Champions of Freedom and Democracy?

Britain is about to get caught in a trap, and it's one we've been in before; so often, in fact, that we've got scars on our leg to prove it, Our facade, alongside that of America, as champions of freedom and democracy, is about to be shown up for the sham it has always been, as the citizens of countries across the arab world seize those much prized freedoms for themselves, without our help. What have we done that's so heinous? We've supported, done business with, and made money from all manner of regimes which behave in a way which runs contrary to our stated values.

What's worse is, far from condemning many of these states actions, we have in fact sold them the weapons they've then used to repress their own citizens. Whilst enthusiasts of realpolitik will point out that, had we not sold these weapons, somebody else would have, few of them would be happy to extend the same indulgence to, say, the Afghan heroin trade, or Columbian cocaine exports. The truth is that we in the West are self serving and hypocritical in the way our Governments carry out their foreign policy. Our leaders boo loudly at whoever is currently on the “bad boy” list, whilst happily sipping champagne and making money with leaders of equally repressive nations, and we quietly go along with it like sheep. “So what?”, you may say. You may feel that we have to keep the wheels of our economy turning, that every state needs allies who support their strategic aims, and that income is more important than values. People who think that way might be about to count the cost.

For a case study on what can go wrong, you need only look at the mess Britain and America made in Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran had its own royal dictator is Shah Pahlavi, and he was by no means a champion of freedom and democracy. He was oppressive in a variety of ways, but top of the list in terms of opposing western “values” was the dissolution of the Majilis, the Iranian parliament, and the imprisonment of the Prime Minister Mossadegh for daring to disagree with him. You might imagine the white knight of Britain and the USA would swing into action at such a crime, but no, because Pahlavi was something more important than a despot; he was a customer. Iran had a great deal of money because of its oil (which, by the way, it had had to act to seize back from Britain, who had wandered in and started drilling it, and giving very little of the profit back to the country), and as long as he kept spending it on Western arms, he was our chum. When the virtually inevitable Iranian revolution occurred, we got Khomeini instead; a leader who, whilst not as self serving and despotic, was just as repressive as Pahlavi, and who hated the West, so our revenues went the same way as our moral credibility.

Not satisfied with that, we then decided that we should arm another one of our good friends in the area to take on this new threat; you guessed it, it's your friend and mine, Saddam Hussein. Meanwhile in Afghanistan, we were busy training one Osama Bin Laden and his cohorts to do our dirty work in that country, which has also not been an outstanding success in the long run. What I fear here is the whole sorry picture repeating itself again, as nation after nation overthrows dictatorial, bloody regimes with whom we've been on good terms. Are we likely to be top of the Christmas card list for whatever comes after the revolution? I suspect not. This wave of unrest is greater than any in my lifetime, and could easily spread further down Africa, and further up into Eastern Europe, which could leave us with a lot of very dissatisfied former customers. We're rather too late for this round, but for the future, it's time Britain, at least, grew up and starting acting on the principles it claims to stand for. It could be painful and expensive in the short term, but I don't think we'll be sorry in the end, and even if we are, at least we will be able to look at ourselves in the mirror.