It has always been an assumption of what might be called the Western political consensus that democracies will be on "our" side; and also that history itself tends towards universal democracy through a virtuous circle whereby free trade generates not only commerce in goods and services but also the emergence of middle classes with middle-class aspirations just like ours. These bourgeois groups will have every reason to support a menu of human rights, political freedoms and laissez-faire economics, so giving another turn to the ascending helix. It is the Whig interpretation of history - the idea of a steady accumulation of rights and freedoms as the leitmotif of our British island story - projected onto a global level.
Of course the time it takes for the benefits of this process to make themselves apparent to others has sometimes seemed too long. As the future US president Woodrow Wilson wrote in 1907, "the doors of the nation which are closed [to trade] must be battered down", an approach well illustrated by US proconsul Paul Bremer's remark in Baghdad in May 2003 that "Iraq is open for business". Western idealism, as neoconservatism has realised, is impatient to bring liberty to others who will then thank us for it - and also become more like us.
Almost by definition, anyone who resists or criticises the open door is a friend to tyranny. Anyone who points out for example that exposing weaker economies to competition from the immense accumulation of capital and technological expertise of the West is a formula for domination must somehow be opposed to liberty. To suggest further that the very purpose of opening doors in this way is to facilitate corporate penetration into every corner of every activity on the planet is to make oneself an enemy of Western values.
Strange, then, to find who are the real allies of dictatorship. Last week it was the king of Saudi Arabia and his entourage parading down the Mall and dining with the queen. These standard bearers of democratic values in the Middle East - who also happen to be such excellent customers for our military hardware, even if it takes a little bribery to oil the wheels - are our stalwart partners. This week Western support for General Musharraf in Pakistan turned from farce to tragedy and back with bewildering speed. It doesn't matter that his military dictatorship is now eight years old, that he has repressed the opposition and arrested the supreme court judges: all will be OK if he just "takes off his uniform" and holds "elections" in January.
And why do "we" support them, just as we condone the Israeli oppression in Palestine? Why do we not excoriate them all, as we are pleased to do with Robert Mugabe?
Can it be that like the blood-soaked horrors of Vietnam and Iraq, or like the savage repression in Indonesia in the 60s or Latin America in the 70s and 80s, they are all part of the process of holding open the door, and that what matters is the opportunity for business, not the democracy which is supposed to be its consequence?
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