Since the beginning of the recent popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, debate has raged over the role that the United States should play in shaping these movements and the power transitions that they now seem likely to provoke. That debate has extended here to the Opinion page where my colleagues Jacob Batchelor ("Obligation to Act," Jan. 24) and Keshav Poddar ("A Time For Restraint," Jan. 31) have disagreed over whether the United States should openly support the revolts. While well reasoned, both perspectives fail to recognize that the Obama administration is nearly powerless to alter events like these once they've begun. In order to maintain our influence in key strategic regions of the world and avoid being blindsided by significant geopolitical events in the future, Washington should use the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia to pressure our more autocratic allies to preempt popular anger by adopting significant reforms.
One of the great ironies of U.S. foreign policy is that despite our avowed interest in promoting democratic self-determination the world over, in many places the popular will is so dramatically contrary to our interests that we are almost obliged to suppress democracy. The most significant current example of this unfortunate reality is Pakistan, where an outrageously corrupt yet moderate, secular, well-educated and pro-Western oligarchic elite runs the country with little popular input. It is absolutely, unequivocally crucial to American interests that the current government, despite its flaws, remains in power. This is both because Pakistan is our most important strategic ally in the war on terror and because Pakistan possesses an ever-growing nuclear arsenal that could throw the world into chaos if controlled by the wrong people. If a popular democratic movement led by Pakistan's younger activist class which subscribes to a far more radical ideology than the current government was to seize control of the country, the consequences for the United States could be dire.
Pakistan is hardly unique in this respect. Although reliable polling is hard to come by in non-Western countries, there is significant reason to believe that the United States is not terribly popular among the general public in many Middle Eastern countries Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, to name a few and American interests would likely suffer if those governments were swept away in popular movements.
Thus, it is extremely important that the United States find a way to preserve government control in the hands of its allies. As Egypt and Tunisia have shown, however, this is both difficult and morally hazardous when the governments that the United States props up are oppressive, clownish tin-pot dictatorships or corrupt and abusive oligarchies. America should use the examples provided by recent events to pressure its allies into adopting piecemeal reforms that may quell popular anger and secure their hold on power.
If the United States could get its dictatorial allies to embrace basic human rights reforms, provide education and health care for their people and allow some form of limited participation in their governments, they could both improve the lives of millions of people and secure our foreign policy interests. It doesn't take a full-fledged liberal democracy to avoid revolt, as the examples of countries such as Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Singapore show. People merely require an opportunity to provide for their families and participate in some measure of civil society without being murdered by their government.
It will, of course, be incredibly difficult to persuade these autocrats to share either their power or their wealth, or else we'd have done so already. However, recent events in Egypt and Tunisia may have finally provided an opening to achieve some change. Perhaps at least some of these leaders will be willing to relax their iron grip when faced with the prospect of being humiliated and run out of town like former Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali.
Egypt and Tunisia should serve as a major wake-up call for us. Nobody, including the Obama administration, has any idea how these events will play out or what kind of governments will be in power when the dust settles. Our strategic interests as a nation are too important to be left to chance like this. The United States should use all the influence it can muster to coax improvement from its allies now in order to prevent such chaos in the future.
