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Re: geopolitical weekly

Released on 2012-10-19 08:00 GMT

Email-ID 2212380
Date unspecified
one little thing in orange

Jacob Shapiro
Director, Operations Center
T: 512.279.9489 A| M: 404.234.9739


From: "Michael Wilson" <>
To: "Analyst List" <>
Sent: Sunday, December 4, 2011 8:50:05 PM
Subject: Re: geopolitical weekly

On 12/4/11 8:00 PM, Reva Bhalla wrote:



From: "Bayless Parsley" <>
To: "Analyst List" <>
Sent: Sunday, December 4, 2011 7:21:56 PM
Subject: Re: geopolitical weekly

liked it. red.

Egypt and the Idealist-Realist Debate in U.S. Foreign Policy

The first round of Egyptian Parliamentary elections have taken place and
the since there are still two more rounds, say that the the faction that
appears to be making the biggest gains are the Islamists winners were
the Islamists. The Islamists are themselves split between more extreme
and more moderate factions, but what is clear is that the secularists
that dominated the demonstrations and were the focus of the Arab Spring
narrative have so far made a poor showing. Of the three broad power
blocs in Egypta**Military, Islamists and secular democrats, the latter
proved the weakest.

remains un-fragmented and powerful, and it is not clear how much actual
power they are prepared to cede or whether they will be forced to cede.
What is clear is that the faction championed by Western governments and
the media will now have to either make peace with the Islamist agenda,
back the military or fade into irrelevance.

One of the points I made back during the height of the Arab Spring was
that the West should be careful of what it wished for. It might get it.
precise, democracy might yield a popular government, but the assumption
that that government would support a liberal democratic constitution
that conceives of human rights in the Euro-American sense is by no means
certain. Unrest does not always lead to a revolution. A revolution does
not always lead to democracy. Democracy does not always lead to
Euro-American constitutions .

It is not clear where Egypt will go. It is far from clear that the
Egyptian military will cede power in any practical sense, that the
Islamists can form a coherent government, or how extreme that government
might turn out to be. This really isna**t about Egypt. Rather, Egypt
serves as a specimen to studya**it is a case study in an inherent
contradiction in Western ideology, and ultimately, in the attempt to
create a coherent foreign policy.

The West, following the principles of the French Revolution, have two
the idea that all nationsa**and what a nation means is complex in
itselfa**have the right to determine for themselves the type of
defined in several documents but are all built around the basic values
of individual rights, and particularly the right not only to participate
in politics, but to be free in your private life from government

The first principle leads to the idea of the democratic foundations of
in its power in certain ways, and the individual free to pursue his own
of liberal democracy. The core assumption within this is that a
democratic polity will yield a liberal constitution. This assumes that
enlightenments definition of human rights. The assumption was this
simple, while the application was tremendously complex. But in the end,
the premise of the Euro-American project was that national
self-determination, expressed through free elections, would create and
sustain constitutional democracies.

It is interesting to note that human rights groups and
neo-conservatives, who on the surface are ideologically opposed,
actually share this core belief. Both believe that democracy and human
rights flow from the same source, and that creating democratic regimes
will create human rights. The Neo-conservatives believe outside
military intervention might be an efficient agent for this. The human
rights groups oppose this, preferring to organize and underwrite
democratic movements, and use measures like sanctions and courts to
compel oppressive regimes to cede power. But these two apparently
opposed groups actually share two core beliefs. The first is that
democracy will yield constitutional democracy. The second is that
outside intervention by different means is needed to facilitate the
emergence of an oppressed public naturally inclined toward these

This then yields a theory of foreign policy There is also the belief
that liberal democracies are not only valuable in there own right but
will be inherently allied with the US and the West, and are less likely
to be beligerent, which is where support for this kind of change goes
from a preference to a foreign policy. in which the underlying
strategic principle must be not only the support of existing
constitutional democracies, but also bringing power to bear to weaken
regimes that reflect the values of the European enlightenment.

The case of Egypt raises the interesting and obvious
questiona**regardless of how it all turns out. What if there are
democratic elections and the people choose a regime that violates the
principles of western human rights? What for example happens if after
tremendous Western effort to force democratic elections, the electorate
chooses to reject Western values and pursue a very different
directiona**for example one that regards Western values as morally
reprehensible and chooses to make war on it. The obvious example is
processes of the Weimar Republic, a democratic regime, and whose
intention, clearly stated, was to supersede that regime with one that
was, popular (and there is little doubt but that the Nazi regime had
vast public support), opposed to constitutionalism in the democratic
sense, and hostile to constitutional democracy in other countries.

The assumption is that the destruction of repressive regimes opens the
door for democratic elections and those democratic elections will not
result in another repressive regime, at least by Western standards. But
this assumes that all societies find Western values admirable and want
to emulate it. This is sometimes the case, but the general assertion is
a form of narcissism in the West, that assumes that all reasonable
people, freed from oppression, would wish to emulate us.

At this moment in history, the obvious counter-argument rests in some,
and not all, Islamic movements. We do not know that the Egyptian
Islamists will be able to wield authority successful not clear what you
mean by a**successfula** here and we dona**t know what ideology they
will pursue, nor do we know if the FJP and Nour will even form a
coalition together; it is very possible the FJP will seek to bring in
the secular Egyptian Bloc and intentionally box out the Salafists. If
this happens it would somewhat go against the ideas presented about the
MB thus far; I would include it as a possibility at least (too specific
for this piece, IMO) but they are Islamists and their view of man and
moral nature is different from those of the French Enlightenment. From
their view of the relations of the individual to the community to the
view of obligation to their understanding of the distinction between the
public and private sphere, Islamists have a principled disagreement with
the West. Their opposition to the Egyptian military regime was not that
it limited individual freedom well come on, this was definitely a part
of it, if only for them, the Islamists. There are ways to word this
sentence without it coming across as so contrarian that it actually
detracts from the value of the claim. a**Their opposition to the regime
was not so much that it limited invidiual freedom as it was that it
violateda*|a** etc but that it violated their understanding of the moral
purpose of the regime. It was not that they werena**t democratic not
a**they were democratic,a** but rather, a**It wasna**t that they were
fundamentally opposed to the concept of democracy.a** Two different
things a**they claimed, apparently with some righta**that they spoke
for the Egyptian people. Rather it was that they had a different, and
in their view superior, concept of moral political life.

The collision between the doctrine of national self-determination and
the western notion of human rights is not an abstract question but an
extremely practical one for Europe and the United States. Egypt is the
largest Arab country and one of the major centers of Islamic life.
Since 1954 1952? it has had a secular and militarist government. Since
1973 it has been a pro-Western government. At a time when the United
States is trying to bring its wars in the Islamic world to an end, along
with its NATO partners in Afghanistan, and with relations with Iran,
already poor, getting worse, the democratic transformation of Egypt into
a radical Islamic regime would shift the balance of power in the region

There is therefore the question of the type of regime Egypt has, whether
it was democratically elected and whether it respects human rights, two
very different questions. There is then the question of how this new
regime might effect the United States and other countries. The same
can be said, for example of Syria, where an oppressive regime is
resisting a movement that some in the West regard as democratic. It may
be, but its moral principle might be anathema to the West. At the same
time the old repressive regime might be unpopular but more in the
interests of the West.

Pose this question then. Assume there is a choice between a repressive,
undemocratic regime that is in the interest of the a Western country,
and a regime that is democratic but repressive by Western standards and
hostile to the these interests. Which is preferable and what steps
should be taken?

These are blindingly complex questions that somea**called Realists as
opposed to Idealistsa**say are not only unanswerable, but undermine the
ability to pursue the national interest without in anyway improving the
preference. Therefore a country like the United States should ignore
thata**s answerablea**the national interest.

policy in particular between Idealists who argue that pursuing
enlightenment principles is the national interest this is why I would
include a sentence above explicitly saying the idea that idealists
believe liberal democracies will be fundamentally allied to the west
(which itself is not even neccesarily true), and realists who argue that
the pursuit of principles is very different from their attainment, and
you wind up with neither just regimes nor protect the United States. In
other words, the United States could wind up with a regime hostile to
the United States and equally if differently oppressive by American
standards. There would be no moral improvement but a practical

There is a temptation to accept the realist argument. Its weakness is
that its definition of the national interest is never clear. The
physical protection of the United States is obviously an issuea**and
given 9-11 it is not a trivial matter. At the same time, the physical
safety of the United States is not always at stake. What exactly is our
interest in Egypt and does it matter to us whether or not it is
pro-American? There are answers to this but they are not always obvious
and the Realists frequently have trouble defining the national
interest. Even if we accept the idea that the primary objective of US
foreign policy is securing the national interest irrespective of moral
considerationsa**what exactly is the national interest.

It seems to me that two principles emerge. The first is that having no
principles beyond interest is untenable. Interest seems very tough
minded but it is really a vapid concept when you drill into it. The
second is that there can be no moral good without power. Proclaiming a
principle without pursuing the power to pursue it is a form of
narcissism. You know you are doing no good but talking about it makes
you feel superior. Interest is not enough and morality without power is
mere talk.

So what is to be done in Egypt. The first thing is to recognize that
little can be done not because it is impermissible morally, but because
practically Egypt is a big country, hard to influence, and meddling and
failing is worse than doing nothing at all. Second, it must be
understood that Egypt matters and the outcome of this affair is not a
matter of indifference given the past decade.

An American strategy on Egypta**one that goes beyond policy papers in
Washingtona**is hard to define. But a number of points can be deduced
from this exercise. First, it is essential to not create myths. The
myth of the Egyptian revolution was that it was going to create a
constitutional democracy like Western democracies. That simply wasna**t
the issue on the table. The issue was between the military regime and
an Islamist regime. Clearly this is much too simplistic a sentence,
a**blindingly complexa** like you say earlier. It is true that these two
things represent opposite ends of a spectrum, several points on which
the final outcome could fall. But there is not simply a choice between
on or the other. This brings the second point, which is that sometimes,
in confronting two different forms of repression, the issue is to select
the one most in the national interest. That will force you to define
the national interest, but that is salutary.

Washington, like all capitals, likes policies and hates political
philosophy. The policies frequently fail to come to grips with reality,
because the policy makers dona**t grasp the philosophical implications.
The contradiction inherent in the human rights and neo-conservative
approach are one thing. But the inability of the Realists to define
with rigor what the national interest consists of creates policy papers
of monumental insignificance. Both sides create polemics as a
substitute for thought.

Its at moments like Egypt that this really is driven home. One side
really believed that Egypt would become like Minnesota. The other side
new it wouldna**t and devised a plan to be tough mindeda**but not tough
minded enough to define what the point of the plan was. This is the
crisis of U.S. foreign policy. It has always been there, but given
American power, it is one that creates global instability. One part of
the American regime wants to be just; the other part wants to be tough.
Neither realize that such a distinction is the root of the problem.
Look at American (and European) policy toward Egypt and I think you can
see the problem.

The solution does not rest in slogans or ideology, nor in soft versus
hard power. It rests in clarity on both the moral mission of the regime
and requirement that the regime understand and wield power effectively.
It requires the study of political philosophy. Jean Jacques Rousseau
with his distinction between the General Will and the Will of the Many
Rousseau used the phrase "will of all" might be a good place to start.
Or reading the common sense of Mark Twain would be a more pleasant

On 12/4/11 4:11 PM, George Friedman wrote:

Don't mess with this title.

George Friedman

Founder and CEO


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