A G8 Promise To The Middle East Already Broken

The FT recently pointed out that aid from the G8 to new democracies in the Middle East and North Africa may be undermined by austerity movements in the world’s large economies. The IMF says the need for aid to the region’s oil importing nations could be as high as $160 billion over three years. The fund said it could provide $35 billion for rebuilding shaken regional economies which have been torn apart by regime changes and civil war. The G8 in turn will offer aid of as much as $18 billion. The amount will be based on the progress of democracy in the Middle East and northern African nations. Since progress will be hard to define, it is a wonder that any amount has been mentioned at all, except as a carrot and stick to get governments to go down the path of freely elected public officials and not the one  of religious radicalism.

The oddest thing about the offer from the G8 is that the countries may not have the money to back their promises because their respective national legislatures may actually vote the provisions down. In the US, the austerity movement has picked up such speed that even the current structure of Medicaid and the size of the defense budget have been attacked. Many members of Congress want the Afghanistan war effort throttled back as fast as possible. The same legislators are unlikely to agree to commitments to financial aid abroad.

The US has a long history of supporting democracy abroad through aid based on agricultural exports, money, munitions, and technical expertise.

President John Kennedy asked Congress for aid to emerging nations, as high as $2.65 billion in 1961. That is next to nothing in today’s terms. But, when Kennedy requested the funds, the US economy was in the midst of an economic recovery. It is hard to make the case that the economy is making similar progress now. It is also hard to estimate what the similar amount would be in 2011, and the need for aid abroad has to be cast in different terms now. US aid is spread from food exports, to weapons, to the level of the US’s part of the $18 billion commitment to democracy in the Middle East region to foster free elections and societies.

The US may no longer be able to put its money where its plans are, at least as far as commitments of foreign aid, even it that aid is in the strategic interests of the country. Austerity, particularly when it is the measure of the debate over the US budget, can do that.

Douglas A. McIntyre