Democracy gets the Boot (updated)

Max Boot is one of the oddest neocon columnists, as his latest proves. He calls for real democracy in Egypt -- a worthy goal anywhere, of course. Oddity sets in when he affects outrage because the electoral process in that country has shut out -- get this! -- the Muslim Brotherhood.

Members of the Kifaya (Enough) movement and the Muslim Brotherhood, the most notable anti-government groups, have seen their peaceful public demonstrations broken up by riot police. Protesters have been arrested and roughed up.

Boot neglects to mention that the dangerous, fascist-linked Muslim Brotherhood stoked the fire which brought Al Qaeda to the boiling point. Does Boot believe that the Adenauer government of West Germany committed a grave offense against democracy by disallowing Nazi participation?

Odder still:

Even Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazief, on a charm tour of the United States this week, has to admit that Egypt won't see a truly contested election until 2011 at the earliest.

Nazief justifies this go-slow approach with soothing talk about how "democracy is an evolutionary process," and you can't go too fast lest Islamic extremists take control. But that's what the shah of Iran said in the 1970s. It turned out that his opposition to democratic reform made an Islamist takeover more, not less, likely. Same with Egypt: The less access that fed-up people have to the political process, the more likely they are to be seduced by the hard-line mullahs' siren song.

Obviously, Boot presumes that his younger readers don't know much about what really happened in the 1970s. I was around then, and I well recall the domestic controversy over Iran.

When the world's press trumpeted the atrocities committed by the Shah, conservatives of Boot's stripe insisted that President Carter stand by an ally no matter what. (Foolishly, Carter heeded this advice). When the Shah fell, conservatives blamed Carter for providing insufficient support. When Iran's people voted for an Islamic Republic, conservative columnists and the rising religious right argued that Islamic nations simply were not ready for democracy -- a sentiment you can find expressed (for example) in one of Hal Lindsey's books from that period. When Khomeini's regime took American hostages, the Rush Limbaughs of that day routinely accused Carter of bringing about the debacle by subverting the Shah.

Alas, members of the under-40 crowd who read Boot's version of history will come away with the impression that the American right had politely requested the Shah to leave power earlier. Here's a fact, Jack: At that time, the only people in America who demanded the Shah's ouster were Iranian refugees and Pacifica-listening, tree-hugging lefties.

It's cheeky of Boot to bring up the Shah in the first place. In 1953, the CIA ended Iran's brief democratic experiment by subverting Mossedegh and placing the Shah back in power. That nation would be a democracy today, if not for the meddling of American reactionaries.

A similarly sad history afflicts other states in the region. Both Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his predecessor Anwar Sadat are known to have come to power as a result of covert American string-pulling (just as the CIA helped Saddam Hussein's Baath party rise to power in Iraq). To balance out Boot's revisionism, scan this piece by Eric Margolis:

Some $1.3 billionUS in annual U.S. military aid keeps the armed forces and security apparatus loyal to Mubarak. CIA, DIA, FBI and NSA run major operations in Egypt to protect Mubarak's regime from domestic opponents. The U.S. tightly controls the military's communications and limits stocks of spare parts and munitions.

More:

When Mubarak goes, Washington will discreetly install a new leader from the pro-U.S. elite -- unless there is a massive uprising against foreign domination by nationalist-Nasserites and Islamists ("terrorists" in Bush-talk). But if nationalists somehow oust U.S. influence, how will they feed Egyptians?

The Bush administration's "crusade for freedom" in the Mideast has reportedly already selected intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, defence minister Muhamed Tantawi or another senior army general to be Egypt's next "democratic" ruler. But, as Iraq shows, things can go terribly wrong.

Here, perhaps, we find the real reason for Boot's piece. The puppet has, for whatever reason, displeased the master. Time for a new puppet.

All in the name of democracy.

Additional note: In the original version of this post, I forgot to mention Boot's ultra-bizarre sign-off gesture, in which he demands that America act in the spirit of the revolutions of 1789 and 1848. The latter date was particularly striking to me, since not long ago I helped to translate some Socialist documents from that period in German history. Pretty extreme stuff.

Conservative rhetoric really has changed, hasn't it? Then again, perhaps we should have expected this sort of thing after David Brock revealed that Grover Norquist idolizes Gramsci and keeps (or kept) a majestic portrait of Lenin in his living room.