The Bush Doctrine Vs. The Prime Directive

March 14, 2005

The election (Purple Revolution) in Iraq truly fed the liberal soul. The subsequent “Arab Spring” referring to several local pro-freedom rumblings including those in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, and the “Cedar Revolution” in Lebanon, certainly gives one hope that the “Domino Principle” may be valid there. But let’s, as laymen, consider the latter situation: Syria leaving Lebanon. My (limited) reading on the subject suggests that should this occur, Hezbollah becomes a political and military force, perhaps the force, to be reckoned with. This would seem to put the “Bush Doctrine” to the test: Should the US interfere with a Lebanese election and/or take sides in a Lebanese civil war? On September 10, 2001, this question would have been easy to answer: Not overtly, if at all; America simply can’t be the world’s policeman, even if she wanted to be, which she shouldn’t. One (at least a nerdy one) is tempted to think of Star Trek’s “Prime Directive” forbidding interference in alien cultures, even for the better. Close observers of the show (nerds who have graduated to geekdom) will note that this rule existed mainly to protect the interferers, not the alien cultures. Imagine the burden of decision: “If you’re willing to cure a plague with medicine, why not a murderous government with arms…” went the cliché. So has the Bush Doctrine, clearly forbidding governments from harboring, let alone being, terrorist groups, put us on this same “slippery slope” in the Middle East? Are we to decide now what is and is not an acceptable government over there? And what about later, in Africa? Do we don this enormous yoke simply because of 9/11? My answer is: Maybe.

Whatever else the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq may be, they are also an experiment, the outcome of which will be a strong argument as to the feasibility of any real world-wide ban on tyranny. Democracy has recently taken root in supposedly inhospitable soil: In Germany and Japan after WWII and in Russia after the Cold War. Democracy lost in Vietnam; perhaps as a consequence of America’s lack of ability to win, will to win, or both. But perhaps it lost, and stands to lose again, because some peoples simply don’t want it. The latter was the “sophisticated” view prior to the Arab Spring, which has forced all but the most bitter partisans to raise at least an eyebrow, if not a glass. Given the political apoplexy induced by the current Iraq policy, powerful enough to see “liberals” scoff at liberty, the former, particularly America’s lack of will, is not difficult to imagine as an alternative. Indeed, should democracy prevail in this Middle East experiment, the will of the free world, it would seem, would stand as the only impediment to a tyranny ban, justified as the elimination of a threat to humanity. Should the Arab Spring, however, reveal itself as merely a warm day in the middle of winter, then the free world’s will, and much of the Bush Doctrine, would seem irrelevant.

Let’s assume that the free world has the ability and the will to “impose” freedom on Earth. Does it have the right? In other words, is freedom, can freedom be, an imposition? In a completely relative world, freedom could be imposed just as slavery could, with no moral distinction allowed between the two. Indeed, there are some that inhabit this “post-modern” world, limited largely to academia and journalism. But one of the benefits of a common human nature, a restriction the Prime Directive did not enjoy, is that it gives things the option of being self-evident. That chronic comfort is better than chronic suffering need not be explained to any human. Likewise, the superiority of freedom over slavery seems to be part of our “hard wiring.” By this rationale, imposing freedom on a person would seem akin to imposing water on a fish. If one is incapable of conceding this, how does he speak of “helping” anyone at all? But while we should feel free to wish freedom on our fellow man, democracy, a man-made device designed to facilitate it, is certainly subject to concerns relative to culture, custom and worldview; and therefore must be very flexible. One must believe that a basic skeleton could be constructed on which each culture could build for itself a unique, free society.

So is it time for the free world, granting itself moral superiority over the un-free world, to once-and-for-all outlaw tyranny and impose freedom? We’ll have to wait and see. But we have reason to be optimistic. “Peace on Earth” has been the clichéd pipedream of people and beauty pageant contestants alike since time immemorial. Perhaps “Freedom on Earth,” much less a pipedream, is the first step. The evolution of the Arab Spring will make a large statement about our ability to “impose” this freedom. Given the ability and the right, I would hope the free-world could find the will to construct a world policing body with its own Prime Directive: Till tyrannical soil and sow freedom. What interesting fruit that might bear.