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Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025

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Edit of 21 Dec 07 to add links and new comment,

New Comment: In my view, this is the single most important work of the century with respect to American moral diplomacy. I note with concern that under Bush-Cheney "Failed States" have increased from 75 in 2005 to 177 in 2007. We've lost our mind, and our morals, as a Nation.

Ambassador Mark Palmer puts to rest all those generally unfair stereotypes of Foreign Service Officers as "cookie pushing" softies who fall in love with their host countries and blame America for any flaws in the bi-lateral relationship. With this book he provides an inspiring model for precisely what every Foreign Service Officer should aspire: to understand, to articulate, and then to implement very great goals that serve democracy and help extend the bounty of the American way of life--moral capitalism and shared wealth--to every corner of the world.

This is a detailed and practical book, not just visionary. It is useful and inspiring, not just a personal view. It is also a damning indictment of fifty years of US White House and Congressional politics, where in the name of anti-communism and cheap oil America--regardless of which party has been in power, has been willing to consort with the most despotic, ruthless, murderous regimes in the history of mankind. Still alive today and still very much "friends" of the U.S. Government are dictators that think nothing of murdering millions.

There has been some improvement, offset by an increase in partly free countries. From 69 countries not free at all in 1972 we now have 47. From 38 countries partly free in 1972 we now have 56, many of those remnants of the former Soviet Union. Free countries have nearly doubled from 43 to 89, but free and poor is quite a different thing from free and prosperous.

The level of detail and also of brevity in this book is quite satisfying. On the one hand, Ambassador Palmer provides ample and well-documented discussion of the state of the world, on the other he does not belabor the matter--his one to two-paragraph summative descriptions of each of the dictatorships is just enough, just right.

He distinguishes between Personalistic Dictatorships (20, now less Hussein in Iraq); Monarch Dictators (7, with Saudi Arabia being the first in class); Military Dictators (5, with US allies Sudan and Pakistan and 1 and 2 respectively); Communist Dictators (5); Dominant-Party Dictators (7); and lastly, Theocratic Dictators (1, Iran).

Ambassador Palmer makes several important points with this book, and I summarize them here: 1) conventional wisdom of the past has been flawed--we should not have sacrificed our ideals for convenience; 2) dictatorships produce inordinate amounts of collateral damage that threatens the West, from genocide and mass migrations to disease, famine, and crime; 3) there is a business case to be made for ending U.S. support for dictatorships, in that business can profit more from stable democratic regimes over the long-term; and lastly, 4) that the U.S. should sanction dictators, not their peoples, and we can begin by denying them and all their cronies visas for shopping expeditions in the US.

The book has an action agenda that is worthy, but much more important is the clear and present policy that Ambassador Palmer advocates, one that is consistent with American ideals as well as universal recognition of human rights. Ambassador Palmer's work, on the one hand, shows how hypocritical and unethical past Administrations have been--both Democratic and Republican--and on the other, he provides a clear basis for getting us back on track.

I agree with his proposition that we should have a new Undersecretary for Democracy, with two Assistant Secretaries, one responsible for voluntary democratic transitions, the other for dealing with recalcitrant dictators. Such an expansion of the Department of State would work well with a similar change in the Pentagon, with a new Undersecretary for Peacekeeping Operations and Complex Emergencies, my own idea.

This is a very fine book, and if it helps future Foreign Service Officers to understand that diplomacy is not just about "getting along" but about making very significant changes in the world at large, then Ambassador Palmer's work will be of lasting value to us all.

Also recommended, with reviews:
A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People
Blood Money: Wasted Billions, Lost Lives, and Corporate Greed in Iraq
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project)
The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World
War Is a Racket: The Anti-War Classic by America's Most Decorated General, Two Other Anti=Interventionist Tracts, and Photographs from the Horror of It
The Paradox of American Power: Why the World's Only Superpower Can't Go It Alone
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
The World Cafe: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter
Faith-Based Diplomacy: Trumping Realpolitik

Forthcoming on Amazon in February and also free at OSS.Net/CIB:
COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace, edited by Mark Tovey with a Foreword by Yochai Benkler and an Afterword by the Rt. Hon. Paul Martin, Prime Minister of Canada. I have high hopes for all of us finally getting it right (Winston Churchill: "The Americans always do the right thing, they just try everything else first.") Now is our time to get it right. We can start by electing Senator Barack Obama as our forward-thinking always listening open-minded President.

By turns brilliant argument and gritty guide, this book is an inspired field treatise on the Whys and Hows of replacing tyranny with democracy -- the sooner the better and, where possible, without violence.

We've seen a gush of books denouncing the current Bush administration etc, but Palmer's work stands out by making scores of PRACTICAL suggestions. His case studies range from Chile to the Philippines and make a lot of sense. For instance, his suggestions on handling the sensitive issue of Falun Gong in China are not only smart, they would also be a cinch to implement.

I highly recommend this educated and accessible read for matters that affect us all.

Ambassador Palmer has provided the reader with a lucid, non-partisan therapeutic regime for an ailing world. War, terrorism, poverty, famine, torture, and other human rights abuses, by and large, result from the actions of about forty-five dictators who control roughly one third of the world's population. The removal of these tyrants through peaceful means and their replacement with responsible democratic governments is the most cogent approach to ending most of these abuses across the globe. Although the author strongly advocates the peaceful removal of tyrants where possible, he does acknowledge the need for military force in some instances. This is an important work and should become the cornerstone of US foreign policy for the next twenty-one years (or as long as it takes).

This is a powerful exposition of the nonviolent steps the US can take to rid the world of tyrants and dictators by a man who has the experience to back it up. I predict it will make big waves.

AMERICA - ISRAEL. These two dictatorships were not included, probably because the rosy light of Toffler's Third Wave (technology and information leading to continued American domination of the world) was still obscuring the clarity of the Western world (if not some other parts of the world) when the book was written.

Why?

Because dictators have been put in place as puppets of US control for decades, for one. Dictators have emerged (Iran's theocratic republic) to counter being dictated to by the US, for two.

Going back some decades to the Democratic election of Mossadeq in the Iranian 1953 elections. Well, that was overthrown by the CIA in order to keep the Iranian oil monopoly in the hands of the West, and by the US installing another dictator, the Shah.
So who was the dictator in this exchange, hmm? (Ron Paul speaks on this subject as "blowback". There is a YouTube on it.)

Many other dictatorships named in the book fall under the heading of PUPPETS. Remember Saddam?
Another dictator, puppet, with delusions of grandeur, who bit the dust when his "use by" date was up.

Some nations don't like being funnelled into the Western monopolies timeline. So if they rebel, inevitably will they become "dictators" if they follow another line, dictators within an alternative view?

I am thinking that what we are really looking at is simply a schoolyard of bullies (dictators. would-be dictators and those who don't want to play but end up, anyway, in the ring) squaring up. But who are the ones wielding whips and weapons? They are the ones with ultimate dictatorial standing.

This book was written in 2003, and since then the gyre of many people's search for truth has widened considerably. For this the REAL AXIS OF EVIL as a topic has an entirely different coloration today. And the naming of it is difficult because it is still hidden in plain sight thanks to the media monopoly of the conduits of information and the tazing of people's minds through idiot programming (violence, horror, sex, slavery, homicide shows as pleasure and entertainment topics), and narrow and shallow broadcasting.

A new book on this topic needs to be written with a new list of contenders, with a wider band of questions; for instance, newly identifiable dictatorships may include vastly powerful corporations with too much power dictating behind the veil of "business as usual" and functioning as quasi-nations in their wealth and reach (Monsanto?) The Vatican is another, but to implicate that will look like the entrance to "conspiracy theories." or will it?

The tyranny of the pedophile network is a dictatorship and along with it the porn industry. It is spread across many nations. Do both have a hub? Clearly the topic can veer to the existential, philosophy, and human values, so right into the lap of psychology and human identity.

However, when I saw the list of contenders for dictatorships in this book, while clearly compelling, I felt the main game, the main meal, had been bypassed for hor d'oeuvres and dessert. We need to arrive at the main meal, somehow.

Naming nations not included in this book is a more even approach, by increasing the honest reach of the "named."

Why should Israel and the US be on the list? That is the first question for the new book.

While i have not read this book I could not help but write this anyway ..The assumption in official circles is that the US and its foreign policy has been to build freedom and democracy around the world.This is patently false and many of the worlds dictators are American corporate puppets propped up by the CIA.The US is responsible for much of the tyranny in the world because this is its true goal.Look at Central and South America "Americas Backyard" where the CIA and its policies have run free and it is still a mess after over 100 years of US intervention.The first Axis of Evil is the US and its Intelligence ,Law enforcement agenda.Read "Confessions of an Economic Hitman"for a reality check.

I read this book in 2008 when the outcomes in Iraq and Afghanistan were even more uncertain than today in 2011. At the time, I wasn't really familiar with some of the NeoCon views covered by this book. (The book doesn't espouse the approach of bringing democracy to the Middle East by invasion, more by setting an example and supporting democratic movements abroad.) I found it pretty interesting reading and definitely illuminating as to viewpoints that underlay much of the Reagan and George W. Bush foreign policy. This book gave me a broader understanding of the different views on how to address problem of dictatorships abroad. It helped me to understand the different approaches that statesmen today propose for dealing with today's unrest in the Middle East. I highly recommend it.