Echoes of the Monroe Doctrine in the Middle Est

Pondering American mischief in the Middle East the other day I had a strange feeling this pattern of behaviour had appeared before. And then I realized where ... in Latin America.

In 1823, the fledgling United States unilaterally declared the Monroe Doctrine, after president James Monroe. Its objective was to keep the European powers out of Latin America, leaving it to the tender mercies of the United States. This, you might think, wouldn't be a bad thing. After all, the Americans believed in democracy and human rights thus they would be good mentors for setting the Latin nations on the right path.

It didn't quite work out that way. In relentless pursuit of its own interests, the U.S. supported brutal dictators, collaborated with oligarchs who had exploited and oppressed the native peoples since the days of the conquistadores, and suppressed democracy without remorse. Only recently, as the South American countries have begun to liberate themselves from American hegemony, are democracy and human rights becoming widely entrenched, and native peoples gaining a place in the sun.

The similarities with American behaviour in the Middle East are remarkable. The U.S. supports brutal dictators such as the Egyptian generals and the appalling Sauds; it collaborates with oligarchs such as the sheiks of the Gulf states; and it has suppressed democracy, in Iran in the twentieth century and in Palestine in the twenty-first. It pursues its interests (and of course Israeli interests) as relentlessly as it has in the Americas.

In a world opinion poll by Win/Gallup International in 2013, the U.S. was voted by far the biggest threat to world peace. Even Americans voted it third, tied with North Korea. The views of the international community are based on reality. No other nation has caused more death and destruction in the world since the end of the Second World War. It now engages in perpetual war.

It does cleave to noble values, of course, but only at home and in Europe, only in the West. Elsewhere it behaves as all empires—pursuing its self-interest with great self-righteousness, applying a version of the Monroe Doctrine wherever it suits its purposes. Some history, apparently, does repeat itself.