Janet Estrich
12/3/2004 3:36:00 PM
Why Only in Ukraine?
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, December 3, 2004; Page A27
There has been general back-patting in the West about renewed European-
American comity during the Ukrainian crisis. Both the United States and
Europe have been doing exactly the right thing: rejecting a fraudulent
election run by a corrupt oligarchy and insisting on a new vote. This
gives us an opportunity to ostentatiously come together with Europe.
Considering our recent disagreements, that is a good thing. But before
we get carried away with this era of good feeling, let us note the
reason for this sudden unity.
This is about Russia first, democracy only second. This Ukrainian
episode is a brief, almost nostalgic throwback to the Cold War. Russia
is trying to hang on to the last remnants of its empire. The West wants
to finish the job begun with the fall of the Berlin Wall and continue
Europe's march to the east.
You almost have to feel sorry for the Russians. (I stress almost.) In
the course of one generation, they have lost one of the greatest empires
in history: first their Third World dependencies, stretching at one
point from Nicaragua to Angola to Indochina; then their East European
outer empire, now swallowed by NATO and the European Union; and then
their inner empire of Soviet republics.
The Muslim "-stans" are slowly drifting out of reach. The Baltic
republics are already in NATO. The Transcaucasian region is unstable and
bloody. All Russia has left are the Slavic republics. Belarus is
effectively a Russian colony. But the great prize is Ukraine, for
reasons of strategy (Crimea), history (Kiev is considered by Russians to
be the cradle of Slavic civilization) and identity (the eastern part is
Russian Orthodox and Russian-speaking).
Vladimir Putin, who would not know a free election if he saw one, was
not about to let an election get in the way of retaining sway over
Ukraine. The problem is that his bluff was called, and he does not have
the power to do to Ukraine what his Soviet predecessors did to Hungary
and Czechoslovakia during the Cold War.
Hence the clash of civilizations over Ukraine and, to some extent,
within Ukraine: the authoritarian East vs. the democratic West.
But this struggle is less about democracy than about geopolitics. Europe
makes clear once again that it is a full-throated supporter of democracy
-- in its neighborhood. Just as it is a forthright opponent of ethnic
cleansing in its neighborhood (Yugoslavia) even as it lifts not a finger
elsewhere (Rwanda, southern Sudan, now Darfur).
That is why this comity between the United States and Europe is only
temporary. The Europeans essentially believe, to paraphrase Stalin, in
democracy on one continent. As for democracy elsewhere, they really
could not care less.
They pretend, however, that this opposition to America's odd belief in
spreading democracy universally is based not on indifference but on
superior wisdom -- the world-weary sagacity of a more ancient and
experienced civilization that knows that one cannot bring liberty to
barbarians. Meaning, Arabs. And Muslims. And Iraqis.
Hence the Bush-Blair doctrine of bringing some modicum of democracy to
the Middle East by establishing one country as a beachhead is ridiculed
as naive and messianic. And not just by Europeans but by their
"realist" allies here in the United States.
Thus Zbigniew Brzezinski, a fierce opponent of the Bush administration's
democracy project in Iraq, writes passionately about the importance of
democracy in Ukraine and how, by example, it might have a domino effect,
spreading democracy to neighboring Russia. Yet when George Bush and Tony
Blair make a similar argument about the salutary effect of establishing
a democracy in the Middle East -- and we might indeed have the first
truly free election in the Middle East within two months if we persevere
-- "realist" critics dismiss it as terminally naive.
If you had said 20 years ago that Ukraine would today be on the
threshold of joining a democratic Europe, you, too, would have been
called a hopeless utopian. Yes, Iraq has no democratic tradition and
deep ethnic divisions. But Ukrainian democracy is all of 13 years old,
much of it dominated by a corrupt, authoritarian regime with close ties
to an even more corrupt and authoritarian Russia. And with a
civilizational split right down the middle, Ukraine has profound, and
potentially catastrophic, divisions.
So let us all join hands in praise of the young people braving the cold
in the streets of Kiev. But then tell me why there is such silence about
the Iraqis, young and old, braving bullets and bombs, organizing
electorate lists and negotiating coalitions even as we speak. Where is
it written: Only in Ukraine?