Mr. Muravchik is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Muravchik is a specialist in U.S. foreign policy and international relations. He has written extensively about democracy, human rights, the role of ideas and ideologies in international politics, and America's role in the post Cold war world.
Mr. Muravchik met Martina Iovcheva
Q: In one of your articles you say that NATO is a prestigious club. How do you see this club in ten years?
A: I think that the future of NATO is a little bit confused and changing right now because it may continue to expand. It will be a kind of a security community, in which the basic commitment to protect each other will remain the principle foundation.
But the big question from the American side is that it is likely that the main security problems and challenges we will face in the next few years will not be in Europe. That's a good thing because Europe is peaceful and stable now. It looks like that the main challenges will be probably in the Middle East, possibly in Asia too but most likely in the Middle East. Right now it is an open question whether NATO will be willing and able to function as an institution in relation to issues of security challenges in the Middle East.
Q: How do you see Bulgaria's place in NATO?
A: The interesting thing about Bulgaria's accession is that in the past few years the most troubling tensions in NATO have been between the United States and its traditional allies on the continent France, Germany and some of the others. For America, the best relations in Europe have been with England and with the new members from Central Europe - the former communist countries. The reasons for this require some analysis.
The point I am getting to is that for Bulgaria like for Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary, I think there is possibility of an especially close partnership with the United States in NATO because some of the tensions and bad feelings that have grown up in the last few years between America and France, America and Germany don't exist between America and the states from Central and Eastern Europe.
Q: There are many people who blame the United States for the country's foreign policy. How could that be changed? Should the United States re-brand its image?
A: I would say three things. One is that the United States have a very unusual distribution of power in the world today, which as someone said the United States is number 1 and nobody is number 2 and number 3. A very big gap between the United States and the others exists. Also, American power has so many components to it - military power, political influence, the economic supremacy, the big spread of the American culture (often of the least elevated kind) and American political philosophy. I think this naturally invites a lot of envy and resentment from others.
Two: I think that on the specific issues, on which there has been criticism of the United States by many other states - "The others are wrong and we are right." The issues on which the United States is taking a more just and principled position than most of the other nations. For example, on the Middle East, where clearly Israel is in the right - just trying to survive against hostile members who used the most vile methods of terrorism to try to destroy it. The United States seeing that Israel is in the right, defends it. Most of the other nations don't care who's right and wrong but only see one Israel, twenty-two Arab nations, fifty-five Muslim nations...they have most of the world oil. So, many other states support the Arabs and oppose Israel just for selfish advantage regardless of the rights and wrongs. I think I could go on to many other issues, in which similarly the difference between the United States and many others is just that the United States takes a more principled position.
Finally, the United States needs to do a much more better job of presenting its position and cultivating support. One problem here is simply structural on our part. We have for many years an institution called the U.S. Information Agency, which had the responsibility of trying to reach out to the rest of the world with representatives around the world to teach people about the United States, to provide information, to provide libraries and other programs to help tell America's story to the outside. For very stupid political reasons, that agency was abolished about two years ago and presumable its functions were taken by the State Department. But the State Department is not equipped to do that job. To influence people you have to be able to have honest dialogue with them, an open dialogue. The job of the State Department is diplomacy and diplomats rarely speak openly. They are to speak very guardedly. So, it is very stupid to give this task to the State Department. I think that in the next couple of years, we will begin to understand the mistake that we made and start all over - creating some other new agency in the United States that will have this new responsibility.
Q: In your book "Exporting Democracy: Fulfilling America's Destiny," you say that the U.S. government should have moved in Kuwait and Iraq to impose democracy. Do you think that the recent developments regarding Iraq could eventually have such an outcome?
A: I wrote that in 1991 and if we had done that then, we might not be facing the problems we are facing now. Now most Americans say we need to try to do that. I think we have to try. Democracy has spread very fast in the last 25-30 years around the world and to every part of the world except to the Arab countries. So, people say it is just going to be too hard. There's something in the psychology or the culture of the Arab countries that will resist democracy.
I do not want to be too cavalier about this. It will be difficult and we don't know if we can succeed. You never know until you try. The thing that gives me optimism is that if you look around the world where democracy has spread in these last 25-30 years, many of the places where it is functioning now are places where it was also said democracy could not come for cultural reasons, including Japan and other places like Taiwan and South Korea.
Also, here in Eastern Europe we used to read that even though communism was really bad, there were very few dissidents. Most of the people seemed to accept the dictatorship of the communist party. Eventually, people accepted it because they were afraid and because they did not have much hope that it could be changed. But once the opportunity for change was there, people very much wanted democracy - a chance to have free speech and to elect their own government. I remain at least full of hope that it will also happen in Iraq and elsewhere.
Q: On Tuesday, you will give a lecture in Sofia on "The US - European Partnership: The war on terror and Beyond." How do you assess the American -European partnership in the combat with terrorism?
A: I think that right now there is a lot of disagreement between the U.S and Europe about the war on terrorism. But still I think that there is an opportunity here for a very fruitful partnership of a kind that would get us passed a very sterile debate that is going on for a number of reasons. There is a huge gap between U.S. and European military capabilities now. That came clear in almost embarrassing way in the fight over Kosovo. Then when we had the war in Afghanistan, the American military commanders were almost reluctant to have too much help from our European partners because they felt that the abilities were so different in terms of military technology that cooperation would not be so useful. I think that and we've argued now for a number of years whether the Europeans will increase their defense spending and modernize their military forces. The reality is that they are not going to that because they are all under budget pressure. Now, I am not speaking so much about the Eastern European countries as the Western European countries.
I think that the war on terrorism ironically presents an opportunity. I think that this would be a war that would be one third military and two thirds political. For example, we will almost certainly fight in Iraq. The British will fight together with us. Whether anyone else does or not may matter politically but does not matter militarily. But there are another six or seven or eight countries in the Middle East that have a long ugly history of supporting terrorism. We have to make them change. I do not think we have to go to war with everyone of them. Making them change means putting political pressure on them.
In some cases it even means trying to create subversion and undermine the government with better government there, which is more democratic and less supportive of terrorism. One of those could be Iran. I think Europeans could play a very big role with a political job of encouraging change away from the radical regimes in the Middle East. They do not have to increase their defense budgets one penny in order to do that. That offers the best basis for kind of cooperation in the war on terrorism that would get us passed this fruitless argument about defense budgets.
Q: Your last book "Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism" was published this March. What is the key message in the book?
A: It is more a book of history than an essay. I believe that socialism was the most popular political idea ever. The two hundred years that really created much of the history of the world, much of the history of the world revolved around that idea. It turned out to be a big mistake, a hopeless idea. But this idea aroused the hopes of millions of people in every corner of the world and yet was an unworkable idea that in the end led to a lot of tragedy, a lot of death. Mostly, my book is an attempt just to describe the history of that idea in its many forms. I think that the basic lesson or the theme that I learnt from studying this history was that what was wrong with that idea fundamentally was that it attempted to be a substitute for religion. It attempted to be much more than politics can do to promise a perfect universe, to promise a solution to all of human problems.
Ironically, the socialists thought that they presented a much more sophisticated understanding of life than had the people believed before when much of the understanding of life was formulated by the Bible and our religious beliefs. It turns out the Bible is much more profound, realistic because it begins by telling us life on this world is imperfect, difficult, has a tragic element. Socialism creates this terrible illusion that we just have the right political system, the right economic system, then all our problems will be solved. This was a very tragic and dangerous idea that did a great deal of harm to human beings.
Q: Do you have plans this book to be translated in Bulgarian for example?
A: I would if I cold find a publisher. I would happily do without any profit to find a publisher who would do a Bulgarian translation. Since the book is only out for about half a year, we are just beginning to look into translations. In fact, the first one that is already in the work is a translation into Czech.
Q: Is this your first visit to Bulgaria?
A: It is my first visit. I just arrived. I will only have a few days here. I have at least several hours reserved between meetings to walk around and see as much as I can.
Q: What is Bulgaria's image in the United States?
A: I suppose we know a little bit about some foods from Bulgaria particularly Bulgarian wine. And politically aware of Bulgaria having a different kind of relationship with Russia than the other states of Eastern Europe because Russia having been not only conqueror but also a protector for Bulgaria. There is a more mixed feeling about Russia here.
I must confess to you that for Americans, because we are far away and we came to be ignorant people about the outside world and geography, most Americans would think less about Bulgaria than about the whole area.
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