Writing on the recent unrest in Kyrgyzstan, James Kirchick ruminated on the dangers of over-looking the people in favor of the autocrats who lead them:
Nonetheless, the most important lesson to be learned from the events in Kyrgyzstan this past week is that supporting authoritarianism, no matter how valid the excuses, comes with a cost. This is something that everyone, especially "realists" who say that regime type should be irrelevant in the determination of foreign policy, ought to acknowledge. Soft-pedaling criticism of dictators who assist this or that American foreign policy objective, whether it be hosting a military base or supplying us with oil, may bring promised "stability," but it is always illusory. As the behavior of Kurmanbek Bakiyev demonstrated, authoritarians are by their nature irrational and unpredictable. Worse, when an authoritarian regime falls, the people who take over naturally feel resentment toward anyone who supported those who oppressed them.
Sounds reasonable to me. Only here's Kirchick on a Brookings Institution study of Arab public opinion concerning Iran's nuclear weapons program:
Last year, I wrote an essay for Commentary called â??What Price Popularity,â? which argued that the United States has and always will be reviled by many people around the world (particularly Muslims), that the reasons for this resentment are often quite complex and beyond our control, and that, rather than fret and complain about this phenomenon, policymakers would do well to pursue what they believe to be in the nationâ??s interest, regardless of what foreigners think. This latest poll simply underscores the irrationality, paranoia, and ignorance underlying Arab public opinion â?? and why we should stop obsessing over it, if not ignore it entirely.
Got it: we should worry about the trade off between authoritarian dictators and their put upon citizens unless those citizens happen to be Arabs, whose views are irrational, paranoid and ignorant and should thus be ignored.
