A few days back, I dinged Michael Ledeen for talking up Iranian and Syrian “democratic revolution” as a solution to our difficulties in Iraq. I wanted to know how, precisely, he thought we should go about promoting such revolutions — and in this Corner post, he offers a partial answer:
For those of us who have long preached the power of democratic revolution, [the new Ukrainian election] is a happy day, and I hope that our leaders draw the appropriate lessons:
–The mild support we gave to the democratic forces in the Ukraine proved far more powerful than most of the experts expected. The revolutionaries required a bit of guidance in the methods of non-violent resistance, a bit of communications gear, and many words of encouragement. They did the rest. The same can and should be done elsewhere in the world (Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, China, North Korea . . .)
–Our democratic values are shared by the overwhelming majority of the people in the world, and are rejected, sometimes violently, by tyrants and their followers. We need to stick to our principles, which means that we cannot blindly and compulsively support all the policies of individual anti-democratic leaders just because they help us. That kind of support always gets us in trouble (as in the Middle East, where we are justly criticized for our many decades of support for corrupt tyrants). Sometimes we will have to make some compromises, but when we do, we must still support democratic forces–openly, unapologetically . . .
–You can’t always see the revolutionary forces inside oppressive countries, but, given a chance, they will emerge more often than not. We are the most successful revolutionary society in history, we have to stand with our people, everywhere . . .
I give Ledeen points for optimism, but I’d be more convinced that “a bit of guidance in the methods of non-violent resistance, a bit of communications gear, and many words of encouragement” will bring down the mullahs in Iran if there were a single example of a successful democratic revolution anywhere in the Arab world that Ledeen could cite. I’d be more convinced of the aptness of the Ukrainian parallel if there was any similarity at all between a struggling parliamentary democracy like Ukraine and a five-decades old tyranny like North Korea. And I’d be more convinced of the reality of “revolutionary forces” that we “can’t always see” because they’re inside “oppressive countries” if I hadn’t spent months listening to, and at times believing, the same argument about WMDs. (Sometimes we can’t see them because they aren’t there, it turns out.)
OUR PEOPLE?: Finally, and not to get too old-fashioned-realist here, but . . . the Iranians are not “our people.” Neither are the Syrians, the Saudis, the Chinese, or the North Koreans. And they do not become “our people” just by believing in democracy, or even by establishing democratic self-government. An Iranian democracy would be a good thing in countless ways — but it would also probably be just as hell-bent as the current regime on acquiring nuclear weapons, flexing its muscles in Iraq, and perhaps even sponsoring anti-Israeli terrorism. As such, it would be our strategic rival, not our brother nation, even were its constitution copied word-for-word from ours.
We would do well to remember this, should Michael Ledeen’s “democratic revolution” ever come to Tehran.
— Ross
The Dish 