If I could see a way forward in Pakistan, I’d be delighted to point towards it, but everything I can see, at least from this distance, of a country with which I am more familiar than most, suggests that every mistake ever made by Pakistan’s army and political class has come home to roost, and it is now between God and the Devil.
If I could see a way forward from mob rule in Kenya, etc. Ditto Lebanon. Ditto Georgia, another “emerging democracy” that does not look like it is going to emerge from the current election in a governable state.
Ditto Iowa, incidentally, whose caucuses declared the leading U.S. presidential candidates this week. A remarkably grim field of candidates for both American parties, and the winners—Mike Huckabee for the Republicans, Barack Obama for the Democrats—are neither of them remotely presidential material. Both persist in making childish and ignorant statements on foreign policy; neither has shown an inclination to rise from the condition of being a pathetic, inexperienced novice.
It is worse than that, for they are both petty characters, each riding on a style, and will thus prove incorrigible. Both shallowly promise unspecified “change” when what is most needed is consistency and continuity at the presidential level: an America that does not abandon her commitments and shift like a weathercock in every breeze. Voters should have a deep allergy to any candidate promising “change,” who cannot spell out for them what change, and why.
Wand-waving rhetoric is an unambiguous indication that character is wanting. Character is not some optional quality in a job that carries huge responsibilities, and in a democracy where the people are in more need of instruction than humouring. Whatever the flaws that have been attributed to him, George W. Bush has shown a sober appreciation of how much is at stake in every decision he makes, and right or wrong, has consistently avoided easy ways out.
To my view, the Republicans’ Rudy Giuliani is the least of the available evils, but it appears the social conservatives won’t have him, largely because they are fools, who can only see that Giuliani is no social conservative. They do not understand that a president has very limited power over domestic social policies—even Reagan changed nothing except the tone of the discussion.
Instead, the president acts as protector of American interests, and by legitimate extension (through formal alliances) most western interests, in a very frightening world. Voters would be wise to consider a candidate’s credentials in that field alone.
Of course, I do not write as an American, but as Pierre Trudeau once fairly observed, a Canadian mouse in bed with that elephant whose every twist and grunt has ramifications for us. American voters have their own priorities, and do not generally listen to foreign advice, however well-intended. Democracy is always “democracy in one country” and the ramifications become simply a fact of life. Disaster can be a fact of life.
Charles Krauthammer, reviewing a slightly different list of failing democracies from the one I began above, wrote yesterday: “The Roman Church learned that spreading the creed required tolerance for the incorporation of certain pre-Christian practices as a way of strengthening the new faith and giving it local roots. For the spread of democracy today, we need to practice our own brand of syncretism and learn not to abandon the field when forced to settle for regional adaptations that fall short of the Jeffersonian ideal.”
He was looking to the future of the American mission as the evangelist of democracy, in a world still largely governed by durable tribal loyalties that preclude that “Jeffersonian ideal”—which is itself fueled by the unreasonable desire to be freed from history. The confusion of worldly with spiritual ideals only compounds our worldly problems: for there is no perfect universal social order, only the kaleidoscope of give and take.
America is not needed to tell anyone how to live. But America is desperately needed in her role as world policeman, not merely flying to crises on her own, but directing all cooperative efforts. She is stuck with this role, as the pre-eminent superpower; she is stuck with the demand for acts not words.
The world is a mess—always a mess, but especially bad now. The intoxicant of democracy does not offer solutions. We can seek paths forward only country by country, and pray that, despite democracy, and the unworthiness of all electorates, good and able leaders emerge.
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