From: wolda002@umn.edu
Date: Tue Jan 05 2010 - 22:46:38 EST
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3ef8f012-f969-11de-8085-00144feab49a.html?nclick_check=1
America is losing the free world
By Gideon Rachman
Published: January 4 2010 20:11 | Last updated: January 4 2010 20:11
Ever since 1945, the US has regarded itself as the leader of the “free
world”. But the Obama administration is facing an unexpected and
unwelcome development in global politics. Four of the biggest and most
strategically important democracies in the developing world – Brazil,
India, South Africa and Turkey – are increasingly at odds with American
foreign policy. Rather than siding with the US on the big international
issues, they are just as likely to line up with authoritarian powers such
as China and Iran.
The US has been slow to pick up on this development, perhaps because it
seems so surprising and unnatural. Most Americans assume that fellow
democracies will share their values and opinions on international affairs.
During the last presidential election campaign, John McCain, the Republican
candidate, called for the formation of a global alliance of democracies to
push back against authoritarian powers. Some of President Barack Obama’s
senior advisers have also written enthusiastically about an international
league of democracies.
But the assumption that the world’s democracies will naturally stick
together is proving unfounded. The latest example came during the
Copenhagen climate summit. On the last day of the talks, the Americans
tried to fix up one-to-one meetings between Mr Obama and the leaders of
South Africa, Brazil and India – but failed each time. The Indians even
said that their prime minister, Manmohan Singh, had already left for the
airport.
So Mr Obama must have felt something of a chump when he arrived for a
last-minute meeting with Wen Jiabao, the Chinese prime minister, only to
find him already deep in negotiations with the leaders of none other than
Brazil, South Africa and India. Symbolically, the leaders had to squeeze up
to make space for the American president around the table.
There was more than symbolism at work. In Copenhagen, Brazil, South Africa
and India decided that their status as developing nations was more
important than their status as democracies. Like the Chinese, they argued
that it is fundamentally unjust to cap the greenhouse gas emissions of poor
countries at a lower level than the emissions of the US or the European
Union; all the more so since the industrialised west is responsible for the
great bulk of the carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere.
Revealingly, both Brazilian and Chinese leaders have made the same pointed
joke – likening the US to a rich man who, after gorging himself at a
banquet, then invites the neighbours in for coffee and asks them to split
the bill.
If climate change were an isolated example, it might be dismissed as an
important but anomalous issue that is almost designed to split countries
along rich-poor lines. But, in fact, if you look at Brazil, South Africa,
India and Turkey – the four most important democracies in Latin America,
Africa, Asia and the greater Middle East – it is clear that none of them
can be counted as a reliable ally of the US, or of a broader “community
of democracies”.
In the past year, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil has cut a
lucrative oil deal with China, spoken warmly of Hugo Chávez, president of
Venezuela, and congratulated Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad on his “victory” in
the Iranian presidential election, while welcoming him on a state visit to
Brazil.
During a two-year stint on the United Nations Security Council from 2006,
the South Africans routinely joined China and Russia in blocking
resolutions on human rights and protecting authoritarian regimes such as
Zimbabwe, Uzbekistan and Iran.
Turkey, once regarded as a crucial American ally in the cold war and then
trumpeted as the only example of a secular, pro-western, Muslim democracy,
is also no longer a reliable partner for the west. Ever since the US-led
invasion of Iraq, opinion polls there have shown very high levels of
anti-Americanism. The mildly Islamist AKP government has engaged with
America’s regional enemies – including Hamas, Hizbollah and Iran –
and alarmed the Americans by taking an increasingly hostile attitude to
Israel.
India’s leaders do seem to cherish the idea that they have a “special
relationship” with the US. But even the Indians regularly line up against
the Americans on a range of international issues, from climate change to
the Doha round of trade negotiations and the pursuit of sanctions against
Iran or Burma.
So what is going on? The answer is that Brazil, South Africa, Turkey and
India are all countries whose identities as democracies are now being
balanced – or even trumped – by their identities as developing nations
that are not part of the white, rich, western world. All four countries
have ruling parties that see themselves as champions of social justice at
home and a more equitable global order overseas. Brazil’s Workers’
party, India’s Congress party, Turkey’s AKP and South Africa’s
African National Congress have all adapted to globalisation – but they
all retain traces of the old suspicions of global capitalism and of the US.
Mr Obama is seen as a huge improvement on George W. Bush – but he is
still an American president. As emerging global powers and developing
nations, Brazil, India, South Africa and Turkey may often feel they have
more in common with a rising China than with the democratic US.
gideon.rachman@ft.com
More columns at www.ft.com/rachman
Post and read comments at Gideon Rachman’s blog
----[This List to be used for Eritrea Related News Only]----