It is a phrase often invoked by the late, great Paul Harvey on his syndicated radio show. “It is not one world”, he would say, following that with an example of something, somewhere in the world that could only make Americans shake their heads in wonder or dismay.
While many parts of American culture have spread elsewhere around the globe, there are cultures that routinely do things that American culture finds unacceptable. Not the least of these is governance. We take our Democratic Republic for granted (often mistakenly calling it a “democracy”). We Americans choose our leaders. Granted, there’s not much of a choice and the choices too often make us choose the lesser of evils, but, one way or another, we choose our leaders.
It is not so in much of the world. Other heads of state, whether going by the title of “President For Life”, “Generalissimo”, “Royal Majesty” or something else, are essentially dictators. Much as we would like to see people around the world choose their own leaders, it is not America’s job to make it so. In recent history there are too many incidences of American interference leaving things worse off than before.
While addressing the United Nations recently, Russian President Putin recently took America to task for creating a series of disasters in the Middle East, and I have to say, I agree with him. Fourteen years after we invaded Afghanistan, Taliban forces have control of Kunduz and it’s only a matter of time before they control the whole country again. America is accused of “war crimes” for bombing a Doctor’s Without Borders hospital (possibly the result of the Taliban’s infiltration of the Afghan army).
Twelve years after Americans waded into Iraq, ISIS is establishing a Caliphate to replace the power vacuum created by the removal of Saddam Hussein. The Middle East is very clearly much worse off for American interventions.
People like me are lined up to say: “I told you so!” It’s not as though this result could not be predicted. American foreign policy needs to intervene in other countries only when our interests are directly threatened, and even then we need to consider the possible damage we might do. Even if rosy outcomes could be guaranteed, we have to weigh the cost in lives lost and money expended.
When Jeb Bush famously stumbled over the question of whether or not he would have invaded Iraq “… knowing what we know now“, I thought, “Hell, knowing what we knew then, I wouldn’t have invaded!” That is, even if Saddam Hussein actually had WMD, that was not sufficient justification for the USA to invade Iraq and dethrone Saddam Hussein.
The Middle East is a mess today not because of faulty intelligence (saying that Saddam Hussein had WMD) but rather from faulty foreign policy — the belief that Hussein’s possession of WMD gave us the right or duty to intervene.
America is not the world’s policeman and needs to stop acting like one. Sometimes we just need to keep our collective nose to ourselves. Other countries have as much right to their way of life as the USA has to its own.
It is not one world, and we need to just get along with other countries unless and until they pose a direct threat to the United States. We cannot make the entire world be like us. Let Libya be Libya. Let Egypt be Egypt. Let Russia be Russia. And, yes, let Iran be Iran.