[Mb-civic] When terrorists go mainstream - Monica Duffy Toft - Boston Globe Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

  When terrorists go mainstream

By Monica Duffy Toft  |  January 27, 2006  |  The Boston Globe

PERHAPS THE biggest surprise about this week's election results, in 
which the terrorist group Hamas won a majority of seats in the 
Palestinian parliament, is that it was a surprise to us at all. There 
are two main reasons why.

First, many in this country have fallen victim to the notion that if 
today's rogue states are bad neighbors, democratization will make them 
good neighbors. A central pillar of the current Bush administration's 
foreign policy is that dictators make bad neighbors. In other words, we 
can expect authoritarian governments to start wars and support terrorism 
more readily than democratic governments.

When the current US administration first took office, the security 
concern of the day was ''rogue states," a euphemism for Afghanistan, 
North Korea, Iraq, and Iran. After Sept. 11, the threat of rogue states 
morphed into the terrorist threat, along with the conviction that 
because these states were led by dictators, they would be more 
susceptible to terrorism and they would eventually have ''to be dealt with."

But apt as the characterization of these states might have been, and as 
troubling as they were to their respective neighbors, the corollary does 
not follow. It is not the case that democratic states necessarily make 
good neighbors on account of their form of government alone.

Japan is a democracy, but China does not rest easy on that account, even 
though Japan has no formal military to speak of, and even though 
pacifism is a part of its constitution. Democracies, even traditional 
allies, often don't see eye to eye; and historically they are as likely 
to start wars as dictatorships.

Second, most Americans buy into the romantic notion that ''there are no 
bad people, only bad leaders." By extension, giving power to the people 
must result in ''good" policy. The trouble is, what is ''good" depends 
on where you sit. If you live among the minority of states that are rich 
and getting richer, then war and violence are a bad idea: There is 
little to gain and everything to lose. If, however, you live among the 
majority of states that are poor and getting poorer, then war and 
violence seem a good idea: There is everything to gain and nothing to 
lose. Thus, as in Woodrow Wilson's day, exporting democracy is as useful 
for gaining domestic political support as it is destructive as foreign 
policy.

Logic notwithstanding, we have a real-world example of what happens when 
the people of a poor Islamic state are offered democracy. In the early 
1990s, Algeria's government held democratic elections to head off 
widespread dissent and riots. The Islamic Salvation Front -- the first 
legal Islamic political party in North Africa -- worked hard to win. 
When the Algerian people were given a choice (twice), they chose the 
theocracy (twice), and the government of Algeria was toppled by a 
military coup that repudiated the election results and imposed martial law.

What can we learn from this?

First, the United States and its allies have the power to bring their 
own foreign policies in line with their professed democratic values. It 
may be difficult, but the United States must stop supporting military 
dictatorships simply because they are ''allies in the war against 
terror." The United States must also support Israel by pressuring it to 
concede to a genuine Palestinian state, while at the same time 
guaranteeing Israel's security.

Second, the more democratic Palestinians and Iraqis become, the less 
likely they are to support US strategic and economic interests. Israel 
is a strategic interest for the United States; but it is unlikely that 
given a choice, most people in the Middle East would accept Israel's 
right to exist. In other words, ideal election outcomes may not result 
in ideal foreign policy outcomes, from a US perspective.

Countering the popular appeal of groups such as Hamas requires 
controlling habitat, not population. Killing terrorists can't stop the 
violence until and unless you destroy the habitat that produces them. 
That in turn demands serious effort at providing basic needs, such as 
food, shelter, clean water, education, and healthcare.

Hamas has historically done much better at providing for the basic needs 
of Palestinian Arabs than the Palestinian Authority (Fatah). That's why 
Hamas won, and that's why, when seeking to export democracy, the United 
States and its allies must remain careful of what they wish for.

Monica Duffy Toft is an associate professor at the Kennedy School of 
Government and assistant director of the John M. Olin Institute of 
Strategic Studies at Harvard University.  

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/01/27/when_terrorists_go_mainstream/
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