“Gray” Allies for the White House

By looking at the Yemeni front of the war on terror, we can understand how (and if) Barack Obama will be able to obtain greater results for American foreign policy.

In the rocky deserts around Sana’a, America plays a decisive role: It’s called doing what it does worst — supporting fragile and not completely honest or fully reliable regimes, which are still willing to cooperate in the fight against al-Qaida and their allies, provided, of course, they can survive.

Such regimes are often characterized by a poor democratic pedigree that is not necessarily in tune with the design of advancing freedom for a future of peace, prosperity and development. It is ideologically closer to Islamic fundamentalism than to the principles held dear by Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin or James Madison. Yet, these are precisely the regimes whose survival and whose “alliance” is crucial in order to win the war on terrorism, or whatever you want to call it.

To recognize the “gray ones” and to understand how to use them is a true “cultural revolution,” compared to the black and white world described and interpreted by the George W. Bush administration. But this thinking also constitutes a definitive end to Cold War logic — with its simple yet effective separation between East and West — and even a conscious distancing from traditional conceptions deeply rooted in American political culture.

The United States has not been able to work with gray regimes often. This is not because Americans are stupid, rude cowboys (as a snobbish anti-American likes to think), but because in facing the world, the U.S. has had the privilege of being confronted by inconsistent enemies or of having almost endless resources (not only material) at its disposal.

The U.S. is implacable with enemies and generous with friends, as both the Europeans and Japanese have learned well during the last century. But the U.S. finds it extremely difficult to weave mutually beneficial relationships with those who defy a clear categorization; so much so that it seems to prefer shoving (or “romping”) gray countries until they turn black, so as to have a clear strategy (though not always effective or successful) to tackle them with. That is what happened after the revolution of Fidel Castro in Cuba and many other times in Latin America. With an enemy, the military option remains open: After all, you can always bomb the enemy. Or you can stir, or hope for, a “regime change” …

But from Iraq to Afghanistan, the changing of regimes transforms the U.S. into direct guarantors of order, safety and welfare to past enemy countries for a period that can last more than a decade. Until the new regime consolidates itself, perhaps exhibiting qualities quite different from those anticipated, America remains responsible for the daily mess, the continuing corruption, violence, lawlessness and poverty. Not to mention that it is extremely unlikely that new regimes can become regional partners and reliable interlocutors for Washington. In fact, the more dependent they become on the U.S., the more annoyed they become.

It is much better not having to go that far in trying to support Yemen and Pakistan, than embarking on another Afghanistan or a new Iraq. The continuation of the U.S.’s international role will depend more and more on its success in the gray areas of the world, where it will be crucial to find and keep partners that share U.S. (and Western) goals, without necessarily sharing all political principles. Without a doubt, this is an extremely difficult challenge, but also an ordeal worthy of a Nobel Prize for peace.