Gedmin: Where Are Those "No-Blood-For-Oil" Banners When You Need Them?

We have obtained permission to print the original English version of this commentary in the daily WELT of October 21, 2005, by the Aspen Institute Berlin's Jeffrey Gedmin. Another jewel in our collection of Gedmin articles...

After attending in Paris recently a meeting of pro-democracy Syrians, I returned sheepishly to Berlin. That’s because I have the strong impression that a majority of Germans think like Peter Scholl Latour, namely that a) the Middle East does not want democracy; b) the outside world could not help anyway; and c) that the Amis should definitely not interfere.

I always wondered why Chancellor Schroeder would pile on his plane all those business executives when he travelled to places like Saudi Arabia. I found one explanation--thanks to one of Germany’s top bloggers Ulrich Speck --in the words of Dr. Gunter Muhlack, the Commissioner for the Task Force for the Dialogue with the Islamic World in the foreign ministry in Berlin. Dr.Muhlack says: “We do not want to impose our view of the world and our philosophy on our partners. Here I have the feeling there is a big difference between the American and the European approach.”

Maybe Dr. Muhlack has a point. The French, to be sure, insisted on “the European approach” with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. It turns out, of course, that in the case of the French this may not have been merely a matter of principle. Jean-Bernard Merimee, a former French Ambassador to the United Nations, was hauled before a French magistrate this week, alleged to have taken bribes from Saddam Hussein in the amount of 11 million barrels of oil. Also accused of being bribed by the former Iraqi regime are French senator and former interior minister Charles Pasqua; former secretary general of the French foreign ministry, Serge Boidevaix; and Jacques Chirac’s friend Patrick Maugein, who is also incidentally chairman of the oil company SOCO. Yes, you wonder where those “no-blood-for-oil” banners are when you need them.

I think it is time for Americans and Europeans to level with each other. In a pre-9-11

world, America’s policy toward Middle East dictators was, You pump oil; we’ll help maintain the status quo. It was not moral. Nor did it keep us safe as we found out.

September 11th changed the American view. The EU has tried meanwhile to cling to the status quo. It is silly when Europeans, like the good Dr. Muhlack, accuse Americans of wanting to impose their way of life on the peoples of the region.

Most Americans agree with the U.S. President, who says, “when the soul of a nation finally speaks, the institutions that arise may reflect customs and traditions very different from our own (and) America will not impose our style of government on the unwilling.”

But Americans also tend to believe that Middle East Arabs (and the Persians of Iran) are no less entitled to freedom than the rest of us and here’s the real rub. This is where the Scholl Latour crowd rolls their eyes, because the Americans--when we are not bloody thirsty capitalists bent on world domination, are said to be naïve idealists, who simply cannot fathom the complexity of things. Maybe Middle East democracy is doomed. But I think the new "American approach" is wiser than the old.

Once upon a time the smart people told us that the Germans and Japanese could not be Democrats. They said the same later of the South Koreans, the Taiwanese and Portuguese. Experts told us that history and culture, tradition, religion and ethnicity would stop democracy in its tracks.

Somehow democracy keeps spreading. Islam per se seems not to be a problem. Of 27 muslim countries outside the Middle East, about a quarter are democratic. And who would have thought: municipal elections in Saudi Arabia, women allowed the vote in Kuwait, opposition candidates for the first time in Egypt, a revolution in Lebanon, and elections and a constitution in Iraq.

When old orders die, the process can be dangerous, chaotic, deadly. Surely we learned this from the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the break-up of Yugloslavia. I hear Syrians now talking about the meltdown of dictatorship in Damascus.

Try telling them that the old system is good enough and incidentally more convenient for us in the West. (emphasis added)

Jeffrey Gedmin is director of the Aspen Institute Berlin.

(Translation into German by Julian Knapp)

Comments

[Dan Kauffman]

France has been if anything consistant wih their historical diplomatic efforts. When the European Alliance turned back the Muslim armies at the Gates of Vienna in 1683 France not only was not interesting in participating due in part to extensive economic ties with the Ottoman Empire, but actively worked diplomatically to prevent additional military aid to Austria.

The Hero of that battle was Poland but only a portion of its might came to the Aid of Europe against the invader due to France's diplomatic efforts.

A weakened or conquered Austria being in France National Interest seemed to be their sole concern.

What is different now over 300 years later?

[German.Will]

@Dan,
even if it doesn't fit the subject very much the French ties to the Turks started 150 years earlier when Francois I was looking for allies against Habsburg.
The French also supported Protestants abroad in the 16th and 17th century.

[Tyranno]

Our poor Euro brethren would have us believe their more complex and sophisticated view of the world is because they are so much older, more experienced and have advanced further socially. Amusingly, when you peel that onion you discover their cynical sophisticated "idealism" is solely predicated on advantageous trade deals and they don't give a damn who they are with.
Sounds like Godless, mercenary capitalists!!!! Oh wait, that term is reserved exclusively for the Americans! As Mr. Gedmin points out in the article, it is not just the status quo preferred by the murderous Arab despots and self appointed Kings the U.S.A. led coalition is working to break down.

Old Europe indulges and practices an astonishing level of denial . . . masked as smug sophistication. One day they will have to explain to their next generation of children (like they had to this generations about an "East" Germany) why they were again on the wrong side of history, and how they chose to sit on their hands for all those years. And how when an opportunity to make a difference presented itself, they went so far as to demonstrate against liberation and for the return of the murderous criminal Ba'athist regime.
My God it has got to be shameful and difficult being a modern progressive liberal in such important times!

Tyranno

[joe]

Well it is the french you understand and that makes it OK with the euro's and espically the Germans, their closest ally.

So it really is a non event.

[Gabi]

Abstecher.

An all die, die gerne glauben, unsere Medien wären nicht anti-US eingestellt!

Es ist gerade gut zu beobachten, wie unsere Medien auf den Mehlis-Report reagieren. Da gibt es ganz erschreckende Erkenntnisse über syrische Beteiligung am Hariri-Mord, Bedrohungen gegen Mehlis usw., und wie lauten die Headlines?

"FAZ:Hariri-Mord
Bush schließt militärisches Eingreifen gegen Syrien nicht mehr aus"

http://www.faz.net/s/Rub28FC768942F34C5B8297CC6E16FFC8B4/Doc~E50E7A1A056D14F4BBD558EDB8443DE87~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html

Kein amerikanischer Präsident kann als letzte Option Gewalt ausschließen. Aus dieser Selbstverständlichkeit schürt man wieder feindselige Gefühle gegen die so aggressiven USA unter (zZ) Bush. Ich kenne den Originaltext Bushs nicht und habe jetzt auch keine Zeit nachzugucken, aber er hat mit Sicherheit auch vorher keine Gewalt als LETZTES Mittel ausgeschlossen. Deshalb bin ich mir sicher, daß das "NICHT MEHR" hier künstlich eine Steigerung schafft, die es gar nicht gibt. Wann hat Bush denn vorher diese letzte Option ausgeschlossen? Nie, kann er gar nicht.

Aber diese Selbstverständlichkeit herauszustellen, Gewalt als letzte Option zu bezeichnen, zeigt mir, daß die tatsächlichen Gefahren es nicht schaffen, in die Headlines zu kommen. Wie viele werden sich mit dem Inhalt des Reports auseinandersetzen und nicht mit der angeblichen Bedrohung durch Bush?

[Gabi]

Ein schneller oberflächlicher Blick in andere Medien:

Zur Zeit ist die FAZ die einzige, die so titelt. Die Welt und Süddeutsche bringen die Fakten, Tagesspiegel und FR haben noch gar nichts dazu. Wenn niemand nachziehen würde, hätte ich Unrecht und würde mich freuen!

[Gabi]

Die FAZ hat den Titel gewechselt!!!

Die dümmliche Überschrift ist verschwunden! Das finde ich richtig gut! Es hat wohl niemand nachgezogen, und da kam sich die FAZ hoffentlich dämlich vor.

Ich glaube, unsere Medien sind auf dem Wege der Besserung.

[Cousin Dave]

Looks like Chrisohper Hitchens has the goods on Georgous George Galloway. Hitch writes today about documentation that not only shows Galloway's connections to Saddam through a Jordanian front business, but it also shows that Galloway committed perjury in both his libel suit against the London Telegraph (which he won), and in his testimony in the U.S. Senate.

[Chap]

I am a little concerned about the Syrian part. I attended a meeting with some fairly progressive middle eastern types (including Lebanese and Syrian members) and they wanted slow, slow, slow--something I'm not sure will happen. I sat there thinking it sounded much like the church members Martin Luther King wrote to in his Letter From A Birmingham Jail. Link here to my blogging on that panel: http://gmapalumni.org/chapomatic/?p=1275. (There were other panels I blogged about but this one was the relevant one.)

I agree with you the way you view the issue. I remember Jack London once said everything positive has a negative side; everything negative has positive side. It is also interesting to see different viewpoints & learn useful things in the discussion.