MOBILIZING FOREIGN POLICY
KAPLAN, LAWRENCE F.
MOBILIZING FOREIGN POLICY by Lawrence F. Kaplan YOU CAN'T AVOID THEM. The Mobil Corporation's paid "editorials" have been bombarding readers of the New York Times op-ed page for 28 years....
...The rightful goal of the oil industry remains financial gain, not the export of democracy...
...In doing so, the White House sends a clear signal to dictators and dissidents alike: Business first...
...Or as President Clinton put it when discussing the most important test case of all: Trade will act as "a force for change in China, exposing China to our ideas and our ideals...
...No responsible individual, corporation or government would condone violations of human rights," declares one Mobil editorial reassuringly...
...That convergence has long since broken down...
...That it has become all but impossible to distinguish a Mobil ad from a State Department briefing suggests a distressing turn of affairs...
...And Vietnam...
...There is, to begin with, the mantra of the Mobil editorials: "Global commerce promotes dialogue and prosperity, which together often foster increased political and personal freedoms...
...Thus, one Mobil ad admonished the public that we can choose to engage China or "turn [our] backs on a nation that is home to 22 percent of the world's people...
...During the Cold War, U.S...
...We either engage or isolate...
...Mobil's answer, provided in another ad, finds its corollary both in President Clinton's frequently repeated assurance that "we do not seek to impose our vision on others" and in Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's opinion that "if we are to be effective in defending the values we cherish, we must also take into account the perspectives and values of others...
...Or as Mobil puts it, "Nobody likes to be told their values are inferior to ours...
...Thus, Mobil assures us that in China "increased contact with U.S...
...Not surprisingly, the oil company has been effusive in its praise for an administration itself partial to carrots...
...In a recent ad, the oil company noted that its own "arguments appear to be making inroads...
...immediately recognizable by their bold-print head-lines—"Let's nurture human rights—not dictate them," "Singapore: an orchid in the Pacific," "An argument for the carrot, rather than the stick"— Mobil's issue ads dress up sheer acquisitiveness in democratic idealism...
...As it happens, this is particularly true of countries where Mobil does business or hopes to in the future...
...Lawrence F. Kaplan is a fellow in strategic studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C...
...But rather than acknowledge the demise of the alignment, the administration justifies its commerce-driven foreign policy with the sort of twaddle peddled in oil-company advertisements, proclaiming fealty to ideals it routinely violates...
...Mobil's blend of economic determinism and cultural relativism—and for that matter, the administration's weakness for the same—points to a certain rhetorical inconsistency...
...Far more worrisome is the degree to which Mobil's arguments and assumptions read like White House talking points...
...But all this talk of exporting our "ideals" and "freedoms" has its limits...
...companies and Western values" will conduce to political freedoms...
...This false dichotomy proved too much even for Newsweek, which observed, "That wasn't written in Beijing, but it might as well have been...
...To be sure, Mobil's reluctance to concede that its search for profits might occasionally conflict with other requirements of humanity is understandable...
...So too in Nigeria, where "we assist in its transition to democracy...
...Yet Sandy Berger has offered identical advice: "China is home to one-fourth of the world's people, we cannot simply turn our backs...
...What is good for Mobil, you see, is good for America...
...But the significance of the Mobil campaign extends well beyond its contribution to the everyday pollution of public discourse...
...And the president lately has been promoting the same take-it-or-leave-it proposition in defense of his "strategic partnership" with China...
...political and strategic interests more often than not coincided with the interests of multinational business...
...The Middle East...
...Platitudes suited to corporate public relations do not, after all, provide a sound basis for foreign policy...
...Such echoes have not been lost on Mobil...
...For according to the world-view shared by Mobil and the White House, the choice facing American foreign policy is breathtaking-ly stark...
...As national security adviser Sandy Berger has explained, "The fellow travelers of the new global economy—computers and modems, faxes and photocopiers, increased contacts and binding contracts—carry with them the seeds of change...
...Rather, they must be nurtured over time in just the right soil—the richer the better...
...trumpeted the headline of an editorial congratulating the Clinton team on its "call for engagement" with Iran...
...But, as the oil company notes in another ad, "human rights don't just blossom overnight...
...promotes its values abroad, does it contribute to the political evolution of other nations or is it viewed as moral paternalism...
...freedoms later...
...Lest America meddle in the affairs of a country where Mobil invests, the corporation asks, "When the U.S...
...We have every reason to be proud of our democratic system, but that doesn't mean we can simply impose it on all other nations...
...A White House prone to conflate economic self-interest and altruism embraces such commercial determinism uncritically...
...A recent editorial summarizes the Mobil stance on embargoes: "Perhaps the carrot would work...
...Let American companies go in and talk with iran, explore opportunities and even negotiate the outlines of a deal...
...Nowhere has this been more evident than on the matter of sanctions, which Mobil views rather as a lobster would boiling water...
...And when the president decided to waive sanctions against foreign companies doing business in that nation, Mobil assured us that "the waiver was a tough decision, but the right one...
...Brava, Secretary Albright...
...For on matters of foreign policy, Mobil's principal lines of argument bear an uncomfortable resemblance to those of President Clinton and his diplomatic counselors...
...The normalization of diplomatic relations with our former foe is "like a late winter thaw with its promise of spring...
Vol. 3 • August 1998 • No. 46
