Home Field Disadvantage
America at the Community of Democracies
Charles J. Brown
Newsletter, Summer 2005

In April, I traveled to Santiago, Chile for the third ministerial meeting of the Community of Democracies (CD). The gathering brought together representatives of more than 100 governments – including a U.S. delegation headed by Condoleezza Rice – as well as leaders of numerous NGOs to find ways to work together to promote and sustain democratic rule.

The meeting was supposed to build on the accomplishments of previous gatherings in Warsaw (2000) and Seoul (2002), which had developed a broad consensus on what constitutes a democracy, established specific criteria for CD membership, and developed a plan to help states better coordinate democracy promotion. And with the recent dramatic developments in Lebanon, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, you would think that democracy’s advocates would have been poised to do just that.

It didn’t turn out that way. Despite very good intentions, the world’s democracies did not act much like a community in Santiago. Governments spent as much time debating their differences as they did celebrating their common heritage.

Not surprisingly, the main reason for this was antipathy toward the Bush Administration. Despite President Bush having made democracy promotion a linchpin of his second term, many of the world’s elected governments remain deeply suspicious of America’s motives. Diplomats attending the meeting told me that they regarded America’s aggressive approach as less than constructive. The Administration’s attempt to impose democracy in Iraq hasn’t helped. Neither has its friendly relations with authoritarian governments in Russia, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Saudi Arabia. And recent backsliding in Ecuador and Bolivia has led observers to wonder whether America is even paying attention to the implosion of democracy in its own backyard.

The Community of Democracies always has had strong ties to – and support from – the United States. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright envisioned the meetings as a “Davos for Democracy,” bringing together not just governments, but dissidents from non-democratic states as well. And unlike most Clinton-era initiatives, President Bush has embraced and championed the CD process. In Warsaw and Seoul, strong U.S. support for the CD generated little concern.

In Santiago, however, it was clear that the world’s opinion of the United States has deteriorated dramatically. For the Bush Administration, Santiago should have been the diplomatic equivalent of home field advantage: a gathering of democracies and democrats who espouse the same values that President Bush and Secretary Rice have so ardently championed. There was no China or Cuba present to disrupt the meeting, and no Saudi Arabia or Pakistan to remind others of the Administration’s inconsistent policies. Yet the lack of respect for the United States was palpable, almost a physical presence in the room.

As someone who has served as a spokesman for U.S. delegations, such open dislike for the United States struck me as something fundamentally different from the latent anti-Americanism that characteristically percolates under the surface of such gatherings. This wasn’t disgruntlement or annoyance, but rather overt antagonism. It was anti-Americanism (or more accurately, anti-Bushism) for its own sake.

The hostility towards the United States was not limited to quiet talk in the corridors. When a Romanian delegate suggested that governments hostile to the United Nations should withdraw from it, many delegates assumed he was talking about the United States. He was, in fact, referring to Cuba. One senior U.S. official admitted the problem, telling me that anything put forward by the U.S. was either regarded as suspect or automatically rejected by many delegations.

For much of the world, America is no longer regarded as credible. In fact, U.S. actions are now regularly (and in my mind mistakenly) conflated with some of those of the world’s worst human rights abusers. The Bush Administration has so wantonly spent America’s international political capital that it can’t get anyone to listen – even when promoting something as anodyne as the Community of Democracies. And somehow the President thinks the solution is to send John Bolton to the UN?

The reality is that America is no longer liked, listened to, or – most importantly – trusted. Many who support the President would contend that such sentiments are irrelevant, that being President is not a popularity contest, and that the United States should always act in its own interest. But America needs the rest of the world if it is to confront today’s most pressing problems. From terrorism to nonproliferation, from UN reform to yes, even democracy promotion, the Bush Administration cannot even begin to implement its agenda without the support of its friends and allies.

The reality is that the Warsaw consensus – by which I mean the broad agreement on what the Community of Democracies can (and cannot) do – has broken down, largely because of antipathy towards the United States. Many countries simply won’t support anything that might advance the Bush agenda, and right now they see the CD falling into that category. If the Bush Administration really wants to promote democracy it needs to stop acting unilaterally, stop trying to dominate the issue, and let the CD become a dynamic, effective and independent organization that can help governments see the benefit of working together to promote a common agenda.


Updated July 6, 2005