Earlier today, I stumbled on a link to the Washington Post column
We can't Force Democracy" by Robert D. Kaplan. I am not familiar with Kaplan's work (he's a correspondant for the Atlantic Monthly and the author of many books). However, this column puts a lot of the Middle East puzzle pieces together for me very neatly and defensibly. It's a supurb analysis without being political in the sense that it does not put down the right in this country, nor promote the anti-Bush sentiments of the left.
"[B]efore the names of Just and Unjust can have place, there must be some coercive power," Thomas Hobbes wrote in "Leviathan." Without something or somebody to monopolize the use of force and decide right from wrong, no man is safe from another and there can be no freedom for anyone. Physical security remains the primary human freedom. And so the fact that a state is despotic does not necessarily make it immoral. That is the essential fact of the Middle East that those intent on enforcing democracy abroad forget.
Kaplan then proceedes to apply Hobbes' logic to Iraq and other mideast nations. More below...
It has been difficult for me to understand the dynamics of the chaos in Iraq, and I certainly have not had the information necessary to debate these issues from a confident and well-supported perspective. After reading this column, I feel better much prepared.
Kaplan's assement of Iraq and Sadam Hussein:
In the case of Iraq, the state under Saddam Hussein was so cruel and oppressive it bore little relationship to all these other dictatorships. Because under Hussein anybody could and in fact did disappear in the middle of the night and was tortured in the most horrific manner, the Baathist state constituted a form of anarchy masquerading as tyranny. The decision to remove him was defensible, while not providential. The portrait of Iraq that has emerged since his fall reveals him as the Hobbesian nemesis who may have kept in check an even greater anarchy than the kind that obtained under his rule.
It is interesting that in his column, Kaplan does not mention Iran's present situation with respect to "forced democracy," but does mention the result of the topplng of the Shah.
I would be particularly interested in thoughts from Kossacks who are familiar with Kaplan's writing, especially his books. Is he a good source for geopolitical analysis?