Churchill,
Roosevelt and Stalin: There was a time when human
rights
were subsumed to Cold War loyalty. If it wasn't already
clear,
the Arab uprisings are a sign that those days are finished.
Vedomosti, Russia
Muslim Uprisings
Spell End of 'Our Sons of Bitches'
"The
dissatisfied, it turned out, can organize very quickly; and secular
authoritarian regimes, it seems, have nothing to answer them with. For the
West and Russia, the conclusion is that 'our sons of bitches' have lost their
last competitive advantage - predictability. Betting on such regimes has become
too risky."
Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza, one of America's 'sons of bitches': The Arab revolutions erupting in the Middle East and North Africa may be a death knell for a policy that was regarded by Americans as a necessary evil during the era of the Cold War.
The parade of revolutions in
the Middle East must change global diplomacy and, in any case, bury the concept
of “our
son of a bitch.”
The idiom, credited to Franklin
D. Roosevelt and uttered in reference to either the Nicaraguan Anastasio
Somoza or DominicanRafael
Trujillo, from then on described quite precisely the principles of superpower
relations with third world countries during the Cold War. Dictatorial or merely
authoritarian regimes could be supported, their political loyalty paid for, and
perhaps along the way their natural resources or geopolitical gifts as well. But
when the Cold War ended, the relevance of the term was diminished. But still there
remained reasons for the West - and even Russia - to close their eyes to the
undemocratic preferences of leaders in the countries they partnered with.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
In the case of the Middle
East, for example, it was thought that secular authoritarian regimes were more reliable
in terms of relations with Israel and the struggle against al-Qaeda. Tunisia
and Egypt were considered very stable, and Egypt was the cornerstone of the
Middle East peace process, however endless it may seem. In 2003, Libya agreed
to sign the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty and agreed to pay compensation to the victims of
the [Lockerbie] terrorist attack in exchange for the lifting of U.N. sanctions
and guarantees to the regime. Thanks to the sales of oil and gas to the West,
Libya was quite economically prosperous and quietly purchased Russian arms. And
yet it turned out that even Jamahiriya
was unstable.
[Editor's Note: Jamahiriya is an euphemism
for Libya that was popularized by its embattled dictator, Muammar Qaddafi].
The fire in the Middle East has
a variety of causes. Each country has its own economic and social
contradictions, but the role of Islamism grows everywhere. There seems to be a
chain reaction at work. It turns out that everywhere one looks, there are those
who are dissatisfied with various manifestations of injustice - and with the
fact that the disgruntled have no legal opportunity to express their complaints
and demand that they be taken into account. The dissatisfied, it turned out, can
organize very quickly; and secular authoritarian regimes, it seems, have
nothing to answer them with.
For the West and Russia, the
conclusion is that “our sons of bitches” have lost their last competitive
advantage - predictability. Betting on such regimes has become too risky - and
this cannot but be taken into account by the practical world of diplomats.
