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. Immediately recognizable by their bold-print headlines — “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. But the significance of the Mobil campaign extends well beyond its contribution to the everyday pollution of public discourse. 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.
“No responsible individual, corporation or government would condone violations of human rights,” declares one Mobil editorial reassuringly. But, as the oil company notes in another ad, “human rights don’t just blossom overnight. Rather, they must be nurtured over time in just the right soil — the richer the better.” As it happens, this is particularly true of countries where Mobil does business or hopes to in the future. Thus, Mobil assures us that in China “increased contact with U.S. companies and Western values” will conduce to political freedoms. So too in Nigeria, where “we assist in its transition to democracy.” The Middle East? “Let American companies go in and talk with Iran, explore opportunities and even negotiate the outlines of a deal.” And Vietnam? The normalization of diplomatic relations with our former foe is “like a late winter thaw with its promise of spring.”
To be sure, Mobil’s reluctance to concede that its search for profits might occasionally conflict with other requirements of humanity is understandable. The rightful goal of the oil industry remains financial gain, not the export of democracy.
Far more worrisome is the degree to which Mobil’s arguments and assumptions read like White House talking points. Platitudes suited to corporate public relations do not, after all, provide a sound basis for foreign policy. 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.” A White House prone to conflate economic self-interest and altruism embraces such commercial determinism uncritically. 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.” 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.” What is good for Mobil, you see, is good for America.
But all this talk of exporting our “ideals” and “freedoms” has its limits. Lest America meddle in the affairs of a country where Mobil invests, the corporation asks, “When the U.S. promotes its values abroad, does it contribute to the political evolution of other nations or is it viewed as moral paternalism?” 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. 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.”
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. For according to the world-view shared by Mobil and the White House, the choice facing American foreign policy is breathtakingly stark. We either engage or isolate. 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.” (This false dichotomy proved too much even for Newsweek, which observed, “That wasn’t written in Beijing, but it might as well have been.”) Yet Sandy Berger has offered identical advice: “China is home to one-fourth of the world’s people, we cannot simply turn our backs.” And the president lately has been promoting the same take-it-or-leave-it proposition in defense of his “strategic partnership” with China.
Such echoes have not been lost on Mobil. In a recent ad, the oil company noted that its own “arguments appear to be making inroads.” Nowhere has this been more evident than on the matter of sanctions, which Mobil views rather as a lobster would boiling water.
A recent editorial summarizes the Mobil stance on embargoes: “Perhaps the carrot would work.” Not surprisingly, the oil company has been effusive in its praise for an administration itself partial to carrots. “Brava, Secretary Albright!” trumpeted the headline of an editorial congratulating the Clinton team on its “call for engagement” with Iran. 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.”
That it has become all but impossible to distinguish a Mobil ad from a State Department briefing suggests a distressing turn of affairs. During the Cold War, U.S. political and strategic interests more often than not coincided with the interests of multinational business. That convergence has long since broken down. 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. In doing so, the White House sends a clear signal to dictators and dissidents alike: Business first; freedoms later.
Lawrence F. Kaplan is a fellow in strategic studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C.
