democracyarsenal.org: How to Join the Friendly Dictator Club and Live to Tell About It

May 16, 2006

How to Join the Friendly Dictator Club and Live to Tell About It
Posted by Shadi Hamid

It appears that the serial offensiveness of the US decision to restore diplomatic ties with Libya has been lost on most observers. It marks yet another instance of the Bush administration’s implacable disregard for Arab democracy. If anything, this was exactly the time to say to Libya that, yes, we are happy that you have renounced nuclear ambition but we will not be fully satisfied until you renounce your autocracy. Libya, unlike many of the other egregious human rights offenders in the region, is actually what may be termed a “full autocracy,” meaning that there isn’t even the charade of electoral window-dressing. There is, however, the well-scripted, although somewhat tiresome charade of Muammar Qaddafi’s “third way,” forever enshrined in the laughable “Green Book,” proof that sometimes the first and second ways are the better bet. In any case, there is a well-deserved, although now crumbling, consensus that Qaddafi is (was) a most despicable man, and one, to boot, with a fashion style bordering on the horrific.

Then there was the overwrought self-aggrandizement that seems to have become a mainstay of the State Department press operation. Condoleezza Rice declared that “just as 2003 marked a turning point for the Libyan people, so too could 2006 mark turning points for the peoples of Iran and North Korea.” She went on to call Libya “an important model.” Well, in 2006 the Libyan people are still living under the same unrepentant tyranny as they were in 2002, a tyranny which allows them no recourse to liberty and freedom - things which, lest we forget, President Bush seemed to believe in quite strongly as recently as January 20, 2005.

Yes, if you’re disciple of Scrowcroft (and it just so happens that Rice is), then yesterday’s announcement was indeed one to get triumphant about. Realism is alive and well. I, on the other hand, am perhaps being unrealistic to expect that any US administration – Republican or Democrat – will be able to resist the lure of dictator-coddling, a favorite pastime in Washington circles. Interests, interests, interests. Well, if this is the case, then the war on terror will not be won easily for an American victory requires nothing less than the dismantling of the authoritarian status quo, a status quo which has made the region a hotbed of all the things we don’t like – extremism, terrorism, fundamentalism, cultural, economic, and political stagnation... The list, as always, goes on.

May 16, 2006 at 07:19 PM in Democracy, Proliferation | Permalink

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May 16, 2006

How to Join the Friendly Dictator Club and Live to Tell About It Posted by Shadi Hamid

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How to Join the Friendly Dictator Club and Live to Tell About It
Posted by Shadi Hamid