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The U.S. governments track record of distinguishing allies from enemies in the Middle East leaves much to be desired. Todays ally is often tomorrows enemy.

The mujahedeen of Afghanistan, the Free Syrian Army, Saudi Arabia, the Iranian-dominated Iraqi government in Baghdad time and again, America is short-sighted about its interests, blind to its enemies, and compromises its values for short-term gain. Americas natural allies in the region, those who share Americas interests and values, observe this with frustration. Few in the Middle East have felt Americas miscalculations more acutely than the minorities of Iraq, particularly Iraqs Christians.

Waheda believes that the KRG will respect the rights of indigenous peoples to determine their own future. President Barzani said he will support a referendum by the Christians of the Nineveh Plain, she says. He will honor whatever they decide. She notes that the central government hasnt given the same assurances. Even for Christians, the matter is complicated.

IDC is on the ground in Iraq, meeting with #Christians in Ainkhawa, the Nineveh Plain, and elsewhere. #MiddleEast #Safezones #BeyondGenocide pic.twitter.com/mC3kZOqATt

Iraqs Christian secular and religious leaders are divided. Some believe that the Christians should be aligned with the central government; others prefer closer ties to the KRG. The notion of a Nineveh Plain Province was first proposed by Iraqis in 2014 before the ISIS conquest of Nineveh. This idea was introduced in a resolution last year by Congressman Jeff FortenberryJeff FortenberryRep: Charlie Gard granted permanent residence status Security fears grow on both sides of aisle VA eyes building closures to boost care under Trump MORE (R-Neb.).

Were asking the Iraqi government to create a province, a governate, Waheda says. We only ask for the conditions to take care of ourselves. The KRG has said that they will honor the Christians of the Nineveh Plain in any vote on their own self-determination.

If there is a vote for independence, the process would be protracted, controversial, and perhaps even bloody. But Waheda insists that Kurdish independence is feasible. There is the capacity locally to oversee self-government, which we already have, but also utilities, elections, oil resources, allows us to be free of foreign domination, she adds, referring to Iran and its affiliated militias, which have a presence on the Nineveh Plain, recently freed from ISIS. There is also a sense that Iraqs government is a pawn. In Baghdad, one group (Shia) are making decisions for all of Iraqs people, including minorities.

Middle East Christians celebrate Christmas under yoke of genocide (Op-Ed) https://t.co/ul46xLykFS via @thehill

The sense of frustration with Baghdad isnt shared by all Iraqi Christians. Many Assyrian Christians (most now living in the West) claim that the Kurdish militia, the Peshmerga, didnt protect them as ISIS overran the Nineveh Plain in 2014, and didnt permit the Christians or other minorities to defend themselves. Many other Christians, including those returning to their homes, point out that it was predominantly Kurdish Peshmerga who fought to liberate the Nineveh Plain.

Our villages and our lands are among the Kurds, she says.This doesnt mean that we dont have challenges with the Kurdish region. There are always challenges, but the Kurdish people have accepted us (Christians), more readily than others. Even today we have many homes in Baghdad and Basra where property was stolen without compensation. Christians can also hold posts in the KRG in a way that they cannot with the central government.

Few people living in the areas overrun by Daesh have confidence in the central government, she says. The only area where Christians seem to agree is the creation of a province in the Nineveh Plain, though there isnt consensus on the means to bring it about.

The Nineveh Plain region has vast natural resources and could theoretically be self-sufficient. Christians should of course benefit from the natural resources on the Nineveh Plain. They can and should use these resources to rebuild. Waheda says the Christians dont currently benefit from Iraqs petrol wealth.

Kerry determines that ISIS is committing genocide against Christians: https://t.co/BuxX840Apf pic.twitter.com/vwaivzolUs

Corruption in Iraq, like the rest of the Middle East, is really beyond the comprehension of most Americans. Its both a symptom and cause of Iraqs sectarian troubles. Decentralized governance, which has generally worked for Iraqs Kurds, is a model many continue to believe is the only solution for Iraq. We believe that we can secure the Nineveh Plain with local defense forces, she says. We also ask for international observers during any transition period not soldiers but simply to create a haven, as the West did for Christians in the 1990s.

She notes that the KRGs ruling Barzani family has historically had strong ties with the Christian community. How many other Muslim political leaders meet with the Pope? she asks. His family attends mass with the people of Ainkhawa at Christmas. This is more than a political gesture. There is a genuine affinity.

The presence of women in public life in the Middle East is far less common than it is in the West, though there are of course exceptions. Those exceptions speak volumes both about the cultures that produce them and the women themselves. There is no blustering or outrage or grandstanding in Waheda. Like other Middle Eastern women in public life, she has a quiet strength and perseverance qualities that Christians and other minorities in the region share.

Christianity in Iraq has been devastated by war for a generation, culminating with the ISIS genocide. There is an urgent need to secure and revitalize the Nineveh Plain region. Much blood American and Iraqi, Christian and Muslim has been shed for freedom in Iraq. The Christians who remain, like Waheda, are committed to rebuilding.

It should come as no surprise that Americas natural allies in the Middle East those who share its values and interests have turned to the democratic process without outside prompting. The looming question is whether America, for all its talk of democracy in the region, will honor the democratic will of those in the region, even if it threatens existing borders.

Andrew Doran writes about U.S. foreign policy and human rights in the Middle East. He serves on the Board of Directors for In Defense of Christians (IDC), a nonprofit that advocates for minority communities in the Middle East.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.

Originally posted here:
Kurds, Iraqi Christians want democracy for themselves - The Hill (blog)

Joshua Muravchik is a distinguished fellow at the World Affairs Institute.

The State Department is reportedly considering a new mission statement that will make no mention of encouraging democracy abroad. A White House aide recently suggested similar thinking would guide the presidents pending National Security Strategy statement.

If Trump administration officials move forward with these plans, they will be breaking sharply with decades of U.S. foreign policy. They may believe that democratization is a vague and ineffective goal with no place in a hard-bargaining approach that puts America first. But that conclusion defies the experience of presidents Ronald Reagan and Harry S. Truman, two of the toughest and most effective guardians of American national interests.

When Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter, he promised a more hardheaded foreign policy. Some of his supporters thought this meant jettisoning Carters emphasis on human rights, which they saw as a symptom of weakness. Alexander Haig, Reagans first secretary of state, declared: International terrorism will take the place of human rights in our concern. Accordingly, the Reagan administration proposed as assistant secretary for human rights someone who had declared flatly that human rights had no place in foreign policy.

When the Senate shot down that nomination, Reagan left the post vacant for months while his team deliberated more carefully over the issue. In the end, it repudiated Haigs view, declaring: Human rights is at the core of our foreign policy. Other aides more sensitive to soft power than Haig, whose background was military, persuaded Reagan to overrule him.

Reagan, however, refined the policy to place more emphasis on democratization. There was often little to gain, he concluded, by merely criticizing or punishing autocrats for abuses here and there. The more meaningful goal was to erect systems of government in which abuses were rarer and subject to redress in other words, democracy.

Thus, our government set to work more systematically than ever to foster democratization. The policies and mechanisms Reagan put into place furthered a global tide in which the world went from about one-third democratic to nearly two-thirds, according to Freedom House and various scholarly studies. Of course, U.S. actions alone did not cause this transition, but they contributed to this. U.S. support for Polands Solidarity movement and dissidents elsewhere in the Soviet bloc helped bring down that empire, while American arm-twisting persuaded generals to abandon military rule in El Salvador and other Latin countries. More gentle pressure did much the same in South Korea and the Philippines.

This tide brought better life chances to millions. It also made the world more peaceful, prosperous and friendly to the United States. And it washed away the Soviet Union, ending the Cold War. That denouement was the greatest boon to American security since World War II.

Nor was this the first instance in which the spreading of democracy overseas redounded to Americas profound benefit. Following World War II, President Truman faced the question of what to do with Japan and Germany, the defeated enemies that we now occupied.

Germany had experienced democracy only once, briefly, during the Weimar Republic. The closest Japan had come to democracy had been an era in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when political parties came to the fore. In both countries, these progressive experiments had collapsed, enjoying too little popular support. Thus, knowledgeable observers doubted that democracy could be implanted in either country. As the eminent anthropologist Ruth Benedict put it, the United States could not create by fiat a free, democratic Japan.

Nonetheless, Truman decided on a policy of democratization, and it succeeded beyond expectation. As the scholar Robert Ward quipped about Gen. Douglas MacArthur and his aides who transformed Japan, had they known more [about Japanese history and traditions] they would have accomplished less.

Aside from making it possible for generations of Japanese and Germans to live in freedom, their democratization turned them into cornerstones of Americas security policies in Asia and Europe and of the post-World War prosperity on which America battened.

Needless to say, Americas democracy-building efforts, whether during the occupations or the Reagan years or since, have been replete with failures and mistakes. Errors abounded even in the great success story of Japan, and they were even more abundant in the debacle of our more recent occupation of Iraq.

No formula explains adequately why democracy takes hold some places and not others. Some countries where conditions seem ripe say, Russia or China with high education levels and growing economies prove stubbornly resistant. Others where the odds seem daunting say, India or Botswana have long practiced democracy.

Nor is democracy promotion a science. Some approaches have proved fruitful in some places, not in others. We can all agree that, despite the brilliant success of the period immediately after World War II, America should not invade countries solely to impose democracy. Rather, this project must advance by peaceful means, and often in ways that will be constrained by other considerations, since democratization will rarely be our only objective.

Slogans aside, every American president has naturally put America first. But our wisest and most effective leaders have recognized that a more democratic world does not merely gratify our ideals but also admirably serves our national interests.

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What Trump and Tillerson don't get about democracy promotion - Washington Post

Does putting America first mean eliminating the promotion of democracy as a foreign-policy objective? According to a report from the Washington Post, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson seems to believe it does.

Tillerson recently ordered the State Department to reconsider and rewrite its mission statement. A leaked draft of the result is fascinating: All references to democracy have been removed. Otherwise the new document looks similar to the old one. It seems the only real purpose of the revision was to de-emphasize the importance of democracy to U.S. foreign policy.

This suggests that the Trump administration, like its predecessor, has learned the lessons of the Iraq War too well. In Iraq, the U.S. attempted to use military force to install and export democracy. In its rush to hold elections, the Bush administration did not leave time for Iraq to develop the institutions necessary to sustain a democratic system. Though these are mistakes from which policymakers and military planners need to learn, they should not be construed as proof that the promotion of democracy itself which does not require military force is a misguided aim of U.S. foreign policy.

Yet Tillerson continues to provide signal after signal that America is no longer interested in promoting democracy, human rights, or anything else that could fall under the label of our values abroad. In his widely publicized first speech to the State Department, for example, he claimed that promoting American values creates obstacles to the pursuit of our national-security interests.

Honest observers must admit that this is sometimes true. Keeping America safe often requires the help of dictators and tyrants. If we refused to work with such despots in all circumstances, we would be choosing to abandon our own interests; we wouldnt be putting America first.

However, there are plenty of occasions in which promoting American values is in the American interest. First, it is no accident that Americas best alliesaround the worldare established liberal democracies, because these nations do not fight one another. They are able to work together toward common security and economic goals. That is why American presidents have for decades encouraged allies as well as enemies to make democratic reforms, become more accountable to their people, and treat their internal minorities more fairly. These are not only the right things to do, but also important steps to decreasing aggressiveness and accepting the American-led, liberal world order.

There is also plenty of evidence that good, democratic governance fosters predictability for investors and promotes economic development. This, too, is good for America: We want to trade with developing nations, not fight them.

Moreover, the U.S. benefits from being seen as a beacon of democracy and freedom. Our support for free people all over the world wins us friends in a way that hard-edged oppression could not. Indeed, turning our backs on the cause of liberty often means surrendering an important advantage over our adversaries.

There are endless reasons to continue to promote democracy by supporting important institutions, civil-society groups, NGOs, and dissidents abroad. As Ted Piccone, senior fellow at Brookings, has persuasively argued:

The Trump team will soon learn that supporting democratic institutions, rule of law, justice, accountability, and transparency are critical to protecting core U.S. national security interests. Strong democracies, after all, do not go to war with each other, do not spawn refugees, experience less civil conflict and terrorism, have more open and prosperous economies, and have a higher respect for international law and borders. In other words, if you care about defending U.S. national security, its your job to support the spread of democracy.

In continuing to express ambivalence toward democracy and human rights, the Trump administration is making a mistake. It needs to distinguish between failed efforts to export democracy and valuable efforts to promote democracy. Trump is right when he decries the folly of the former. Too often, they get us nowhere at great cost in lives and treasure. But the latter should remain a core part of U.S. foreign policy, because it is in our interests as well as in accordance with our values to encourage the diffusion of freedom and prosperity around the world.

Luckily, it is not too late for Rex Tillerson and the Trump administration to turn things around. An affirmation of the importance of democracy and human rights can and should be reinstated into the final version of the State Departments mission. No America First foreign policy could be complete without it.

READ MORE: Europe Between Trump and Putin The Great Muslim Civil War and Us Whos Ready for Peace? Trumps Unfounded Optimism about the Middle East

Elliot Kaufman is an editorial intern at National Review.

Continued here:
Democracy & U.S. Foreign Policy: The Link Is Crucial | National ... - National Review

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DEMOCRACY IN CRISIS: Not 'Not Normal' Planet Jackson Hole I went down to the White House to see Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner give his excuses surrounding the meeting that he, Trump's son, and Paul Manafort, among others, had with Russians, hoping to get dirt on Hillary. This is not normal, echoes ... McCain to Trump: 'Thank Putin for Attacking Our Democracy'Newsmax all 3,934 news articles »

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DEMOCRACY IN CRISIS: Not 'Not Normal' - Planet Jackson Hole

President Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores - a national assembly deputy celebrate after last Sundays election for his new constituent assembly. Photograph: Nathalie Sayago/EPA

Its hard to pinpoint when democracy died in Venezuela. Its been a long, slow, painful though predictable slide to authoritarianism. Now, though, that slide is bringing the country to anarchy and potential civil war, risking a black hole of a failed state in South America in an oil-rich nation.

Was democracys death knell in 2004 when the then president, Hugo Chvez the founder of the Bolivarian revolution expanded the supreme court by 12 seats, from 20 to 32, in order to pack it with loyalists, so undermining the independence of the judicial system?

Was it in 2015 when the democratic opposition won a two-thirds super majority in the national legislature, only for the pro-government electoral commission to block three legislators from taking their seats under false claims of elections violations?

Was it in 2016, when President Nicols Maduro appointed a loyalist Chavista general, Vladimir Padrino Lpez, to occupy the positions of both defence minister and state tsar for food and the economy, and stipulated that all state ministers should report to the general? (Current or former military officers run 11 of Venezuelas 32 state ministries.)

Or was it in October that year, when the electoral commission indefinitely suspended state and local elections leaving Venezuelans without locally elected officials and blocked a constitutional referendum on the government out of fear the governing party would be defeated?

These slow-motion acts eroded the checks and balances of democratic government and accountability and created a military-controlled government, the likes of which the region has not seen since the dark days of juntas and dictatorships in the 1960s and 70s. Worse, with each action the government closed off crucial channels and mediation, competition, choice and accountability until, in October 2016, it shut down the most fundamental claim to legitimacy: elections.

Even if it somehow survived all those though, theres no doubt that Venezuelan democracy was finished off last Sunday: on 30 July, despite popular opposition and international condemnation, the Maduro government ploughed ahead with an election to choose delegates to write a new constitution violating the constitutional right of citizens to say whether they even wanted a new constitution. And, indeed, a broad majority didnt. In public opinion surveys, 80% of Venezuelans expressed support for their 18-year-old constitution, and 75% opposed the entire effort.

The exercise was a farce, intended to distract the country from its economic and humanitarian crisis. GDP has contracted more than 20% in three years, inflation is raging at over 1,000%, citizens face severe shortages of food and medicine, and more than 100 people have been killed during four months of popular protests.

How a new constitution would solve those problems was never clear. In fact, what the constitution under a government that had shown a singular, anarchistic disregard for any type of institution or rule would look like or accomplish was never clear.

What was clear was that Maduro and his allies intended to use the body to assume total control over the national assembly and the government, and to pursue enemies including its general prosecutor, Luisa Ortega. She is a former Chavista who has become a vocal opponent. In the days leading up to Sundays vote, government officials declared proudly that after the balloting process they would turn to pursuing and prosecuting political opponents.

They wasted no time in doing so. Two days after the vote, police rounded up two leading political opponents: Antonio Ledezma, the former mayor of Caracas; and Leopoldo Lpez, the former mayor of Chacao. They had been under house arrest, but were now returned to military prison.

The international community needs to realise that its been played

Efforts by former presidents in the region and the Vatican to mediate a much-needed consensus have permitted the Maduro government to continue its efforts to consolidate power with a fig leaf of legitimacy. The strategy worked. While the region bet on mediation, the Maduro government killed democracy, but for an unknown end totalitarianism? Chaos? Anomie? Its not clear that even Maduro knew or knows.

The international community needs to realise that its been played. Fortunately, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and the European Union have expressed their displeasure with and their refusal to varying degrees to accept the illegal constituent assembly. Now, finally, those countries need to step up. The US has so far avoided the temptation to impose broad economic sanctions on Venezuela, which could have tragic consequences for the population, preferring targeted individual sanctions. The regional community needs to follow that lead and impose sanctions on certifiably corrupt, human-rights-abusing public officials: but also go further by pulling back diplomatic recognition of the government, and tightening the noose around government and corrupt officials assets and bank accounts.

Responding to the accelerating downward spiral in Venezuela requires credible but scaled threats. The past has shown that naive exhortation doesnt work, but nor does the nuclear option of all-out sanctions and an embargo. The US going it alone isnt enough.

The regional failure to act collectively and decisively to threaten costs and present carrots will accelerate the path that Venezuela is on. Its time to step up, collectively and selectively.

Link:
Maduro has stopped torturing democracy in Venezuela by killing it - The Guardian