Events of the
past weeks, with the Egyptian military staging, essentially, a coup of the
Morsi government, show that the earlier analysis of these critics is ignorant
of several critical elements, and, thus, their calls to unseat a long standing
peace agreement that has kept peace between Egypt and Israel, were simply
wrong. What is clear to me is that these
critics know little of Middle Eastern culture, history, and politics. It is also clear that their criticism belies
the fact that they speak from what is essentially an ethnocentric American
point of view, not recognizing that the world operates very differently outside
of the confines of the borders of the US of A.
Let me start
with a quote from Thomas Friedman from this past Sunday on Meet the Press:
"We are freaks". First and
foremost, we have a distinct version of democracy here in the USA that is
abnormal to the rest of the world's experience.
We have now successfully transitioned power between various poles of the
political spectrum, without a shot being fired, for just under 150 years (the
Civil War representing the last time we could not resolve our differences
peacefully). And in an even more amazing
stripe, we have made these transitions without having the winner use power to
decimate the losing party overtly (surely redistricting and targeted campaign
funding has been used in some cases, but we have yet to see round-ups of
Democrats after Republicans controlled the Legislature and the White
House). So we don't just allow the
winner to take power, we also respect the rights of the minority to exist and,
more than that, we continue to power broker between the various poles of thought
and politics, such that "extremes" rarely can do more than have
voice, and simply can't run roughshod on the whole of government/our
country. It is clear that in the Middle
East, this level of sophisticated power sharing and ebb/tide process of power exchange
is beyond foreign (and for much of the world it is clearly foreign as well,
excepting where a monarch/sovereign was the catalyst for such a system to
develop). In a strong sense, this kind
of secular government is antithetical and will require strong guiding hands to
develop over years if not decades/generations in order to take hold.
Next, we are
freaks in that the military is really controlled by our civilian
government. Nothing about this is more
iconic than the oil painting in the Pentagon of George Washington returning his
sword, the sign of his authority and power, to Congress at the end of the
Revolution. When the President orders
us, and when Congress approves the action, we march. When they say stop, when they say retrograde,
they say come home, we do. We don't act
independently of the civilian authority and we certainly cannot realistically
even contemplate unseating the institutions of our republic through unified
force of arms. Not only this, but as my
good battle buddy Ryan McDavitt reminds me, the concept of soldier that we have
as Americans (an honorable, disciplined, servant of the people, called to arms,
but also benevolent in action where called to be), is often unheard of
elsewhere in the world. Most of the
world hears that soldiers are coming, and they tremble in fear; we walk outside
for the parade. In most of the world,
Lincoln's premise that "right makes might" is turned completely
around. The military in many places
stands either behind or along side civilian government as a separate
"branch" of government, if you will.
In some societies, there is a distinct military class that stands apart,
has different rights, and acts above and often is the arbiter/enforcer of any
laws that effect all other classes of citizens.
So, those that were quick to judge negatively our continuance of the
support of the Egyptian military after the election of the Muslim Brotherhood
to civilian leadership of Egypt, for instance, greatly misjudge how that
military operates within Egyptian society.
Basically, it
was and remains ignorant to think that Egypt's military is subservient to and
directed by, the civilian government. A
more astute understanding is that the military is a partner organization to the
civilian leadership. The partnership
formed is one of mutual support, in the sense of establishing stable political
will and meeting mutually agreed upon foreign policy objectives. When the relationship becomes such that one
side or the other is out of kilter, the civilian government is changed or the
military sees a leadership rehash. This
happened with Nasser post the 1967 war (with a major retooling of the
military), it happened to install Sadat (remember he was an Army officer), it
happened to remove Mubarak, and it has happened again, now, with Morsi. American policy, through several
administrations, has been to develop, wisely, a strong relationship with the
Egyptian military, mainly to enable stability, restraint in extreme politics,
and as a hedge against threats to our other regional allies, especially
Israel. And, I note, this relationship
between our military forces isn't just about sharing how to use their aircraft
and preferential sales and how to shoot your rifle better, its also about how a
military operates in a civil society, what human rights are all about, and what
a functioning democracy looks like. Not being
a pure expert in all of this, I will tell you this is partially why the
situation in Egypt has yet to spiral out of control and go into utter chaos; it
also is why the military has consistently worked to turn control of the
civilian government back over to a group of civilians as fast as possible. This has worked, partially because, if you
look back in history, it has worked in Turkey.
Turkey, what
about Turkey? Lets reflect on the last
100 years in Asia Minor. If we look back
to 1913, the Ottoman Empire was on its last legs, and 6 years and the end of
the Great War brought its end. With the
rise of the Young Turks and Ataturk came the rise of a modern, secular Turkey
(remember that the Ottoman Sultan's power derived from his holding and
preserving the holy places of Islam and the titular role of Caliph), came a
nascent democracy. While America
retrenched in many ways after WW I, there was a Turkish exception. While it is probably overstating it, there developed
some key relationships that developed before the German's swallowed Ankara into
its sphere of influence (although Turkey remained officially neutral, it signed
a non-agresion pact with Nazi Germany in 1941 and when Axis destruction was
assured, then declared war on Germany in early 1945). Once WW II was settled, and British and
French influence sunk in the Middle East region, America made it a mission to
reinvigorate our relationships with Turkey and made it a mission to join
ourselves at the hip with the Turkish military (mainly as a hedge against
Soviet influence in the Middle East).
When you look at, then how the government post Ataturk developed, was
consistent democratic elections, then corrected by military coup when the
parliament/civilian leadership went too far in one extreme or another, then
returned to civilian leadership, and so on.
In the 1980s, this cycle more or less closed, and dedication to secular
democratic government has been the hallmark of the rise of Turkey in the
greater Middle East. While the Turkish
military still stands along side the civilian leadership (rather than under
it), the relationship continues to grow closer to a western European/American
model, even with the rise of some more Islamic parties in Turkey.
So in writing
this entry, I am trying to point to the fact that when it comes to foreign
affairs, especially the further you go from western European/American cultural
backgrounds, one has to first understand the context, culture, history and
societal make-up before commenting on how we approach going forward. The current Egyptian example proves this
point perfectly, in that if you live only in a fairly ignorant American
construct of how a military and its government inter-relate, you will miss how
we ought to pursue our national objectives in other countries, cultures, and
regions. I can't speak to the full
rational of those critics that were so vocal about abruptly ending our military
support to Egypt when Morsi and the Brotherhood rose to civilian leadership,
but I can say that to have listened to them and acted as they desired, would
have been a critical failure. While I am
not happy that a democratically elected government was overthrown, I can say
that the Egyptian military keenly understood that the government that was going
forward was not just and was not serving the interests of the people of Egypt,
at least from their point of view.
Without question, democracy is a good thing as a government form, but it
first requires a society that respects rule of law, plurality, and equal rights
for those in power as well as out, in order for it to truly work. Saying this another way, one has to ask is a
good thing to have an elected government that terrorizes its own citizens (e.g.
Charles Taylor of Liberia) or is it better to have an un-elected government
that lives by the rule of law (e.g. King Abdullah II of Jordan)? Really you want one that is elected and lives
by the rule of law, but that is not always possible nor present in any given
society. That said, it requires a
culture that has developed that can understand, and make sacred these values,
and it may not work in all places at all times.
Clearly, the military in Egypt recognized that the civilian government
was not getting them to this goal, but going the opposite direction. It heard the people and acted. If we didn't support the military, there
wouldn't have been this agent to modulate and guide Egypt to its much brighter
future. When it no longer is that agent,
I will concur with the earlier critics, but I will do so knowingly and aware of
the context on the ground. I only pray
this helps us all take time to pause and think, before we spout off on the
challenging task of guiding American foreign policy generally, but especially
in Egypt.
