The looming recession and pressures to constrain federal spending will not only impact the foreign policy challenges facing the new U.S. Administration, but could also have a profoundly negative impact globally.
“We should not be surprised when governments fail and societies suffer from violence,” writes Richard N. Haass, president of the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations. “The backlash against markets will almost certainly go too far, with adverse results for economic recovery and democracy around the world.
On the plus side, he notes, the authoritarian petro-states – the “axis of diesel” – will also be constrained as falling energy prices cut into their income and limit the sums available to the Venezuelan and Iranian regimes for funding foreign allies and proxies.
Last week’s conviction of Venezuelan businessman Franklin Durán for acting illegally as a Venezuelan agent confirmed Latin American democrats’ long-standing have been accusations that Hugo Chavez has been violating neighboring states’ sovereignty by supporting the radical left with money and weapons.
Iran provides considerable financial support to Hezbollah and Hamas, much of which funds non-military activities which develop and consolidate their political base. As the ‘Lugar report’ on the backlash against democracy noted, “there is little doubt that the medical facilities and other social welfare services provided by Hezbollah and Hamas, for instance, significantly enhanced their political legitimacy and reputation” and were a salient factor in the Islamists’ election successes.
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