From the perspective of democracy, Israel can be exempted among the comparators as there has been no direct military coup or intervention removing an elected government. Nonetheless, it does not mean that the military is aloof from domestic politics as in the advanced Western democracies. Kamrava (2000) points out that in both Israel and Turkey the military constitutes one of the most powerful institutions of the state. Due to heavy and overt involvement of the military in the domestic political affairs, “these states may best be described as ‘military democracies’” (Kamrava, 2000, p. 70). The author notes that in Israel, some of the country's
most popular political figures including Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin, Ariel Sharon, Ehud Barak and Benjamin Netanyahu have come from a military background. However, all this has not affected the flow and quantity of USA ODA to Israel; whether it is a civilian ruler or a retired military official elected by the public, USA aid, whether economic or military, has mostly remained a constant feature of the bilateral relationship between the two countries.
Contrary to the case of Israel, the post-WWII democratic history of Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan has been marred by long dictatorial regimes. In the case of Egypt, there has been no military coup since Nasser overthrew King Farook in 1952, but the political system can hardly be termed democratic. Since 1952, the military has become an integral part of the affairs of the state and Egyptian politics has “largely turned into a one-man show, akin to the god-king of ancient times” (Sherbiny, 2005, p. 838). Since the coup of Nasser in 1952, the country has had only four changes in leadership and all the four rulers came from the military: Mohamed Naguib (1953- 1954), Gamal Abdel Nasser (1954-70), Anwar Sadat (1970-1981), and Hosni Mubarak (1981- 2011). Referring to the status of democracy in Egypt, Kassem (2004, p. 1) points out that “personal authoritarian rule in Egypt survives and has been maintained for more than five decades”. This is the state of democracy in one of the USA closest allies for the last fifty years. However, the USA has rarely shown any serious reservations about the lack of genuine democracy in the case of its strategic ally. The USAID data shows that the USA has never cut off aid to Egypt since the middle of the 1970s, after Egypt signed the Camp David peace accords with Israel.
In a number of studies reviewed in the second chapter, factors such as democracy and human rights were found to be secondary or sometimes insignificant determinants in the provision of aid. The allocation of aid from major Western bilateral donors to the Middle East is no exception in this regard. Anderson (2001) asserts that the West and particularly the USA not only turns a blind eye but supports compliant autocratic regimes to pursue its foreign policy goals. The author states that “this is particularly true of the Middle East, where access to oil and the security of Israel have trumped the desire for human rights and democracy” (Anderson, 2001, p. 56).
One of the main causes of the lack of promotion of true democracy in Egypt is the long-standing USA support to the authoritarian regimes since the 1970s (Kassem, 2004). Over this period, Egyptian leadership has used different slogans, taken different guises and embarked on different initiatives but the fact remains that there has been little “genuine change with regards to the country’s personal authoritarian system of rule” (Kassem, 2004, p. 1). Dunne (2003) points out that President Mubarak always tried to show to foreign audiences that Egypt was on the path of democracy but in reality there had been increasing frustration as “Egyptians themselves wonder when they will ever arrive” (Dunne, 2003, p. 115). Until he was ousted in 2011 following an unprecedented popular uprising, Mubarak had broken his pledge of 1984 when he had stated that the president, whether he or anyone else, would limit himself to two terms in the office and that he would be the first president to whom this principle would apply (Ajami, 1995; Kassem, 2004). Despite all this, the USA was always satisfied with the Mubarak regime and had been
extending its full cooperation in the form of economic and military aid. Regarding the double standards of the USA concerning democracy in Egypt and Pakistan, Cook (2000, p. 3) recalls that in 1999, on the one hand President Clinton extended a warm welcome to “a man who recently presided over the renewal of martial law in Egypt”, while on the other hand he took a tough stance on General Musharraf’s removal of the elected government in 1999. Hence, the USA has mostly, if not always, ignored the lack of democracy in Egypt as its own foreign policy goals required so.
Turkey has a better track record of democracy but occasional military coups have tarnished the country’s reputation as a modern democratic state. Ludington and Spain (1983) have pointed out that for more than a 1,000 years of Turkish history, the military authorities and government leadership had always been the same due to which Turkey has a deep tradition of revering the military profession. To some extent, this tradition has been maintained in the history of modern Turkey as six of the Turkish Republic’s eight presidents have been former military men (Henze, 1993). Due to the military’s strong hold in the national affairs, Jacoby (2003, p. 669) argues that “in Turkey…since 1909, there has been only 10 years in which a fully civilian administration has governed”. In the last four decades, the military has interrupted the democratic process four times by ousting the elected leadership: twice directly in 1960 and 1980, and twice indirectly in 1971 and 1997 (Robins, 2003). The first military coup took place in 1960 and it is apparent from Table 4.1 that there has been no sign of the curtailment of USA aid on the basis of the lack of democracy. Similarly, during the second and third military regimes of 1971-73 and 1980-83, there has been no signal of reduction or cutting off of USA assistance (evident from the corresponding years in Table 4.1). It shows that as in the case of Egypt, the USA did not prioritise democracy in the allocation of aid to Turkey during most of the Cold War period.
In terms of democratically elected governments, Pakistan has a better record than Egypt. However, unlike Turkey where all the three military regimes have been relatively short; spanning 1960-1961, 1971-1973, and 1980-1983, the history of democracy in Pakistan is dismal as for more than half of its existence it has remained under direct military rule. The three larger chunks of military rule in Pakistan include the General Ayub era from 1958 to 1969, the Zia period from 1977 to 1988 and the Musharraf regime of 1999-2008. While USA President Truman mentioned the word ‘democracy’ nine times and ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’ 17 times in his historic inaugural address in 1949 (Truman, 1949), which is credited with the beginning of modern development aid (Rist, 2002), the difference between rhetoric and reality becomes evident from the data in Table 4.1, which shows that the USA has actually channelled more aid to military regimes in Pakistan in comparison to democratically elected governments. The USAID data clearly shows how successive USA administrations have fallen short of the lofty ideals of democracy and freedom by maintaining warm cooperative relationships with military dictators in Pakistan in contrast to civilian regimes. The decade of the 1990s is a prime example of this trend. After 11 years of military rule of General Zia, parliamentary democracy was restored in Pakistan in 1988. However, throughout the decade of the post-Cold War period, Pakistan was under USA
sanctions due to its nuclear programme and it received negligible economic and military aid during this period (see USAID data in Table 4.1 for these years).
The question arises why the USA has always embraced military dictators in Pakistan unlike the civilian leadership? It is a dominant perception that “military coups in Pakistan are rarely, if ever, organized without the tacit or explicit approval of the US embassy” (Ali, 2008, p. 113). However, the available evidence challenges this assumption. Barring the first coup by General Ayub in 1958, the USA was initially not supportive of either General Zia or General Musharraf. In the beginning of their rule, the USA did impose sanctions on both the dictators. It was a matter of coincidence that the USSR invaded Afghanistan during the Zia regime and the events of 9/11 happened when once again a military ruler was in power in Pakistan. In both these cases, the USA needed all-out support of Pakistan. Therefore, the primary reason behind substantial USA aid during military regimes and negligible assistance during civilian rule is that the former coincided with events when USA security interests were at stake in the region: first during the concluding years of the Cold War in the 1980s, and second in the ‘war on terror’ period. When Pakistan’s assistance was no longer required after the downfall of the USSR, the USA enforced sanctions under the Pressler Amendment on account of Pakistan’s nuclear programme and cut off all aid, both economic as well as military, to the democratic regime in 1990. Ironically, the USA had ignored Pakistan’s pursuit of nuclear technology during most of the Cold War period. It shows that the USA has supported a dictator in Pakistan when its own geo-strategic interests required so. Thus, Haqqani, (2005), Pakistan’s former ambassador to the US, has appropriately stated that “US assistance appears to have influenced the internal dynamics of Pakistan negatively, bolstering its military’s praetorian ambitions” (Haqqani, 2005, p. 324). The overall analysis of USA aid to Pakistan clearly illustrates that instead of strengthening democracy, USA assistance has led to a strengthened and prolonged military rule in the country.
On the whole, the preceding discussion shows that to be eligible for USA aid, it hardly matters whether a country has a democratically elected leader or a dictator, but it needs to be in a position to safeguard and promote USA geo-strategic and security interests. All the selected USA aid recipients except Israel have had long dictatorial regimes and still managed to receive substantial USA ODA during these regimes. It implies that the promotion of democracy is not an important determinant in the allocation of USA foreign aid, especially if the aid-receiving country is vital for USA geo-strategic and security aspirations.