The principles of liberal democracy are different than saying liberal democracy is the type of government everyone should have. In fact, probably the primary tenant would be that of self-determination, and if the populace wants a king, who adheres strictly to Sharia, and they have the mechanisms available to them to ensure the King stays on that track, then one could argue that is liberal democracy at work. It is certainly in sync with the principles the US was founded upon.
#1 insurgency the US needs to worry about: The one in Saudi Arabia.
Now, I realize you say "what insurgency?" Fine, I say there is one, and it is the pulsing heart of what the US calls the GWOT. 9000 Saudis arrested and jailed with no rights to trial or habeas corpus since 2003 on charges of "Terrorism." Now clearly there have not been 9000 acts or attempted acts of terrorism in Saudi Arabia since 2003, so one must presume there are networks of those who are collaborating and plotting to act illegally against the state and their membership is being sniffed out and rolled up.
In a county with 1/10th the population of the U.S. this is equivalent to 90,000 Americans being pulled out of their homes, their college dorm rooms, their place of work in the middle of the night, thrown into a police car and hauled off never to be seen again over that same period of time.
The Saudis are backing off from some of their more harsh tactics (reportedly). but have always employed the major tactic of letting these guys out of jail if the simply promise to take their fight elsewhere, and has thus always been a primary source of foreign fighters, be it to fight with the Muj during the Cold War; or now in this post-Cold War era to provide manpower to efforts such as AQ's to support their larger cause, while at the same time clinging to their nationalist cause at home.
Why is this most important to the US? Saudi Arabia has the most oil, American oil companies developed that oil, and we have a close post-WWII relationship. Much of the failings of the Saudi government are blamed on Western influence and money that have had a corrupting effect. Probably a lot of truth to that. By working to sustain the status quo in Saudi Arabia and attacking the spokes of the problem that come out of that hub, we empower AQ's message. Even if we deal with a spoke in Iraq (though I don't think anything about Iraq had anything to do with AQ or this Saudi factor. We built the spoke to Iraq when we invaded) or the AFPAK region, it merely leads to new spokes developing out to other areas or reinforces current ones into places like Yemen and North Africa and the Horn of Africa.
But we think COIN is war, and we don't want to wage war in Saudi Arabia, and neither do the Saudis want the American's showing up with their big, clumsy COIN machine. But the hard truth is that less is more, but understanding what aspects of governance are them most important, and tailoring them to the very real concerns of both the Saudi populace and the Saudi Government we can turn down the heat in Saudi Arabia in a way that causes these spokes to retract, that makes a huge powerful Stratcom message for the US that cuts to the heart of AQ's message, and that is executed within our value system without asking the Saudis to act outside their value system either.
By usurping AQ's role as the solution to the problem we reduce the perception that the US is the source of the problem. The US had a very positive relationship in much of the Middle East back when we had to tiptoe around careful not to upset the European and Ottoman powers who had staked claim to the region. It was only once those powers retracted and we filled that vacuum that things began to go downhill. The factors of increased petro riches and the politics of Cold War Containment exacerbated these factors, as has the increase in communications technology. Islam is under pressure, and much as little to do with the US, but the US has set itself up to be the easy outside party to blame it on.
How does "Empowerment" work? To be candid, I'm not sure. Currently it is a fuzzy concept woven throughout the administration's foreign and domestic policy output; but there is certainly no clear framework for what exactly it means or how to implement it. There is also the inertia of Containment. The boss is asking for empowerment, but everyone around him is trained, organized, equipped, experienced, etc in containment. So what he says and what his implementors hear and do are two different things. I think one can see this in some of the frustration between the white house and their action arms.
I do think that empowerment means working toward people having legal means to express their concerns and to address their governments that are developed and tailored locally between those respective governments and populaces. I don't think that means we make everyone a mini-me US brand democracy.
I do think that empowerment is the opposite of what we are doing in Afghanistan. That is probably more accurately "Enablement." We enable the Karzai regime to be ineffective and corrupt by our very presence and approach to the problem. We also disempower the populace by enabling the government to disconnect their historic means of shaping government (the use of shuras, Jirgas; and when that fails swords and rifles). So empowerment means changing how we engage governments and populaces both, and relinquishing a lot of control over outcomes. Tricky stuff. It may just fizzle out and never take root. That is what happened to FDR. He to had a bold vision, but his death and the realities of the post-WWII developments combined to put his vision on the shelf. I see a lot of FDR's vision in Empowerment. We'll see. Maybe it's time has come, or maybe it is still a bit too "pie in the sky" for the dirty realities of maintaining one's status at the top of the heap.
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