Given that the past few weeks (or months) have been rather big in terms of US foreign policy, I thought I might post something on it from the point of view of some of those most affected by that policy. I hope you will take a look at my argument.
Before giving you a view of what the Global South thinks, what does US think about US foreign policy?
Heather Cox Richardson’s in her newsletter on 23rd July had this to say about US foreign policy.
Biden has defended democracy across the globe, accomplishing more in foreign diplomacy than any president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Less than a year after the former president threatened to withdraw the U.S. from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken pulled together the NATO countries, as well as allies around the world, to stand against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The new strength of NATO prompted Sweden and Finland to join the organization, and earlier this month, NATO ambassadors signed protocols for their admission. This is the most significant expansion of NATO in 30 years. (Emphasis added).
It is true that POTUS has shored up Western alliances such as NATO and EU that were undercut by Trump.
However, what about the rest? Defending democracy across the globe? Allies around the world? What is the Global South view?
If you look at the votes to condemn Russia at the United Nations, you see that a majority of the population may not have really condemned Russia at all.
And while the motion to condemn Russia was carried by an overwhelming majority in terms of votes cast, it looks decidedly different when weighted by population. The governments that abstained represent roughly 51 percent of the world’s population. And only 42 percent of the roughly 7.7 billion people represented by governments that took part in the vote live in countries that approved the motion.
If you consider sanctions, the vote position is worse. Africa, Asia, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America have voted against sanctions for Russia.
As per that article on African position that I linked above, US (and rest of the West) has been trying to press the African countries to stand with ‘democracy’ and against Russia.
Yet, they demur.
Why is this, do you think? Is it because people of the Global South are more susceptible to Russian misinformation and Chinese initiatives? Are we so simple minded that we cannot tell the difference between superficial offerings and the real deal? Or is it a fault in Western foreign policy itself?
What has the Western foreign policy in Africa been like?
Well, there has been this refusal to waive Trips. European countries and the US have been refusing to let the Global South make generic medicines, diagnostics, and other stuff for managing Covid, and are insisting on patent rights being respected at the expense of the lives and livelihoods of the poor (there is support just for a waiver for vaccines but that comes with a lot of restrictions). This is not a new policy since they had done the same in the 1990s when Africa was suffering from AIDS too. There has also been Western drug companies doing unethical testing in Africa without many consequences leading to resistance to vaccines (and the West in general). This is apart from selective support for coups (such as in Egypt), arming factions in civil wars, propping up brutal dictatorships in countries like Sudan while murdering Sudanese who seek refuge in Europe etc (see The Continent Issue 91 for this last). Then there is also coming up with new and cruel plans to deport migrants who seek asylum (such as to Rwanda).
The recently concluded WTO Ministerial conference also was a win for the developed nations against the developing ones. Concessions were got from South Africa, India etc in favour of EU’s (and US’) policies. The developing countries’ demands were mostly ignored.
Apart from that, there has generally been neglect of people and extraction of resources.
Okay, so that was Africa. How about West Asia?
Before POTUS’ trip to West Asia, US State Department released a report on Shireen Abu Akleh’s murder. The report refused to condemn Israel for the clearly targeted murder (as evidenced by Palestinian reporters, videos from the site, CNN, WaPO, NYT) and instead sought to cast doubts and called it an unintentional side effect of Israel’s raid on ‘Islamic Jehadis.’
Then, in Israel, the POTUS said that he is a Zionist himself. And that US will not wait forever for Iran. And that if required, armed force will be used against Iran. And finally, POTUS refused to meet with Abu Akleh’s family.
Let us review Israel here.
Israel’s foreign policy has been to prop up authoritarian regimes in the region. It doesn’t want democracy in the Middle East. It wants to pretend to be the only democracy and Western style liberal state, which it is not (because a settler colonial state that treats a whole population terribly can only be a partial democracy), and to that effect has tried to prevent the rise of democracy among the Arab nations; with the support of US and Western Europe.
Israel has been working concomitantly with various Arab regimes to maintain autocratic control over the Middle East, which in turn supports Tel Aviv’s dominance over the occupied Palestinian territories. In the early days of the uprisings, this was made evident by the rhetoric of different Israeli officials such as then-Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who stated “those leaderships [autocrats] as much as they were unaccepted by their peoples, they were very responsible on regional stability … They’re much more comfortable [to us] than the peoples or the streets in the same countries.” Likewise, former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the Arab uprisings as an “Islamic, anti-Western, anti-liberal, anti-Israel, and anti-democratic wave.”
Most recently, Israel has been cultivating its ties with aspiring autocrats, such as Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar and his son Saddam Haftar, as well as Sudan’s General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan who seized power in a coup last year. These efforts extend beyond just geopolitics and speak to a broader counter-revolutionary alliance that seeks to assert its dominance over the Middle East. The United States has enthusiastically supported these counter-revolutionary actors by supplying them with advanced weaponry and turning a blind eye to their abusive human rights records.
Much of what Israel does in Palestine is either invisible or wilfully neglected in the West, especially US. For example, there was this raid on Al-Aqsa in April.
Israeli police said they entered the compound, the third holiest site in Islam and revered by Jews as the Temple Mount, to break up a “violent” crowd that remained at the end of the morning prayers.
Palestinians are evicted from their homes and their homes or property given to Israeli settlers and army.
And then, the POTUS comes to this land, tells the people that he is a Zionist, gives more arms and money to Israel, refuses to meet with the family of a murdered journalist, refuses to condemn Israeli policies, and then goes on to tell Palestinians that he hopes that some day they gain a dignified life too and that they remind him of Ireland.
What do you think the people of the Global South will make of all this?
Do we understand hypocrisy? What do you think?
What about the visit to Saudi Arabia?
In Saudi Arabia, most of POTUS’ visit was managed by MBS, known in the West as Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murderer. Though that is not his only crime. In addition to talks with MBS, the POTUS also attended a meeting of I2U2 (which is a grouping of India, Israel, UAE, and US).
US says the visit has to do with integrating Israel into the region, countering Russian aggression, deterring Iran from gaining nuclear weapons, and to a lesser extent, keeping the price of oil low.
Of course, Saudi Arabia and UAE are, ah, not quite democratic. Both have a history of repression. And maltreatment of immigrant labourers, dissidents, activists and people from minority religions.
As for Iran, it might be well worth remembering that: Iran once had a secular democracy that was toppled by a US instigated coup. To be replaced with a repressive regime under the Shah. That Islamic revolution was a reaction to this. That when Iran reached out, after 9/11, Iran was called part of the axis of evil. And that Iran’s moderate government was undercut by the US walking out of the deal with Iran, the current extremist government being the result. And no US government has apologized to Iranians for this. For considering their dreams and hopes as secondary to whatever strategic concerns (euphemism for something else) that US may have in the region. Instead, the POTUS has treated Iranians as if they are supplicants at his door.
It is not just the US of course. It is the Western foreign policy.
What is the cause of democracy being served here? Or is democracy only for some people in the eyes of the West? What do you think our answer would be to these questions?
What about the rest of the Global South?
The United States has repeatedly refused to designate India as a country of particular concern despite recommendations from USCIRF. Trump had refused earlier, and Biden’s State Department had continued it last year. Like Trump though perhaps for different reasons, US wants to strengthen its ties with India (to counterbalance China) and has been working to that end. While this has not produced much for ordinary Indians in terms of foreign or trade policy wins, it did give our Hindu Nationalist PM a lot of good PR. The Indian PM after all has been going around meeting G7, talking to Biden about I2U2 and more. Not to mention that we have Western representatives/ambassadors writing commentaries and giving interviews on the national print media that gives glowing views of the ‘vibrant Indian democracy.’ With limited criticism from the heralds and defendants of democracy.
The French President has been implicated in a corruption scandal involving Dessault arms shipment and India. That involved India paying more for Rafale planes (from the public exchequer) in return for Dessault giving favourable treatment to one of PM Modi’s favourite corporate crony, Anil Ambani. Likewise both previous Australian PM Scott Morrison and current PM Anthony Albanese have been seen with Hindu Nationalists in Australia. Morrison had earlier made policy decisions favourable to Adani, considered to be close to Indian PM Modi.
There is also Pegasus (Israel based firm’s spyware that India, and many other countries, have used against opposition party members, activists, judges etc. to the detriment of democracy and human rights). Has US spoken about Israel’s role in it? Or even about India’s role in using it? (US did blacklist the firm).
Where are the human rights in all this? Where are the democratic values? What exactly is the rule-based Western liberal order that the US and Western Europe along with their other White allies want to save?
Then there are all those coups in Latin America (and elsewhere). There is also Haiti.
So… What does the Western foreign policy tell the Global South?
Mostly it tells the dictators and majoritarian or supremacist leadership that, might is right. Gather power, and use it for oneself. Do it with impunity as long as you have something the West values. Or are against someone that the West has taken a hatred to. (The result being that if China or Russia offers a better deal, they will lean that way.)
It tells pretty much everyone that only self-interest matters.
A cynic might suspect that the US, trying to have it both ways, in some cases will end up in a “you’re better than China, [choose one of: A) neither of us like China or B) we’re worried you might tilt to China], and so here’s guns and money; plus, we will provide political cover for you by saying glowing things about democracy and your role in the global struggle with authoritarianism even as you throw people in jail and target the press” equilibrium.
And it tells the human rights and pro-democracy activists and others who support democracy in the Global South that our rights, our freedoms, our lives are expendable.
One thing has been missing from all of this, though: the voice of the people of the region. From our view as Arab pro-democracy activists, Biden has set us up for decades of bitter instability by blessing a partnership between an apartheid regime and Arab autocrats. A new authoritarian order is rising upon the Middle East and North Africa; it speaks the language of “peace,” “tolerance,” and “development,” while being predicated on cash, repression, and whitewashing of murderous crimes. It has Jamal Khashoggi’s blood all over it; it has Shireen Abu Akleh’s blood all over it. The Palestinians are at the bottom of this violent order — and it may fall upon them to lead the region’s resistance to it.
This, I assure you, is not a bolstering of democracy worldwide. Or at least, it is not seen as such elsewhere.
Lest this article be misinterpreted as to be in favour of one faction of Dems or the other:
Whether it is the non-interventionist left, the non-interventionist right, the hawks, or the selectively interventionist rest, the same message is sent to the Global South. For the non-interventionist left only US and Israel are capable of imperialist crimes and human rights violations. The non-interventionist right just wants to focus its resources on making the rich people richer while oppressing Black, Indigenous people, and POC, white LGBTQIA folks and white women in the West. The hawks just want to reward arms making companies. And the rest: they care for human rights when it strategically benefits them (though really it is hard to make out what those strategic benefits are). Otherwise, it is all about realism (or racism).
No matter who guides policy in Western governments, the message is the same.
Our rights, our freedoms, our lives do not matter. We are expendable.
In a world facing problems that needs all of humanity working together, this is a problem for not just us but you as well.
Thank you for reading.
(Important note: I am not saying both Republicans and Democrats are equal. There is a difference between fascism and not fascism domestically. Not voting for Dems when there is fascism around the corner will not get you sympathy from many of us.)
I have written about India here before and you can find my most recent post (on India, Russia and NAM) here. The first part of my posts on history of Hindu Nationalism is here (others are yet to be written; sorry).