Jimmy Carter, when he was president, was greatly maligned by the Republicans for basing his foreign policy on human rights, rather than the simplistic anti-communism that they had pursued for years. In their view, the old phrase “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” was a cornerstone of policy, and the idea of risking anti-communist alliances with “authoritarian states” in the name of human rights was at least foolish, if not downright treasonous. Thus the Shah of Iran, Batista, Somoza, Pinochet, Franco, Marcos, etc. Carter inherited an Iran on the brink of civil war, and the collapse of its government and the following spasms culminating in the hostage crisis were widely portrayed as a disastrous failure of his own administration, The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan ended public and congressional trust in his abilities and his philosophy. After his loss to Reagan in 1980, the government returned to the job of fighting communism with any available alliance, and added the rather unusual concept of aiding various Radical Islamic factions against others, and then those against the first, and then both against communist governments, until this musical allies policy achieved its “success:” the fall of the Soviet government. Among others armed, trained, or backed by the US in pursuit of this policy are the suspects most often named as architects of the current terrorist war, Sadam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.
After the fall of the Soviet government, the conservatives with their current standard bearer, George W. Bush, continued to attack a foreign policy based on human rights by labelling it “nation building,” forgetting that it was nation building after WWII that has led to our present relations with Japan and Germany, and argueably to the EU itself. In contrast to those nations and alliances, the beneficiaries of the fight against communism are Saddam. bin Laden, the Taliban, and, in a case where US backing failed, leaving the country to the most ruthless opponent of the Shah, Iran.
Suppose, though, that Carter’s philosophy had been the guiding force in the 1980’s and 1990’s. US support would have been contingent upon the observance of human rights, and the political empowerment of individual citizens that springs from such observance. I cannot help thinking that the 2001 society in many of the above countries would have been significately more open, and that there would have been several new members in the family of nations, countries that today are outcast because Reagan and Bush the First did not bother to think about what might happen when their favored “freedom fighters” became rulers.
Of course, conservatives will say that had that course been followed, the “Evil Empire” might still exist. That is true. But how many Russian suicide bombers attacked American soil and lives between 1970 and 1990? Further, the lines of communication and influence with Russia were always open to some degree, certainly more open than those with our well-armed fellow anti-communists in Afghanistan. And because Russia aspired to a quality of life comparable to the West, Russian leaders after Brezhnev were quite aware of the failings of their system. The real end of the Soviet Union began when Gorbachev visited several Western cities, saw the quality of life there, and contrasted it with the quality of life in the USSR.
I am living in St. Petersburg, and most Russians that I talk to are much worse off now than they were under the Soviet State. Most have no illusions about the Soviet government’s own human rights record, but many believe, as do I, that the society could have developed during the Gorbachev era into a much better society than now exists. The US could have helped in that effort as well, but in the name of anti-communism did not.
Of course a couple of weeks ago Bush II told the Chinese Communists that he would stop criticizing their nuclear weapons program if they would let him have Star Wars. I guess there’s Communists and then there’s Communists.
It seems to me that had the Carter philosophy been the guiding US philosophy, we would be much better off than our current state. I am afraid, though, that President Bush will not look at history. JDM