I used to spend quite a lot of my time in the company of autocrats, dictators, absolute rulers, ballot riggers and straightforward criminals, some of whom also bore titles like President or Crown Prince.
They were very good at calling me “Excellency”, presumably in the expectation of reciprocal treatment, which I made a point of avoiding. However, no amount of nose-holding could disguise the fact that we treated some pretty appalling people as loyal and valued allies.
Such encounters went with the territory of being a trade, energy and foreign minister in Her Majesty’s government – even one which had come to office with the entirely honourable (but ultimately naive) intention of pursuing an ethical foreign policy.
As events of the past two months have demonstrated, a flexible foreign policy is at least as relevant as an ethical one. Yesterday’s oil-supplying, extremist-suppressing best friends suddenly have to be recast as reactionary oligarchs, standing in the way of democracy’s march. And Britain is always on the side of democracy. Is it not?
Actually, not. I couldn’t avoid a chuckle when I heard David Cameron making a hastily-rewritten speech in Kuwait, trying to catch the mood of the times in the immediate aftermath of former president Hosni Mubarak’s departure from Cairo. Incidentally, Hosni was one of our best mates until the moment the tide turned in Tahrir Square.
When I met him on a couple of occasions, he would deliver impassioned homilies on the dangers of fundamentalism. I remember him, circa 2000, telling me how crazy Britain had been in the 1990s to allow some of his own internal enemies to settle in the UK. “These are very, very bad people,” he insisted. “You do not understand what they are capable of.”
And in those innocent, pre 9/11, 7/7 days, indeed we did not quite realise what “very, very bad people” meant in this context. But Mubarak certainly did. So old Hosni wasn’t all wrong and, indeed, if he had retired a decade earlier, he would now be treated as a distinguished world statesman and voice of moderation. But they never do.
Anyway, back to Kuwait as the venue for Cameron’s pro-democracy speech. The last time I looked, there was still an Emir and ruling family, even if some welcome trappings have been put in place. So everything is relative. If Cameron had wanted to be really brave, he could have gone to Saudi Arabia to deliver his democratic declaration. Perhaps he could have been given a half-time slot at a hand-chopping ceremony.
Saudi Arabia’s response to the wave of revolution has been to dole out $23billion to alleviate the rampant poverty which exists alongside the grotesque wealth in royal and privileged hands. Is that an acceptable form of democracy? And if not, will anyone say “boo” to the rulers of Saudi Arabia about the need for reform? You must be joking.
None of this is easy and anyone who suggests otherwise is a fool. I always think Algeria offers an interesting case study, which is why liberal opinion prefers to ignore it. In 1991, the Islamic Salvation Front won elections. The military said “stuff this for a game of soldiers” and intervened. Algeria is now an emerging economy with limited democracy and has avoided the excesses of fundamentalist rule.
So were the military wrong to intervene in 1991? I don’t think so. And what if the fervour of reform was to spread even into Saudi Arabia? I think we can rest assured that, in the highly unlikely event of the Saudi masses being given the vote, it would not be cast for the Riyadh branch of the Liberal Democrats. So do we hold our noses and back the present incumbents for fear of something much, much worse?
I do not provide the answer but merely ask the question. Just as I am sure that it is currently being pondered in Whitehall and, more importantly, Washington. The answer, I suspect, will have very little connection to the newly-discovered Cameronian doctrine of “democracy must prevail” (even if it gives the wrong answer).
So we will continue to operate a foreign policy that has more to do with pragmatism than high principle. Where it suits us, democracy will be sidelined in favour of “stability” or economic benefit. That is not always a contemptible approach, even if it soon makes a mockery of Labour’s “ethical foreign policy” or indeed Cameron’s conversion on the road to Kuwait.
However – and I believe this strongly on the basis of first-hand experience – the lines drawn in the sand are often in the wrong places. Pragmatism has long since become the excuse for prostrating ourselves at the feet of tyrants and not even having the guts to point out to them that they are living on borrowed time.
The last Labour government’s fawning upon Gaddafi’s regime in Libya went far beyond the demands of common sense.
By the same token, I regard the Scottish Government’s decision to release the mass murderer Megrahi as a stain on our nation’s history. Both postures were linked directly to oil and the short term. But where do they leave us now?
Equally, our dealings with the Gulf potentates have long since become degrading with every form of criminality swept under the carpet, lest they should take their business elsewhere.
This is not just about oil but also arms dealing, the twin drivers of what are perceived to be British interests in the region. When it suits us, democracy still will not get a mention.
So let’s wish those who rise up against their oppressors well, keep a careful eye on whether the replacements are any better than what has gone before, and spare ourselves the hypocrisy of pretending that we are always on the side of democracy. For it just isn’t true.
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