On June 5, Maleeha Lodhi, Pakistani ambassador to the United States, appeared on "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" to make her nation's case in the Kashmir dispute. Near the end of the interview, she said Pakistan's desire was to bring about "democracy" in Kashmir. It was a noble sentiment -- and a ludicrous one, too, coming as it did from a spokeswoman for a military dictatorship. But most viewers probably yawned right through Lodhi's cynical deployment of the word "democracy" in defense of Pakistan's foreign policy. We have grown so accustomed to hearing dictators and despots invoke democratic principles to justify their own ends that we have stopped feeling outrage when they do. So we find ourselves yawning along and, worst of all, accepting their arguments at face value.
Pakistan is hardly the only nondemocracy to engage in this rhetorical farce. Consider this recent statement by King Abdullah II of Jordan, speaking about Yasir Arafat: "He has our full support, simply because he is the elected leader of the Palestinian people." One can argue about whether Arafat is really an elected leader. But regardless, does a monarch who inherited his country's leadership from his father and will never in his life submit to a popular election have the right to confer legitimacy on another leader because he is "elected"? Of course not. He doesn't get to lecture anyone on democracy; his opinions on democracy mean nothing. Why? Because he is a king.
Not to be outdone by his fellow desert monarch, Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has shown himself to be an advocate of democratic legitimacy as well -- at least in the Palestinian territories, where it suits his agenda. "We made it clear to the Americans that Arafat does not speak or represent himself," he said of his recent trip to the United States. "He is the elected leader of the Palestinian Authority." The hypocrisy is self-evident.
And this is not just a game for monarchs and military dictators. Authoritarian presidents-for-life can play as well. On April 4, the decidedly nondemocratic Hosni Mubarak complained that "Israel has made some influencing powers sympathize with Israeli attempts to eliminate the democratically elected leader of the Palestinians." Egypt's foreign minister has, in recent months, warned Israel and America on at least two occasions to deal directly with the "democratically elected leader" of the Palestinian people. And in what can only be described as an amusing attempt to play with the big boys of duplicity, President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazhakstan recently argued that "Arafat is the legally elected leader now, and one has to work with him." Nazarbayev knows a thing or two about being "legally elected," considering that in 1998 he initiated a well-documented campaign of political repression before claiming victory in the presidential elections one year later -- with 81.7 percent of the vote.
American officials and American citizens may not be calling these leaders on their hypocrisy, but there are concrete, policy-oriented reasons why we should be. For one, we are already beginning to hear nondemocrats mangle democratic principles to argue against a robust U.S. foreign policy. In April, Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji, no democrat himself, advised against a U.S. invasion of Iraq by arguing, as paraphrased by a BBC account, that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is an "elected leader." He is wrong of course (and embarrassingly so) about Hussein; but even if he weren't, can anyone really take unelected Chinese leaders seriously when they tell us to respect the "elected leader" of another nation?
This is, of course, the paradox of the United Nations. At its best, it can be a force for idealism and cooperation. But at its worst -- and we have seen it at its worst in recent months -- it is a democracy of nondemocracies. Such an association, though organizationally democratic in theory, often makes for a poor defender of democratic principles in the world at large. One need look no further than the bigotry of Durban and the fabrications of Jenin to see the system's obvious shortcomings.
So the hard work of defending and expanding democracy cannot be left to the U.N. Security Council (whose rotating chair is currently held by that great defender of liberal democracy, Syria). Nor can it be entrusted to the Egypts, the Jordans, the Chinas, or the Saudi Arabias, who eagerly embrace the rhetoric of democracy without embracing democracy itself. For better or for worse, America is learning that this is a job only our country -- with help from its democratic allies -- can do. And one of the ways we must do it is by securing the meaning of democracy against those who would cheapen it for their own benefit.
Which is why the Pakistani ambassador should never have been able to assert on the "Newshour" that her country was striving for democracy in Kashmir without at least being asked why a government led by a general -- who took power in a military coup and has balked at free elections -- should be trusted with the democratization of anything, let alone a region that currently belongs to an already democratic country. Had the question been asked, it probably would have interrupted viewers mid-yawn -- and helped them remember who, exactly, was talking about democracy, and why she wasn't qualified.
