The silence of China, India, and Russia on Burma.

The NYT pans China, India, and Russia on their tepid responses to the shootings of the monks in Burma. They call for the international community to do more and to impose more sanctions on Burma, which the Bush administration has already done. But the fact of the matter is that it depends on each individual case -- in the case of South Africa, that was what the people of that country wanted -- they wanted the international community to impose sanctions on that regime as a way of bringing it down. Whether or not the rest of the world should follow the lead of the Bush administration here depends on what the human rights community in Burma wants in this case.

There is actually an argument that instead of committing acts of violence against Burma in retaliation for violence, the exact opposite approach would be more effective -- if we were to open up diplomatic relations, it would lead to more travel and the free flow of ideas between Burma and the rest of the world. That is, in fact, what is happening with China -- Friedman has written about how the current conditions in China are ripe for a possible revolution there, and how it is already a question of China's survival at some point.

And in the case of Iraq, the sanctions actually backfired -- all they did was serve to prop up a regime that had committed brutal atrocities against its own people. The same is the case for Iran, which has prospered despite having little contact with the US over the last 25 years. And we kept open the lines of communication between ourselves and Russia during the Cold War, which allowed people to come to here and Russia to exchange ideas. People behind the Iron Curtain were familiar with our ideas and considered them better than their own, which led to the toppling of communism in Eastern Europe.

The editorial rightly notes that India and Russia are propping up the Burma regime with energy and arms deals. So, any sanctions that are directed against Burma have to be managed in a way that keeps food and basic necessities flowing to the people while avoiding directly propping up their regime.

Part of the problem is that in order to condemn the Burma abuses of human rights, China would have to come face to face with its own past, where they shot and killed people in Tinnamen Square. And Russia is moving towards an authoritarian state themselves.

But there is a much larger problem here, and it all goes back to the Bush administration. Part of the problem is that countries like Russia, China, and India are using this to make a statement that they are no longer accepting our leadership in the world. After all, being a leader cannot merely mean might, as Bush mistakenly assumes along with his Neocon allies. It involves skills that involve fostering cooperation and bringing people together.

The problem is that I suggest that Russia, China, and India are simply blowing off Bush's condemnations of Burma's human rights abuses as non-genuine and hypocritical and simply an effort to undermine their own interests in the region. After all, Bush himself has engaged in torture, extraordinary renditions, and other such human rights violations.

There might be another value judgement at play here. Russia, China, and India might fear the undermining of their own sovereignty as a nation. After all, if Bush is able to foster revolutions unchecked around the world, they might be next. And there is a military component as well -- Russia and China have always feared efforts on our part that they feel would surround them with military bases on client states. Therefore, they may fear that we are really trying to undermine Burma so that we can install a compliant regime there that would allow us to build a new military base that would help complete the ring of bases that surround Russia and China. In that respect, they both have a common interest in ruling out the use of sanctions and sending aid to Burma.

Furthermore, there may be another reason why Russia and China are undermining our efforts on Burma -- invasion and occupation. The neocon allies of the Bush administration have made no secret of their desire for the US to engage in wars of occupation around the globe, starting with Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Human rights is merely an excuse for them to start clamoring for war and occupation. The problem with the passage of the Lieberman/Kyl amendment on Iran is that it resembles the same kind of leadup that preceded the occupation of Iraq. Therefore, it undermines our efforts in  places like Syria and Burma because Russia, China, and India see that as a repeat of the steps towards war in Iraq.

So, the problem with the New York Times editorial is that it oversimplifies the problem because it does not take into account the loss of standing that the Bush administration has had since their invasion and occupation of Iraq. The next administration cannot simply take up the mantle of freedom and proceed as though nothing happened. It will take a lot of careful diplomacy to convince Russia and China and India of our good intentions and our desire to work within the framework of the international community.

For that to happen, the next administration has to do several things. They first have to set a date certain beyond which our troops will no longer be in the nation formerly known as Iraq. Let the Iraqi people decide how they want to divide up their country. Then, we should make diplomacy a starting point for negotiations with Iran, not the end point. Then, the next administration should cancel such programs as putting missile defense systems in Eastern Europe that Russia feels would be used against them. Then, the US and Russia should work together on disposing nuclear materials so that they do not fall into the wrong hands.

All this will lay out the groundwork for us to engage in cooperation regarding regimes such as Burma and Sudan. From there, we can work together with the international community much more effectively than we can on our own to put an end to the violence in Burma and Sudan and elsewhere around the world.

The entire problem with our previous approach was that it envisioned military force as the weapon of something other than last resort. The Kosovo War is seen as something that was done easily, without the loss of a single American life, but it was not. The danger was that it was a near thing that strained our relationship with Russia and nearly precipitated a major breakdown in relations with that country; thankfully, thanks to the leadership of Wes Clark, that did not happen. But people of his caliber are not in that kind of position to mean the difference between success and failure every day. People like him come along once in a blue moon.

But there was a larger long-term problem with the Kosovo war -- it reinforced the mentality among many people in both parties that we could rely on the military as a quick-fix solution for our problems. In other words, without a Kosovo, we would not have had an Iraq. And now, we are in the danger of a three-front war -- in Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan -- that we cannot sustain. This is the sort of thing that brought down the Athenian Empire in times past, and this is the sort of thing that will bring us down as a superpower unless we change course as a nation.

tags: burma  russia  china  india  george w bush  human rights  iran  iraq  occupation  kosovo  

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit