Donald of Arabia

Once upon a time-- and it was not a very good time-- a sometime intellectual by name of Francis Fukuyama wrote an essay and then a book claiming that history had ended, and that we had won.

Fukuyama had become enthralled with Hegel, and he concluded that history was a grand narrative of a struggle between liberal democracy and authoritarian totalitarianism. And that liberal democracy had won. By that he meant that the world had decided, as though of one mind, that liberal democracy was the best way to conduct government business and to structure society. 

As for liberal democracy, it comprised democratic elections, free expression, human rights and free enterprise. Authoritarian totalitarianism comprised oppression and top/down management of the economy.

It was a nice idea. It came from a big thinker, a real German philosopher. If Fukuyama had reflected more seriously he would have had to deal with the fact that Hegel was the godfather of Marxism and that applying his grandiose theorizing to practical matters had produced boundless misery.

As for whether or not the world was of one mind about the greatness of liberal democracy, a brief glance around the world, in particular, at the Muslim world did not find governments and cultures that were craving liberal democracy. Even China was not exactly embracing the virtue of democracy. Many Chinese looked at American politics and the quality of leadership we had and concluded that we could keep it to ourselves.

As for the basis for the Hegelian vision, it derived, I surmise, from Biblical eschatology. The great thinkers of the Enlightenment, according to an intellectual historian named Carl Becker, were offering a secular version of the Heavenly City, via the book of Revelation. In place of the New Jerusalem we would have liberal democracy.

Anyway, before you knew it, politicians and political theorists, on the right and the left, decided that the world needed to be converted to liberal democracy. We were going to remake the world in our image and peace and prosperity would exist for everyone everywhere.

Now, Batya Ungar-Sargon opines in the Free Press that President Trump put these eschatological musings to bed with a speech in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. 

But more significant than the MBS-Trump bromance was the speech Trump delivered, which denounced the failed forever wars of Republican administrations past as well as the failed appeasement of the Democrats, laying out the president’s signature strategy: peace through strength and peace through commerce as the path of the future.

We would not all be living in a grand democratic heavenly city, but would connect by doing business together. The Trump trip to the Middle East was not about selling democracy. It was not about trashing that region’s leaders for being undemocratic. It was about diplomacy via commerce.

If Obama’s speech marked one epoch, President Trump’s address marks another. One not built on the fiction of shared principles but respect for our differences and with alliances built on the unflinching, hard reality of economic partnership—even between erstwhile foes.

And also,

Throughout the peninsula, the president said, “a new generation of leaders is transcending the ancient conflicts and tired divisions of the past and forging a future where the Middle East is defined by commerce, not chaos, where it exports technology, not terrorism, and where people of different nations, religions, and creeds are building cities together, not bombing each other out of existence.”

Instead of sectarianism, Trump sees massive financial opportunity—the billions and billions of dollars to be made in a new Middle East defined not by Sunni vs. Shiite, but by OpenAI and Grok.

Trump was not telling the leaders of the Middle East that all would be well if only they would hold elections. In truth, many of these countries have been modernizing at a rapid clip, without the virtue of liberal democracy.

This new Middle East was not being built thanks to overbearing Western intervention but rather in spite of it, the president said. “It’s crucial for the wider world to note this great transformation has not come from Western interventionalists or flying people in beautiful planes giving you lectures on how to live and how to govern your own affairs,” said Trump.

She continued:

“The gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called nation-builders, neocons, or liberal nonprofits,” he [Trump] went on. “Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East has been brought by the people of the region themselves, the people that are right here, the people that have lived here all their lives developing your own sovereign countries, pursuing your own unique visions, and charting your own destinies in your own way,” Trump said. “ Peace, prosperity, and progress ultimately came not from a radical rejection of your heritage, but rather from embracing your national traditions and embracing that same heritage that you love so dearly. And it’s something only you could do. You achieved a modern miracle the Arabian way.”

The opening round of diplomacy began with gestures of respect. It did not begin by looking down at people who were supposedly more primitive. And, it did not begin with a glorification of liberal democracy:

Compare this to the last Republican president prior to Trump, George W. Bush, who declared in his last State of the Union address: “We seek the end of tyranny in our world. Some dismiss that goal as misguided idealism. In reality, the future security of America depends on it.” He said, “Dictatorships shelter terrorists and feed resentment and radicalism, and seek weapons of mass destruction. Democracies replace resentment with hope, respect the rights of their citizens and their neighbors, and join the fight against terror. Every step toward freedom in the world makes our country safer—so we will act boldly in freedom's cause.”

In fairness, precious few intellectuals still believe in the end of history or of the advent of worldwide liberal democracy. And yet, seeing an American president bring a new idea, a new way of working together, to the Middle East, was enlightening, to say the least.

Ungar-Sargon wrote:

Trump’s speech was a rejection of the idea, shared by Obama and Bush, that Western-style liberal democracy is essential to human flourishing in the Middle East. In Trump’s view, it can be achieved through success, security, stability, respect for a nation’s sovereignty and culture even where it differs from ours, and above all, a disgust for the regime-change wars that promised freedom and delivered death and destruction.