Democracy Chaos

When I started blogging a few months ago, I mentioned that I would be writing about the things that I have learned in my career as well as my personal areas of interest. One of those areas of interest is politics.

Despite my interest, I also have tried not to write a political blog as I figured it surely will be debatable, as most political opinions typically are. Most people have strong beliefs in their political views and I didn't want to start a contentious dialog amongst my family and friends. So this blog and any future political blogs are going to be my observations and not pointed at any political party, Presidents or individuals.

This week’s blog was prompted by the chaos that is going on in Egypt. Almost 1,000 people have been killed in recent weeks in clashes between security forces, backed by the ruling military, and supporters of Mohammed Morsi, the first legitimately elected president in Egyptian history, who was ousted in July.

For three decades, Egypt was a stable Muslim country, a friend of the United States, the first Arab country to recognize Israel, and on a slow road to democracy. Now it appears to be falling apart.

What made me write about this issue was the similarity of this situation to a few others that I have observed, and my frustration about the lack of a clear vision for these countries and a desired outcome. Let me elaborate.

As an Iranian born who came to United States at age 18 and eventually became a United States citizen, I witnessed a similar situation in Iran. The Shah of Iran was toppled in 1979 which brought us the current regime that has been a thorn in United States’ side. In that situation, the United States who had supported the Shah for over 38 years withdrew its support and Iran went backward into a religious government who now is anti-United States. Not the outcome we wanted.

Fast forward to 2011 and a similar scenario happened in Egypt. The government of Hosni Mubarak, and Anwar Sadat prior to that, who were friends of United States and were being supported by United States for over 41 years was toppled after the protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and the public withdrawal of U.S. support. Over the ensuing two years, a new government was formed but toppled again just last month without a clear support from the United States. Again, not the outcome we had hoped for.

We also have witnessed several other cases where we have assisted in a regime change in countries that generally were not friendly with the United States and we had hoped for improved results which didn’t materialize.

The war in Iraq is well documented and the price we have paid for this regime change in number of lives and financially has been enormous. Was it worth it?

In Afghanistan, for many years the United States had tried spreading influence and in 1979 led to a bloody war between the US-backed Mujahideen forces and the Soviet-backed Afghan government in which over a million Afghans lost their lives. This was followed by the rise and fall of the extremist Taliban government and the present war. The current President, Hamid Karzai is supported by the United States however, has been relentless in his criticism of American involvement in Afghanistan’s political process. Is this the outcome we wanted for Afghanistan?

In 2011, the United States assisted the opposition groups in Libya who overthrew Muammar Gaddafi and his 42 year regime. Currently, the country is undergoing political reconstruction under a transitional government but there are protesters demanding that Islamic sharia law be the source of the country's future constitution. Again, not something that we had hoped for.

And most recently, the civil war in Syria has resulted in over 100,000 casualty. The United States officially has supported the opposition and is providing arms to them but it’s not clear who the opposition group is and in case of victory if they will be friendly to us.

Again, I am not listing these conflicts to blast one party or the other or any President. I just simply wish we had a more clear vision for what our role is and what outcome we are after.

The United States spends billions of dollars every year in supporting many countries without a clear benefit. Egypt is getting 1.5 billion dollars in military aid from the U.S. and still it is not clear what kind of government they will have and if those arms will be used against us some day. Pakistan gets about 1.7 billion dollars but has not been very supportive of our fight against Al Qaeda.

One theme that is consistent with these changes is the support for democracy. The United States has taken on the important role of protector of people from tyrannical rule. People everywhere throughout the world when given a choice wish to be free. The United States has always encouraged this and has been a role model for it. We should be proud of this and feel good about it.

I am in support of change for democracy but we need to realize that democracy can’t be imposed on people and it takes time. Democracy took roots in this country after declaration of independence and signing of the constitution but it took almost another 90 years before the salves were freed. Democracy must be earned.

In my opinion, one ingredient that is needed in establishing any democracy is to teach and inform people. Until people get educated, they won’t know what democracy is, and why they need it. I wish, instead of the recent wars that we fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, we had taken a fraction of the money spent on the war and had spent it in building more schools, universities and other means of education in these countries. Let’s first teach them what democracy is and why freedom is so important and they will eventually earn it.

The other thing we need to do is to be respectful of other countries culture, religion, traditions and their values. We should not expect they change those beliefs quickly in the name of democracy. We will not be making any friends and followers if we don’t treat them with respect no matter how much our ideologies makes sense.

So next time you hear any news about Egypt, Syria or any other conflict, ask yourself if we are doing the right things to help these countries to develop their own democracy. Are we using force to get change or are we teaching and nourishing democracy? And finally, do we have a clear vision of what we really want at the end?