the Taliban and Al Qaeda from Afghanistan without the
cooperation of Pakistan's military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf.
Washington's long-standing ties to the Saudi royal family have ensured a
steady flow of oil to the West for most of the last 60 years.
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But there is a difference between making alliances of convenience and
uncritically working with dictators. Washington should not repeat the
mistake it has made so often in the past by muting its support for democracy
and human rights in these societies. Musharraf, the Saudis and other
autocratic allies like President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt rule repressive
societies that become a breeding ground for anti-American hostility.
Terrorism will retreat where democracy advances, not where autocrats muzzle
political expression or buy peace at home by financing violence abroad. When
Washington preaches democracy while tolerating the tyranny of allies,
America looks double-faced. That is certainly the unflattering picture the
world sees today. Bush has ordered the government to dry up the funding of
Islamic terrorism, but Saudi Arabia is the principal financier of groups
that promote such terrorism. The White House is pressing the Palestinians to
establish democratic institutions while largely condoning the undemocratic
actions of Mubarak. Vice President Dick Cheney's recent calls for bringing
democracy to Iraq ring hollow as long as Washington is silent about
Musharraf's arbitrary rule in Pakistan.
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A long, unhappy history illustrates the cost of cozying up to dictators.
America still pays for its blind support of the shah of Iran. The blank
checks it wrote to General Zia ul-Haq of Pakistan in the 1980s helped
nurture what later became Al Qaeda. Decades of misguided U.S. support for
General Suharto in Indonesia and Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire, now Congo, left
both countries a legacy of debt, violent ethnic conflict and weak
institutions. Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines was another painful
embarrassment.
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The Bush administration seems to have learned little from these costly
mistakes. Meeting America's short-term military and diplomatic needs should
not require abandoning its democratic principles.