Asked Pat Buchanan:
"If the advancement of our democratic ideals imperils what the U.S. government says are our vital interests, is there not something fundamentally wrong with our Middle East policy?"
To which I answer: Yes, there is something fundamentally wrong, because we've never tried advancing democratic ideals in the Mideast, except at the point of a gun in Iraq, and the worst place in the world to start a democracy from scratch, Afghanistan.
It's quite self-serving to defend the brutal status quo in the Mideast, which we have vigorously supported at the expense of would-be free peoples there, by using the potential results of our discontinued support of oppression as a bogeyman. If 9/11 taught us anything, it's that angry people -- not angry governments -- pose the most immediate threat to our security. We've fooled ourselves into accepting the illusion of safety and stability provided by smiling "pro-American" autocrats. Meanwhile, underneath, those autocrats' seething populations see exactly what is going on and are boiling over in anger.
It's time to choose sides -- the people's, not the autocrats'. Dubya's desired wave of democratization across the Mideast may be happening right now, in spite of, not because of, our overseas adventures. Will we ride that wave, or be crushed by it? The status quo may soon be washed away, no matter what we do.
Ideology vs. the National Interest
By Patrick J. Buchanan
February 8, 2011 Human Events
URL: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=41658
No comments:
Post a Comment