The Ukraine is weak!

How do I know? Well, how can it not be, now that Princess Leia has been ousted as Prime Minister?

Illiberal Undemocracy

I write not as a Middle Eastern expert — indeed, I know practically nothing about the region beyond what an undergrad with an interest in comparative government might know — and so I must take as a given what has not yet been proven: that the Iranian presidential election was stolen, or at least badly compromised, by fraud. From that axiom, however, we can deduce the following: If hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue, then election fraud is a tribute to legitimate elections.

Even rulers such as the clerics of Iran understand that the ballot box confers legitimacy of a sort that not even scripture can provide to secular authority. Although Iran’s identity as an Islamic Republic presupposes from the ultimate power of the mullahs, the clerics’ inability or unwillingness to totally do away with elections–and, instead, to simply steal them when necessary–shows that they have grasped the fundamental difference between modern states and premodern governments: Without some sort of actual and broad-based popular support, legitimacy in the Weberian sense, no regime can last long.

Politics, in this sense, was disintermediated long before the word was invented; where once subjects (and, more rarely because they were scarcer, citizens) entered the public sphere of a large state through local intermediaries, be they representative assemblies or local potentates, now the state, whether constituted as a secular or as a religious authority, invokes a direct relationship to each member of its polity. Accordingly, republican and democratic forms are present in many countries where republican and democratic forces are absent; Fareed Zakaria noted this tendency in his famous 1997 Foreign Affairs article The Rise of Illiberal Democracy.

Yet such illiberal regimes pose a trap for Supreme Leaders and other authoritarians. The creation of democratic rituals involves the profession of a democratic faith, and such a political catechism, however hypocritical its initial deployment, can become the equivalent of Magna Carta. Gorbachev learned this; so did the leaders of the PRC, which is why they have avoided copying Gobachev. And however much hypocrisy a citizenry can tolerate day-by-day–and they can tolerate quite a lot–they cannot abide blatant disregard for the rules by those who imposed them. No government, not even an absolute dictatorship, can govern without a fig leaf of legitimacy; even the DPRK is still trying to win the hearts and minds of its people, because brainwashing is easier than whips and chains.

But there is a lesson here as well for those who wish to use the power of the West to promote democratic systems: all change begins at home. Domestic pressures, everywhere and at all times, are vastly greater than the influence that outsiders can bring to bear; indeed, the greater the pressure, in many cases, the greater the solidarity of the in-group. And so frontal assaults on regimes that we may consider odious will usually backfire on us; great as the crime of which the mullahs are accused may be, the past thirty years of American policy toward the Iranian regime has probably done more to legitimate it than the past week has to discredit it. Still, in the end, as Herb Stein famously said, that which can’t go on forever, won’t. Regimes based entirely on lies and hypocrises, on side-payments and patronage, cannot last without a constant infusion of strength from outside; and once the erosion of their foundations has well begun, the process will take on a life of its own.

In that light, the Obama administration, as well as any sensible administration would have, looks to be playing the right notes: prepared, unruffled, and publicly concerned. Grandstanding at this moment could cause the dynamics to shift; it would no more be to America’s benefit to call for a revolution at this moment than it was for Washington to spur on the Hungarians in 1956 or the Shi’ites in Iraq in 1991. But, as in Eastern Europe in 1989, welcome change could yet come suddenly.

Iranian Outrage

I’ve avoided discussing the Iranian election in large part because I have little more to offer than (i) outrage, and (ii) a regurgitation of facts and news readily available elsewhere. But others can offer more intriguing insight and it’s my understanding that we may yet have some guest commentary on the subject here at ITA. In the interim here are a few items of interest.

The election has been largely portrayed as being between Ahmadinejad, the established regime not scared of using government and religious authoritarianism, against Mir-Hossein Mousavi, a fundamentalist Muslim but one who is more reformist when compared to Ahmadinejad. In answer to the question of “How many votes did the candidates receive in their hometowns?” the Iran Daily reported the following:

… In Aradan, Semnan, the hometown of the elected president, of 10,000 votes, Dr. Mahmud Ahmadinejad received 9,000 … In the village of Lali, in Khuzestan, the hometown of Mohsen Rezai, Ahmadinejad received 830 votes out of 900… In Shabestar (East Azerbaijan), the hometown of Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Dr. Ahmadinejad received 5,000 out of 7,000 votes, and Mousavi around 2,000. In Aligordaz (Luristan), the hometown of Mehdi Karoubi, another presidential elections canddidate, Ahmadinejad received 39,690 votes, Karoubi 14,512 and Mousavi 9,330 votes.

That alone should give us plenty of reason for pause, but it is merely the tip of the iceberg. Camera and film from media outlets are being confiscated, supporters of Mousavi are being beaten and killed, and the totalitarian regime is flexing its muscle in monstrous ways. Yet the general public appears – amazingly so – to be standing up in solidarity to it all. I’m continually struck by reports of quiet acts of heroism, like those of strangers leaving their houses unlocked so that protesters may quickly slip inside to avoid Ahmadinejad’s police. Protesters are everywhere and aren’t letting up, day or night. The video below is among my favorite for featuring crowds defending Western media (the BBC) from police.

Israeli Chutzpah

Regardless of your opinions on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, you have to admire the Jewish chutzpah in this exchange of words with the Obama administration:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has issued an unprecedented statement clarifying President Barack Obama’s demands for Israel to stop expanding Jewish communities in areas it acquired following the 1967 Six-Day War, including Jerusalem.

[. . . ]

Israeli Government Press Director Daniel Seamen reacted to this Obama administration statement by saying: “I have to admire the residents of Iroquois territory for assuming that they have a right to determine where Jews should live in Jerusalem.”

Get used to it, Harry

In explaining his earlier statement that he wanted Republican Norm Coleman to prevail over Democrat Al Franken in the disputed Minnesota Senate race, Arlen Specter reportedly told Harry Reid that he “forgot what team he was on.”  While Specter would have Reid believe this was due to his being a Democrat for such a short period of time after his decades in the GOP, Republicans know that Specter has had trouble with being a team player for many, many years now.

Good luck, Senator Reid.  Specter is your problem now.

“This is a Depression-sized Event”

How bad is the economy right now? The U.S. is in a nasty recession, but the world is doing worse. In fact, two economists argue here that the global fall since peak has been steeper than it was in 1929, as measured by industrial output, stock performance, and trade. They conclude: “the world is currently undergoing an economic shock every bit as big as the Great Depression shock of 1929-30. Looking just at the U.S. leads one to overlook how alarming the current situation is even in comparison with 1929-30.”

‘Brave and Combative’

Christopher Hitchens, a profile in courage:

Last week Christopher Hitchens and I were attacked in Beirut. Less than 24 hours after we landed at the international airport, a half dozen members of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party jumped us on Hamra Street when he defaced one of their signs.

Promising

Those of you who like Foreign Policy, or for that matter just foreign policy, will want to add the new Shadow Government blog to your RSS feeds. Written by ten “experienced policy makers from the loyal opposition,” this new blog will be coverning U.S. foreign policy in the Obama era from a mostly critical angle. The blog, they say, has three goals: “1) to provide…our readers with a respectful and nuanced assessment of the Obama administration’s foreign policy; 2) to offer, where we find points or policies to disagree with, what we think is a responsible alternative course of action; and 3) to defend the Obama administration, as fellow foreign policy professionals, when good decisions they make are misunderstood or unfairly criticized.”
Check how posts on what if the Arabs had won the Six-Day War, and a series of posts on what the Bush Administration got right to get a taste. So far the blog looks very good.

Finally

“U.S. Expands Visa Program for Iraqis”
Long overdue and still not enough. Another example of the Bush Administration laying off the crazy juice?

Death to America! Didn’t You Get the Memo?

This LA Times report on the internal workings of Al Qaeda brought a little smile to my face. According to documents captured in Afghanistan and Iraq dating from the early 1990s to the present, Osama bin Laden’s terrorist buddies are a bunch of squabbling middle managers in an inefficient bureaucracy. The documents depict “an organization obsessed with paperwork and penny-pinching and afflicted with a damaging propensity for feuds.” What happens when you betray an Al Qaeda superior? Do you lose your head? No, you get a nasty memo:

Mohammed Atef was furious.

The Al Qaeda leader had learned that a subordinate had broken the rules repeatedly. So he did his duty as the feared military chief of a global terror network: He fired off a nasty memo.

In two pages mixing flowery religious terms with itemized complaints, the Egyptian boss accused the militant of misappropriating cash, a car, sick leave, research papers and an air conditioner during “an austerity situation” for the network. He demanded a detailed letter of explanation.

“I was very upset by what you did,” Atef wrote. “I obtained 75,000 rupees for you and your family’s trip to Egypt. I learned that you did not submit the voucher to the accountant, and that you made reservations for 40,000 rupees and kept the remainder claiming you have a right to do so. . . . Also with respect to the air-conditioning unit, . . . furniture used by brothers in Al Qaeda is not considered private property. . . . I would like to remind you and myself of the punishment for any violation.”

Gives new meaning to the phrase “toxic boss.”