Democracy for Muslims?

Just  a year and a half ago  mobs were raging through Tehran demanding  the ouster of  President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who had  claimed re-election  after a dubious vote-count.  Today  mobs are fighting in Cairo  over whether  President Hosni Mubarak should resign.  Mobs in Tunisia  have already ousted  the dictator there, and  unrest threatens  other Arab countries.

The American response to all these upheavals has been consistent:  allow peaceful demonstrations,  avoid violence, exercise restraint and  move toward real democracy.   Until  President George W Bush started urging democracy on Arab  countries, the American  policy was simply to deal with whoever held power and not meddle in internal affairs.

But  we face  a clash between American interests and American values.  Except for Iran,  the regimes threatened by the massive protests have been friendly to the United States.   Egypt, which had been aligned with the Soviet Union from about  1955 through 1973,  switched to the American side after US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger brokered a separation of forces deal with Israel after the Yom Kippur War that saved an Egyptian army division.  As the first Arab state to sign a peace treaty with Israel,  Egypt has been a valuable ally in keeping  the Middle East  from exploding for nearly forty years.

But Egypt was never a democracy.  The Free Officers Association, which overthrew King Farouk, established military rule, first under Gamal Abdel Nasser, then under Anwar Sadat and now under Hosni Mubarak.   Nasser suppressed the Muslim Brotherhood and executed its founder, but the group survives to this day and has inspired Hamas and Al Qaida.   Polls  and results of legislative elections  indicate that  radical Islam has mass support in Egypt, and if the military would surrender power,  the Muslim Brotherhood and perhaps other Islamist forces would be major players in national politics.  This could mean the end of the peace treaty with Israel, more arms for Hamas, perhaps even  war.

So we Americans are on the horns of a cruel dilemma:  our values  favor democracy for Egypt and all other countries, but  our interests favor  backing the authoritarian regimes friendly to us  and not too hostile to Israel.   The Shah of Iran  said  that under similar circumstances  "The Americans threw me out like a dead mouse."  (1)

We  Americans must first recognize that  we  cannot impose a government  on  any country against the will of its people.  Under President Bush we  were able to depose Sadam Hussein and conduct elections, but  the winners were not the Iraqis that the Bush Administration had supported.  Similarly, we  deposed  the Taliban in Afghanistan, but are still fighting them today, almost   ten years later.   We can provide arms  and military intelligence  to friendly governments, but   the Islamic Revolution in Iran showed that  these may not be enough to  keep power.

But we are also not obligated to throw  Mubarak (or anyone else)  out  "like a dead mouse."   If that is how we treat our friends, we will not have many friends, nor will we deserve many.  The US did not  "lose"  China, Cuba or Iran and we are not responsible for  "losing Egypt" now;  these countries never were ours to lose.  The more we try to influence events, the more we are blamed for how things turn out----which is often badly.  Just look at  Gaza,  where American-inspired fair elections resulted in a Hamas victory, later implemented by force.

So we must  tread a fine line between advocating human rights for all and unwelcome meddling.   Stability that rests on  raw power is inherently unstable, while stability that rests on democracy  (such as in Israel, Europe and most of Latin America) is  durable.  Of course  we should  advocate democracy, but recognize that  it must arise from the will of the people, and  their  will is often very different from our own.
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(1)   My Turn to Speak by Abol Hassan  Bani-Sadr, MacMillan, 1991.

Identity Crisis

Republican legislators are  poised to pass a bill that would require all Wisconsin  voters to display a photo-identification card every  time they vote.   The original bill specified that only a  valid driver's license, state ID  or military ID would suffice, but proposed amendments would add student ID's and passports.   Free state ID cards would be provided to anyone who needed one to vote.

The ostensible purpose of the law is to prevent  people from voting under a phony name.  But  is this going on now?

Suppose that someone  I will call Harvey Schmidt wanted  to vote  as me  in the November, 2010,  election, when no ID was required.  He could  have simply gone  to the Sherman School polling place and  identified  himself as Gerald S Glazer of  2944 North 50th Street. 

 But what if the real Gerald Glazer had already voted?  (I usually vote around  8 AM)  The ruse would be exposed,  and Schmidt would have been arrested.   But what if he came so early  in the day  (say, at  7:30 AM)  that the real Gerald Glazer had not yet voted?    All he would have to do was to convince Chief Election Inspector Cissy Glazer  that he was her real husband.

Of course most voters are not married to or otherwise related to a  poll-worker,  but there  is still a good chance that someone at the polling place  would know  the voter whose name the impostor was using.   So the risk of arrest  is  substantial, especially in  a small town  where everyone knows everyone else.  Someone might even recognize the impostor!

On the other hand, the benefit to the faker is not very great.  While a crook might garner thousands of dollars by cashing a stolen check,  and a terrorist  may believe he will earn  70 virgins in Paradise by  destroying a plane full of infidels,  the most Harvey Schmidt could  take by posing as  someone else at the polls is  one  vote for some candidate for elective office.  Big deal!   Would you risk a felony conviction record and maybe a year in prison just to  cast one illegitimate vote?  Would your favorite politician risk jail for you?  Why would anyone  try to vote with a fake name, when most people don't  even bother to vote at all?

Although identity theft is a major problem in our society,  I do not believe it is a significant factor in vote fraud.   The use of absentee ballots, which can be  sold or used in  the presence of  someone offering a bribe, is a much bigger threat to the honesty of elections, but no one seems to worry about  that.

The truth is that even if state ID's are free,  many voters who lack  a driver's  license   will not bother to  go to  the Courthouse to get one. Poor  people are less likely to have a driver's license, although some do drive anyway.   Even now,  poor people vote at a lower rate than middle-class  people, and  the photo ID  requirement will  reduce their participation even more.   And that is the real reason that Republicans are keen on  requiring a photo ID.