Why McCain's big idea is a bad idea By Gideon Rachman
Published: May 6 2008 03:00 | Last updated: May 6 2008 03:00
American presidents are meant to have big ideas about the world: a "new frontier", an "alliance for progress", a "war on terror". Unfortunately for the Democratic party the big idea that most animates their two would-be presidents - Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton - seems to be mutually assured destruction.
That has left the field open to Senator John McCain. The Republican is currently the only presidential candidate to champion a striking new idea about America's role in the world. The world should pay attention, since the chances of Mr McCain winning the presidency are going up by the day.
Mr McCain's big idea is for the formation of a "league of democracies" with America at its heart. In a recent speech in Los Angeles, he outlined a plan to "harness the vast power of more than 100 democracies". This was not just a vague notion tossed out to fill a speech. Mr McCain has been banging on about the league of democracies - in public and in private - for more than a year. In another speech at the Hoover Institution last year, Mr McCain gave some concrete examples of what such a league might do. Essentially, it seems to be a means to get around the United Nations.
The league could sponsor intervention in Darfur or "bring concerted pressure to bear on tyrants in Burma or Zimbabwe, with or without Moscow and Beijing's approval". Alternatively, "it could unite to impose sanctions on Iran". He promised that he would call a summit of democracies in his first year in the White House - and likened the formation of the new democratic league to the foundation of Nato.
Mr McCain's support for a league of democracies means that it has quickly been labelled a rightwing idea. But variants of the idea have also attracted support from liberals. The Princeton Project on National Security - supported by many liberal academics - has promoted the idea of a "concert of democracies". Ivo Daalder, an adviser to Mr Obama, has also pushed the idea.
But the leading Democratic candidates have stayed studiously neutral. By contrast, Mr McCain has made the idea his own.
If he ever makes it to the White House, he may come to regret this. For while the idea of a league of democracies has some attractions, it also has some obvious dangers.
The first problem is that it would exacerbate tensions with Russia and China. Robert Kagan, an adviser to Mr McCain, argues that those tensions already exist. Indeed Russia and China sometimes act as the de facto heads of a league of autocracies - protecting bad governments such as Iran and Zimbabwe at the UN. So, Mr Kagan thinks, it would be a good idea for the world's democrats to promote their values in a more organised and determined fashion.
The trouble with this idea is that it risks creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. America's relationships with China and Russia are complicated and ambiguous - with elements of both competition and co-operation. But the formation of a league of democracies would harden antagonisms and might even be seen as the launching of a new cold war.
Mr McCain clearly wants to take a more confrontational stance towards Russia and China. He advocates chucking Russia out of the Group of Eight leading industrial nations - and wants to invite India and Brazil to join, while pointedly excluding China.
But a President McCain would swiftly find that he needed Russian and Chinese co-operation to achieve other goals. He has promised to negotiate a new treaty on climate change that includes China. Any effort to strengthen nuclear non-proliferation regimes will need Russian help. The US also has important alliances with autocratic governments in the Middle East from Saudi Arabia to Egypt.
Antagonising the Saudis - and even the Chinese and the Russians - might be a price worth paying for the achievement of other objectives. Even the UN's staunchest supporters know that it often fails in its self-proclaimed "responsibility to protect" oppressed peoples. The formation of a league of democracies might also act as a spur for democratic reforms in some of America's autocratic allies.
The biggest problem with Mr McCain's "big idea" does not lie with the autocrats - it lies with the democracies themselves. Almost all of America's closest democratic allies have deep reservations about a league of democracies. The Europeans are committed to the UN and would be loath to join an alliance that undermined it. They are also suspicious of America's democratic evangelism. Talk to senior French and British policymakers and you will find a rare unanimity on the league of democracies. A French diplomat calls it a "really bad idea". A British diplomat scoffs: "How are you going to decide the membership? Is it going to be like a football league, where you are going to have promotion and relegation at the end of the season?"
America's democratic allies in Asia - wary of antagonising China - are unlikely to be any more receptive. Kurt Campbell, a Democrat who runs the Center for a New American Security in Washington, reckons that Japan might be the only Asian power to join Mr McCain's new league.
So if a newly elected President McCain does indeed call a summit of the world's democracies, it would be quite a peculiar party. Many of the potential guests might plead that they are otherwise engaged - the diplomatic equivalent of "we cannot get a babysitter that night". And those democracies that did accept the invitation might find themselves part of a new coalition of the unwilling.
gideon.rachman@ft.com
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A lot of countries might not like the idea, but I bet Israel -- and the neocons -- would love it.