John McCain’s Bogus “League of Democracies”

In the first presidential debate with Barack Obama, John McCain put forward his vision of a new world order where the United States would team up with other world democracies to isolate and punish the enemies of freedom: namely Russia, Iran, North Korea, etc.

"I have proposed a league of democracies, a group of people – a group of
countries that share common interests, common values, common ideals,
they also control a lot of the world’s economic power. We could impose
significant meaningful, painful sanctions on the Iranians that I think
could have a beneficial effect."

At first glance, a "league of democracies" seems like a nice departure from the unilateralism of George W. Bush. What is wrong with acting in concert with nations that share our values?  But who would be members of such a league?  Our allies in the Middle East – Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia?  These are one family dictatorships which could never be described as democracies. What about the democratically elected government of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela? Or the government of Lebanon, which includes the democratically chosen Hezbollah?

In practice McCain’s "league of democracies" would be nothing more than a club of countries that the United States likes. And, while Spain may not be on this list (McCain recently seemed to say he would never meet with Zapatero), presumably Germany is. So you would think Germany would be positioning itself to be a charter member of John McCain’s league of democracies. Except, that is not the case: most commentators in Germany view it as a dumb concept:

Das nationale Interesse – das meist das finanzielle ist – steht noch
immer über allem, und der Frust über die Unnachgiebigkeit der jeweils
anderen verleitet inzwischen sogar wieder dazu, lieber nationale oder
regionale Lösungen zu suchen als globale. Wer aber, wie manche in den
USA, von einer rein westlichen "Liga der Demokratien" spricht, die
Russland und China ausgrenzen soll, der hat von der Globalisierung
nichts verstanden. (National interest – which more often than not is economic – is paramount, and the frustration with respect to the intransigence of other competing nations often leads to national or regional solutions rather than global ones.  But those in the US who are proposing a Western "League of Democracies" that would isolate Russia and China demonstrate that they know nothing about globalization.)

And here is analysis from the journalist Knut Mellenthin:

Ferner befürwortete McCain in seinem programmatischen Artikel für
Foreign Affairs die Bildung einer »weltweiten Liga der Demokratien«,
wobei man den Begriff »Demokratien« nicht wörtlich verstehen sollte,
sondern so, wie er von den USA schon immer gemeint war: Staaten, die im
wesentlichen der US-amerikanischen Führung folgen.(In his Foreign Affairs article McCain furthermore advocated the formation of a "worldwide League of Democracies", whereby one shouldn’t take the concept "Democracy" literally, but rather, as it is always intended by the US: states that in essence follow American leadership.)

Mellenthin writes that it is true intention of McCain with his proposed league to further erode the efficacy of the United Nations – despised by the neoconservative establishment in the US. In fact, the neocons – many of whom, such as Randy Sheuenemann, work for the McCain campaign – are quite open about the true intent behind the League of Democracies.  The leading neoconservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, one the most vocal advocates for bombing Iran, put it best:

"Well, I like the idea of the League of Democracies, and only in part
because I and others had proposed it about six years ago. What I like
about it, it’s got a hidden agenda. It looks as if it’s all about
listening and joining with allies, all the kind of stuff you’d hear a
John Kerry say, except that the idea here, which McCain can’t say, but
I can, is to essentially kill the UN."