Dealing with Evil Essay Example for Free

Dealing with Evil Essay After the World War II the planet has been divided by the Iron Curtain into two antagonistic camps: the communist countries, headed by the USSR and the capitalistic countries, headed by the USA. The struggle between two systems took forms of economic competition, ideological dispute, armament race and even local armed conflicts. Both leaders aimed to spread their influence at every possible region and attract carry over every possible country. At that they often paid little attention to home policy of a particular state concentrating exclusively on their ability to control it. Declaring their desire for democracy both the USA and the USSR often supported authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. This paper shall review some examples when the US cooperated with undemocratic rulers and demonstrate the necessity of such cooperation in order to stop the communist expansion. In one of the global key-points – the Middle East the USA did a lot to support an unpopular regime of the Shah of Iran. Between 1945 and 1979 Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, conducted a policy of westernization and close ties with the United States. His rule has been marked by growing poorness of the population and total corruption of the state officials. Failure of economic reforms has only compounded the crisis. Under such conditions the communist party gained increasing popularity among the people of Iran. However, despite of Shah’s authoritarism, the USA instructed him when he removed a democratically elected government in 1953, as well as later in his actions. Only in 1977 the President has sent â€Å"a polite reminder† to the Shah about the necessity to take care of human rights . In response the Shah has freed some political prisoners and allowed the Red Cross to operate in Iran. Those measures appeared to be late and the Shah has been overthrown in 1979. Between 1940 and 1959 the USA favored a regime of l Ruben Fulgencio Batista at Cuba, preferring to have a dictator rather than a communist country just a few miles away. Batista has been provided with funds for electoral campaign. The CIA assisted Batista in detecting and destroying his opponents. However, Batista’s regime appeared to be so unpopular among the people of Cuba, that it has been destroyed by a small group of guerillas lead by Fidel Castro in 1959 . Another example of support rendered by the USA to totalitarian leader is cooperation with the regime of Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo ). Mobutu’s attitude to Soviet Union was rather frosty because of the Soviet support of local rebels. So he has chosen to strengthen the relationships with America and Belgium – a former mother-country of Zaire. The US was third largest donor to Zaire economy. Even despite of Mobutu’s warlike rhetoric and poor human rights record, Zaire received almost 50% of US assistance to sub-Sahara countries in the times of President Carter. America also directly cooperated with Mobutu during inner conflicts by providing supplies and transporting Belgian paratroopers . Nevertheless after collapse of the USSR the USA has found it unnecessary to further work with Mobutu and he was even refused of American visa. In contrast he was now suppressed to democratize his regime. And without outside assistance he has been overthrown in 1994. In total, the attitude of the USA to friendly dictators can be characterized by a rude but frank phrase of Franklin D. Roosevelt: â€Å"He may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch†. In the titanic struggle with communism political loyalty was a priority in comparison to observation of human rights. REFERNCES 1. Gellman, Irwin F.(1973) Roosevelt and Batista: Good neighbor diplomacy in Cuba, 1933-1945. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, NM 2. Ayittey, George B. N. (1999) Africa in Chaos: A Comparative History. Palgrave Macmillan 3. Afoaku, Osita. U. S. foreign policy and authoritarian regimes: Change and continuity in international clientelism, Journal of Third World Studies, Fall 2000, pp. -345-241