For more than a year, the tyrannical Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad has conducted a merciless campaign of intimidation, torture and armed assaults against dissenters of his government - of whom are in the clear majority. Assad's henchmen have killed 6,000 civilians and 400 children over the past few months, and his security forces have not only attacked the staff of Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) but they have also fired upon the wounded that the courageous and unselfish doctors have sought to aid..
Assad is a criminal in an expensive Western suit, and his army consists of the same thugs who propelled and kept his father, Hafez al-Assad (1930-2000), in power for nearly thirty years (1971-2000). As a minority, the Alawite sect, which largely constitutes Assad's ruling circle, has never been shy about using force to preserve their power. In 1982, Hafez al-Assad brutally suppressed a Sunni Muslim uprising in the town of Hama. His forces slaughtered 17,000-40,000 people and destroyed much of the area by using scorched-earth tactics. As such, it became one of the worst atrocities in modern Middle Eastern history. Like father, like son.
.
In watching or reading the news, we commonly shake our collective heads and exclaim, "How can a human being do such a thing to another human being?" We react from a deep sense of personal moral outrage - similar to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon who described Assad's war against his own citizens as one of "appalling brutality." The use of the word "appalling" connotes a severe violation of basic human decency. Yet, many leaders around the world have avoided using such ethically-charged words. Why? It is because they are operating off a far different paradigm of international relations than the United States, Europe, Japan, South Korea and other nations. Instead of ethical norms being at the center of their approach to domestic and world affairs, ethics have been divorced from their mode of statecraft. For these states, maintaining and expanding their power at any cost is the ethic.
.
In the publication of The Prince in 1532, Florentine statesman and political philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) articulated the modern notions of how a prince (a successful ruler) must be willing to go to any length to maintain power. While tyrants such as Assad (Syria), Ali Khamenei (Iran), Jose Eduardo dos Santos (Angola) and members of the Politburo in China may not have read The Prince, the maxims from Machiavelli's treatise have resonated among dictators and oppressive regimes for nearly five hundred years. In short, they may not be aware of Machiavelli's book, but they certainly know his ideas.
.
The following three selections from The Prince will illustrate the unfortunate relevance of Machiavelli's political thought in 2012.
.
"A man who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything most necessarily will come to grief among so many who are not good. Therefore, it is necessary for a prince, who wishes to maintain himself, to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge and not use it, according to the necessity of the case."
.
For Machiavelli, his concept of international relations was predicated on the belief that people - especially people in power - were usually avaricious, corrupted or corruptible and ultimately desired to pursue their self-interest at the expense of others. While true for much of history, Machiavelli's dark view of human nature was mistaken. The rise of democracy and its attendant ethics of tolerance, human rights and diplomacy has demonstrated that a state need not suspend its ethics and fight fire with fire to survive. Democracies, allied with each other, can create and maintain peace and promote the ideas of universal justice (i.e. massacring dissenters to preserve power is wrong at any time and in any place in history) without violating standards of common decency. To stay in power, dictators and tyrants of all stripes have never ceased to justify their crimes by claiming to be under siege by "terrorists" or "gangs." These terms, which have been used by Assad, were employed by the late Muammar Qaddafi of Libya.
.
"A Prince, therefore, must not mind incurring the charge of cruelty for the purpose of keeping his subjects united and faithful...it is much safer to be feared than loved, if one of the two has to be wanting."
.
For Machiavelli, a wise prince understands that instilling fear into his people - whether by making threats or by taking violent measures (or both) - is the basis for keeping a nation loyal to his rule. The current regimes in Iran, North Korea, China, Angola and Syria have practically mastered the art of state intimidation among their subjected peoples. However, fear has a breaking point. When people become conscious of how the state has degraded their lives and realize that they have nothing left to lose - that death would be more honorable than living one more day in fealty to a corrupt regime, they revolt regardless of the firepower aimed against them. In 2009-10, the Iranian people nearly overthrew their government of misogynist thugs and religious pretenders. Last year, people all across the Middle East and North Africa refused to be cowed by fear any longer. Hosni Mubarak is gone, and the people of Egypt now have a chance to reshape their lives by organizing against bands of elitist self-interest, patriarchy and religious zealotry.
.
"But it is necessary to be able to disguise this character well, and to be a great feigner and dissembler... men are so simple and so ready to obey present necessities, that one who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived."
.
According to Machiavelli, most people will believe anything that comes out of the mouth of 'authorities.' In the sixteenth century, that may have very well been true. As a large majority of Europeans consisted of illiterate or semi-literate peasants, the idea that the King was God's appointed representative on earth went unquestioned until the age of the French Revolution. All governments bend the truth from time to time to protect their interests, but bending the truth is not the same as a lie. In a word, there are lies and then there are lies - lies that condone murder, and lies that condone the ruthless oppression of women, minorities and people who stand for democracy.
.
Machiavelli In Moscow
.
On 4 February 2012, the thin-veil of legitimacy was suddenly lifted off the Putin-Medvedev regime in Moscow. In a 13-2 vote in the UN Security Council, Russia's ambassador was instructed to vote with China against a resolution that called for an arms embargo on Syria and for Assad to resign. As a "No" vote from any one of the five permanent Security Council members (China, Russia, France, UK and USA) automatically vetoes a resolution, the resolution put forward by the Arab League - not the US or UK - to prevent Assad from continuing his murderous campaign was defeated.
.
As the Chinese government has long ruled by fear and force (Tiananmen Square in 1989, the ongoing suppression of Tibetan sovereignty by arms etc.) and has a history of using its Security Council vote to protect despotic regimes from sanction for the sake of preserving its lucrative business ties with various thug-leaders worldwide (i.e. China vetoed UN resolutions condemning Sudan's massacre of the people of Darfur to protect its oil supply and investments in Khartoum), Beijing's vote was hardly surprising. The Chinese regime is an exemplar of Machiavellian statecraft. The end (preserving power) always justifies the means (fear, force and propaganda).
.
The Putin-Medvedev regime had always stopped short of outwardly embracing Machiavelli until their vote on the UN resolution last week. Perhaps the truth could simply no longer be hidden.
.
In perfect Machiavellian form, Prime Minister Putin attempted to defend Russia's vote by publicly stating, "We cannot act like an elephant in a china shop. People should be allowed to decide their future themselves." Considering that members of Putin's party and government rigged Russia's parliamentary elections in December to deliver a favorable outcome to pro-Putin candidates, most Russians were likely aghast at his hypocrisy. It must be remembered, however, that Putin is not a hypocrite. As a Machiavellian, Putin has divorced ethics from his approach to domestic governance and international relations. If anything, he is simply living up to his Machiavellian ethic of doing whatever is necessary to preserve and maximize his power and the power of the state. Few people believe his lies. Most people realize his democratic rhetoric is empty, and it is used only to conceal his agenda - power, power for himself and power for his state.
.
Who stood to lose most in the passage of the 4 February UN resolution against Syria? If the UN resolution had passed and an arms embargo had been put into place, Russian arms dealers, who have profited to the tune of $6 billion in supplying arms to Assad, would have potentially lost one of their best clients. For the Ministry of Defense, losing Tartus, a key naval base on the Mediterranean, would hinder its designs to influence the region and project its power.
.
In response to a question on how the Russian government could continue to maintain relations with Assad and supply him with weapons and ammunition, Anatoly Antonov, the Deputy Defense Minister, replied, "We must fulfill our obligations, and this is what we are doing." Under a Machiavellian regime, it is Antonov's obligation to help Assad massacre his own people - if it translates into more power for the Russian state. When Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov praised Assad in Damascus on Tuesday (7 February) for his attempts to resolve the domestic conflict peacefully - at the very moment Assad's security forces were slaughtering men, women and children in the town of Homs, he was also following the Machiavellian ethic - power not morality. The end (power) always justifies the means.
.
Machiavelli is alive and well in Moscow. If a critic charged Putin and his henchmen with being "morally bankrupt," that charge would be entirely accurate. Morals do not figure into the equation for Machiavellians. At home, they may believe in God and teach their children the difference between right and wrong. In the quest for domestic and international power, however, those ideas simply do not apply. In the coming days or weeks, Russia might reverse course and agree to work with the UN to restrain Assad. If so, it will not be because Putin and his inner circle have come down with a sudden case of viral morality. Rather, any Russian change in policy will come from a cold calculation of sheer state-interest and the preservation of the Putin regime.
.
Unless the Russian people can successfully oust Putin and his Machiavellian coterie in the upcoming elections, it is quite possible that Russia will once again drift back into the historical darkness of autocracy. As freedom of the press and the right to vote have both been circumscribed by Putin's regime, 4 March, the day of the elections, may be the last chance for Russians to save their state from joining China and Iran in the top-tier of Machiavellian regimes. If allowed to vote in free and fair elections, the Russian people would unhesitatingly vote for a government that reflected their values of tolerance, human rights, fairness, freedom of speech and unfettered democracy.
.
As the world becomes more educated and interconnected, Machiavellians will be able to dupe fewer people, and they will have fewer places to hide. Hopefully, the twenty-first century will be the last century of these dehumanized princes.
.
(Image: A portrait of Niccolo Machiavelli)
.
Key Sources/Further Reading
.
1. Alexander Boot, "Syria Bloodshed: Russia Wants To Give War A Chance" The Daily Mail (UK) (6 February 2012) See link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2097162/Syria-bloodshed-Russia-wants-war-chance.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
2. Joel Brinkley, "Syria, Russia, China - A Troika of Oppression" The San Francisco Chronicle (12 February 2012) See link:http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/02/10/INO91N44KN.DTL
3. "Syrian Opposition Commemorates The Hama Massacre" The Telegraph (UK) (12 February 2012) See link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/9056350/Syria-opposition-commemorates-Hama-massacre.html
4. Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince eds. Peter Bondanella and Mark Musa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998 - originally published, 1532)
.
J Roquen