Stability Is Messy

Such is freedom, or so Donald Rumsfeld (in)famously observed apropos the looting of the Baghdad antiquities museum in the wake of the American "liberation."  History shows that the messiness of freedom leads over time to the inherently messy condition of long-term social and political stability in any country.

So, Geek, what brings this sudden fascination with messy stability?

Well, bucko, last week some yob holding forth in the op-ed pages of the WaPo lamented on how the US never, but never, "gets revolutions right."  (Sorry, the Geek knows that the link is supposed to go here, but he inadvertently dropped the bloody thing down the always open memory hole in his electronic universe.)

The deep thinking analyst, having apparently forgotten how the US was on the mythical right side of history with the "people power" overthrow of Marcos in the Philippines a couple of decades back, launched into the customary laundry list of liberal reasons why US administrations are more averse to political change in authoritarian regimes than a vampire is to holy water.  Most of the motives pulled out for our edification read like a compendium from Sins Of The Satiated Power.

(Alright, to be fair, the other day the Gargantuan Mouth of the Right, a fellow named Limbaugh, argued--well, that term may be applied at least generically--in favor of keeping tight with Hosni for all the reasons relevant to a satiated power.  So, the honors of non-perceptive appreciation of the nature of the relations between the US and authoritarian regimes reaching the end of their days, is evenly divided between Left and Right.)

There is a very simple, quite easy to understand and well nigh onto universal reason the US not only ties itself all-too-closely to obnoxious authoritarian regimes but keeps the connection long after it has become evident that the days of the dictator are ending.  The reason is confusion.

Say, what!  Confusion?  That doesn't seem to be a real reason, Geek.

But, bucko, it is.  The confusion involved here is not the simple type like mistaking right for left or night for day.  Rather it is one of time.  The US government--and many others for that matter--confuse the appearance of short-term order with the substance of long-term stability.

Stability--or its less effective second cousin, order--is essential in the conduct of international politics.  Admittedly stability and thus predictability is central to reducing the risks of life, personal, business or political but in the arena of global politics particularly from the perspective of a great power, it is the single most essential component of the context in which policy can be formed and executed with some measure of predictability.  The alternative to stability (or the diminuendo form, order) in international affairs is anarchy.

Our history of chumming up with dictators in the post-World War II decades was propelled by the imperatives of the Cold War but was not linked exclusively to the bipolar dynamics.  It was not sufficient for the dictator seeking US support to be anti-Communist, the successful candidate for American backing also had to show he could maintain order domestically.  From the perspective of Washington, the maintainance of political and social order at home was the overarching requirement.

Documents by the ton underscore the preoccupation with order.  And the blind confusion of order in the short haul with substantial stability over the sweep of years, decades, generations litter the archives of administrations from both parties.  The fear of disorder with unpredictable consequences is palpable.  Perhaps it was this fear or maybe it was the natural and expectable result of American administrations having only short term orientations, but there is no distinction made between the appearance of quotidian order and the existence of underlying, pervasive stability.

That confusion resides at the center of of the American dilemmas when faced with the crumbling of a dictatorship to which the US had provided much and from which the US had derived real benefits.  The confusion between order and stability also says much as to why the US has been so quick to link-up with authoritarian regimes even in the years since the Cold War ended.

Short term order is easy to supply.  It is easiest in an authoritarian context.  After all, as Rummy noted, "Freedom is messy."  Insofar as freedom can be instrumentally curtailed, order can be enhanced.  Not surprisingly dictators are good in the suppress and curtail game.  Equally unsurprisingly, much of the aid provided by the US to its authoritarian clients is oriented toward order imposition.

The historical record demonstrates conclusively that no authoritarian regime has been able to be sufficiently repressive in perpetuity.  This has meant and continues to mean the shelf life of a dictatorship is limited regardless of the amount of external support it receives.  With the explosive growth of horizontal communications mechanisms which serve to enhance the potency of self-organizing political groups, it is to be expected that the shelf life will get ever shorter.

Long term stability is a critter of a very different sort.  Stability does not rely upon coercion, upon repression, upon the imposition of limits.  Quite the opposite.  Stability arises over long periods of time as an organic consequence of increasing perceptions of inherent legitimacy within a population.  The single most important thing to keep in mind regarding stability is the brute fact that stability develops slowly, in fits and starts over time, much time, decades at least and more often generations.  Along with this truth it is essential to get a grip on a companion one: Stability is never completely achieved; it is always a work in progress.

This implies, no, it means that stability, like the freedom which produces it, is messy.  Sometimes, very messy. Arguably the core of stability is its messiness.  Like any construction work in progress, stability is never neat, tidy and, paradoxically, evidently orderly.

We Americans and, evidently, our European counterparts tend to forget (that is if they ever truly realized) just how long the process of achieving stability through perceived legitimacy has been.  In the US it has come about in its current incomplete form only after centuries of political brouhahas of a robust nature such as to make today's alleged climate of incivility seem to be a Christian Matrons Social Circle in comparison.  It took, after all, the most bloody war in our history among other things.

Demonstrations, riots, blood in the streets, dead bodies littering landscapes both urban and rural constitute the milestones along the route to today's political and social stability here in the US.  In Europe the process has been even longer, even bloodier, even more riven with the messiness of internal rivalries, but the result has been similar--a general perception that political, economic, and social systems are legitimate, deserving of basic support even when profound differences exist over the details.

Freedom links legitimacy with stability.  It is the unbreakable bond which allows for unity in the face of passionately held differences of view and opinion.  Since all three necessary components are messy, it is to be expected that the most stable societies and polities, the ones where perceptions of legitimacy are most widely spread and universally accepted are the ones in which disorder can show its seemingly ugly head most often.

When US policy makers fail to understand this, which is most of the time, the unfortunate default position is to back the authority who best promises order.  Policy makers want desperately to believe that as long as the streets are quiet, stability is abroad in the land.  The unwillingness to accept the iron dictate that stability emerges only over time and only as the result of freedom's messiness has condemned our policy to the recurrent failure of trying to keep a dictator in place.

In more recent decades our policy makers (and the Geek would hazard their counterparts in Europe and elsewhere) have tried to square the circle by attempting to nudge dictators in the direction of transforming short term order into long term stability.  This is evident in our emphasis on human rights among other gambits.  This well-intentioned approach is, of course, doomed to fail.  The development of stability demands freedom. Freedom exists only in the absence of effective repression.  And, as soon as the repression slacks even marginally, the pressures released are too great to be resisted without a very bloody, extremely harsh renewal of repression.

There is no way that an authoritarian regime can shift from short term order maintenance to long term stability enhancement.  Or, to err on the side of accuracy, the record of history is bereft of examples of such having occurred successfully.  Not even the Trolls of Beijing have done the trick, nor is there any indication that they will be able to do so.

The implications of the critical distinction between order and stability for US policy makers are manifold.  The most important of these is the simplest to state and hardest to put into practice.  At the policy level the assorted Deep Thinkers have to get a grip on the essential truth regarding the primal forces at work--stability depends on perceived legitimacy, which in turn demands freedom, and, it takes time to arise organically.

Stability can not be rushed.  Neither can it be imposed.  It cannot be called into existence by command or instituted by fiat.  Stability is never achieved with finality but always remains a work in progress.  Stability is never pretty, never orderly, never neat and tidy.

Stability, again like the freedom which produces it, is not predicable in its consequences.  This is another reason why the business suited folks sitting around high gloss conference tables in well appointed surroundings in the White House or Foggy Bottom are not overly fond of the beast.  To be real, to be the organic product of consensually defined perceived legitimacy, stability must express itself in boisterous, robust, passionate disagreements as to the details of social, economic, and political organization and systems.  Stability demands emotion, rests on disagreement, calls for sweat, tears, and, on occasion, blood.  The results of stability cannot be predicted with accuracy.

In comparison, the order provided by an authoritarian regime is, well, so, orderly.  The dictator can produce predictable results--until the last days come, that is.  The dictator is a single actor, easy to understand, manipulatable, predictable.  He is everything genuine stability is not.

The fact that the dictator and the order he presents is everything stability is not is also the reason the dictator must go.  And, the reason he will go.  In the contest between imposed order and organic stability, the latter will always, eventually, win out.  That is the lesson of history.

Are they aware of this in Tehran?  One can only wonder.