Isolationism: no longer is an option

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), March, 2005 by Tony Blair

INTERDEPENDENCE is the governing characteristic of modern international politics. Its obvious corollary is unity of purpose. Yet, the past few years have been marked by division. The trauma of Sept. 11 and its aftermath; wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; the Middle East Peace Process' backsliding regression; disagreement over the Kyoto Protocol on climate change; and a feeling of helplessness as we watch Africa, unique among the continents of the world, see its poverty intensify and its peoples ravaged by conflict, famine, and disease. All have contributed to a sense of alienation and discord.

In 2000, the international atmosphere was unified, even benign. Yet, in truth, the same issues were present: the unity often based in false hope. Today, the issues seem more raw, although they also are clearer. There is no pretence about the problems or the division. The question is: Can we find an agenda that reunities us? I believe we can. There is no shortage of goodwill to resolve the problems if the perception of them is plain. The remarkable response, not only of governments but, most of all, of people to the tsunami shows there is an abundance of the human sentiment of solidarity. Bill Gates' donation of $750,000,000-more than many countries' entire aid budgets--to tackle the killer diseases of Africa demonstrates the possibility of business compassion.

However, there is a more fundamental political reason for optimism. We may disagree about the nature of the dilemmas and how to resolve them, but no nation, however powerful, seriously believes today that these situations can be resolved alone. Interdependence no longer is disputed.

Pres. George W. Bush's recent inaugural address marks a consistent evolution of U.S. policy. He spoke of America's mission to bring freedom in place of tyranny to the world. Leave aside for a moment the odd insistence by some commentators that such a plea is evidence of the "neo-conservative" grip on Washington; I thought progressives were all in favor of freedom rather than tyranny. The underlying features of the speech seem to me to be these: The U.S. accepts that terrorism cannot be defeated by military might alone. The more people live under democracy, with human liberty intact, the less inclined they or their states will be to indulge terrorism or to engage in it. This may be open to debate--though personally I agree with it--but it emphatically puts defeating the causes of terrorism alongside defeating the terrorists.

Secondly, by its very nature, such a mission cannot be accomplished alone. It is the very antithesis of isolationism, the very essence of international engagement. It requires long-term cooperation--and it is based on enlightened self-interest. Freedom is good in itself. It also is the best ultimate guarantee that human beings will live in sympathy with each other. The hard head has led to the warm heart.

None of this means the hard head no longer will be applied. The U.S.--as is perhaps inevitable being the world's sole superpower--in the end is expected not just to talk about the world's problems, but solve them. America approaches all issues with a propensity to question what others assume, treat the pressure of pressure groups with resistance, and ask others to share responsibility.

No one could say the inauguration speech was lacking in idealism. However, if the U.S. wants the rest of the world to be part of the agenda it has set, it must be part of their agenda, too. It can do so, secure in the knowledge that what people want is not for America to concede, but to engage. The bard-headed approach should stay--the one that says: don't assert it, prove it: face up to the difficult realities as well as the easy platitudes. Difficult reality, though, does not come in one form only.

So, there is common ground as to interdependence. There is a wish to reunify. It is absurd to choose between an agenda focusing on terrorism and one on global poverty, especially since, in part at least, they are linked.

What would be the subject matter of a common agenda? First, obviously, to maintain vigilance and cooperation against global terrorism. Second, to take the high-flown principles we set out in the United Nations Charter about human rights and freedom and, when we can, seek to increase the number of people able to live in a democracy, subject to the protection of the rule of law. We do not accept the right of states to abuse their citizens. Though progress to this end may, for good cause, be slow, we are explicit about our ambition for humanity to reach this goal. This does not mean that we seek to impose democracy on every state or interfere in other nations" proper internal affairs. It does mean that we know dictatorship is, in the long run, incompatible with human progress. Incidentally, when people talk of "Western-style" democracy, in my view, there is no such thing. There is democracy or there is not. The notion of democracy being a "Western idea" is nonsense as well as mythology--as, most recently, the people of Afghanistan and Iraq powerfully have demonstrated. Whatever divisions there were over the decision to remove Saddam Hussein from Iraq, we surely all can agree that we should support the brave Iraqi people who went to cast their votes on Jan. 30.