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| Why should Iran disarm? |
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Ignoring the tea leaves gibe (to which I will return later), Sheldon's doctrine is more or less along the lines that 'no democracy equals no nukes'; a reiteration of the standard argument that a full and functioning democracy should be a pre-condition for getting the bomb. However it is hard to see how these standards apply to the regimes in Beijing and Moscow; the first is not a full democracy and the other is barely functioning. While it is the case that western democracies do not fight wars against each other any more, they have and do engage in brutal military campaigns. Democracy wasn't able to prevent mass killing in Japan, Vietnam, Algeria and modern-day Fallujah, where the use of force was disproportionate and at times involved the use of WMD. With utilitarianism as their philosophical heartbeat, the value that democracies place on human life is often prone to fluctuation and commercial Benthamite calculations. This is clearly the case in Iraq where the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom can rattle off statistics about electricity wattage, voter registration numbers, the numbers of textbooks in new schools, but have no clue about that little matter of how many Iraqi civilians have been killed since March 2003.
The principle of equality of influence forms the bedrock of democracy and yet it is not apparent in today's corporate-dominated western states. Britain went to war in Iraq not at the behest of the majority of ordinary citizens, but due to a much smaller group who believed that the war was essential in bringing political change and a new paradigm to the Middle East. In that sense, Blair's policy was no more representative, legitimate or wise than the decisions taken by the leaders in Iran. The fact that Blair can be freely criticised by opposition politicians and the free press had little effect on how the Iraq policy was formulated or how it has been implemented on the ground. Accountability to an electorate at a future election is no safeguard against an incorrect or reckless decision being carried out now, as policies such as the Iraq invasion are often irreversible and may have security consequences far sooner than any future election. From Bernie Ecclestone to Lakshmi Mittal, or Lord Sainsbury to Rupert Murdoch, it is clear that the rich and powerful have far more say in the running of Britain than the general populace. Decision-making at the highest levels in London, Washington or Paris is therefore not much more representative than it is in Tehran. Professor Honderich of UCL states the following about representation within western democracies;
"If we make an uncontroversial list of the liberal democracies, certainly including the United States and Britain, and if we then try to conceive of or understand them in a general way, we may arrive at what can be called the Ordinary Conception of them. It boils down into three propositions. The people, legitimately influenced during an election, choose representatives who promise certain policies, and afterwards the people legitimately influence the elected representatives. There is universal suffrage in the election -- one person, one vote -- and approximate equality in both the influencing of the people during the election and their subsequent influencing of the elected representatives. The society's actual policies are chosen by the representatives in accord with their promises, and the policies do take effect. The Ordinary Conception is no good. For starters there is the embarrassing electoral fact that in liberal democracies it is typically not the people who vote and thereby choose the representatives, but only about half the people. There is also the fact, partly having to do with governmental structure and perhaps a Supreme Court, that the society's actual policies can rarely be regarded as just the policies promised by the elected representatives. A third fact is that the choosing of representatives in the election is far better seen as made not by individuals, as the Ordinary Conception supposes, but by groups of individuals with a common interest -- interest-groups. "
As Ted Honderich notes, modern democracies are hierarchical and the ability to choose the policies that will be actually followed in a society is very much in the hands of a small minority, those who have most of the society's economic resources. As for elections, beyond the theatre and spectacle, he believes they are ineffective because wealthy individuals can buy their way into office via expensive advertising campaigns and because wealthy individuals form coalitions designed to promote their interests. For Honderich, hierarchical democracies are better than oligarchies and dictatorships but they still lack genuine legitimacy and need to be fundamentally transformed.
It is manifestly true that open and intellectually vibrant societies should make better decisions than societies that are less open, due to the vigorous debate that can challenge erroneous opinions and expose the facts. This should lead us to conclude that shaping public opinion in western societies, and hence winning a mandate for policy, requires a higher standard of proof than in closed, oppressive Iran. However, in a world where there has never been so much information available it is a paradox of globalisation that there is still such an unprecedented paucity of understanding and wisdom. The United States is considered as the world's most open society, yet there are still significant numbers of Americans who believe sincerely that Saddam Hussein was behind the events of 9-11 and many others who believe that WMDs were actually found in Iraq. However the intellectual malaise is not confined to ordinary citizenry.
It was also reported recently that even in the US Congress, most lawmakers do not bother to read the legislation that they are passing - neither do any of their officials or staff. Instead, more often than not, members of Congress rely on summaries prepared by the bill's authors or by special interest groups whose judgment they trust. Rep. Brian Baird, (D-Wash) writing in the Washington Post recently penned an Op-Ed titled "We Need to Read the Bills." The op-ed at first glance reads like something emanating from Michael Moore, yet it systematically, and in a serious fashion, highlights a notable gap between what most people think is a painstaking and deliberative legislative process in Congress and what actually happens. Baird's op-ed was in response to a particularly embarrassing episode, in which an anonymous individual inserted a provision into a large spending bill that was passed, allowing congressional staff to examine any individual American's income tax returns. The lack of legislative deliberation and scrutiny is not unique to the United States, as the passing of section 23 the 2001 Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act illustrated in the United Kingdom. A piece of legislation which allowed the detention without trial for foreign nationals and which now the House of Lords calls unlawful, disproportionate, discriminatory and in fundamental breach of the European Convention on Human Rights was passed by both houses in less than two months in 2001.
The decision to invade Iraq and the vision of a new Middle East paradigm were therefore not the machinations of millions of people living in South Dakota, Alabama or Missouri or even the 535 elected members of Congress, but the machinations of a small coterie of neo-conservatives largely based in Washington DC. Thanks to their numerous corporate sponsors, a largely misinformed public and allies in the media, they enjoy unprecedented influence in the current administration. Their brand of right wing politics is coupled with a fervour and through Bush's re-election, the "democratic" process has given them power once more; yet this small group frightens as many people as the Iranian leadership purportedly do. Ron Suskind notes the following about this group in the New York Times magazine,
"In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency. "The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'"
I don't know about you, but after reading that approach to foreign policy, I might prefer the guys with the tea leaves.
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