Return of the Native: a Korean Warning

The foreign-policy mandarins at the State Department were skeptical. Wasn’t it risky to send to a newly liberated country an old exile who hadn’t been home in more than 30 years? But the U.S. military thought otherwise, and it flew the exile home posthaste. Accompanied by a U.S. Army advisor or two, he quickly moved front and center, making grandiose public statements. The exile seemed eager to take what his handlers hoped would be a leading role in his wasted country’s governance.

Sound familiar? The above might describe the delayed homecoming earlier this month of Ahmad Chalabi and some 500 fighters recruited by his London-based Iraqi National Congress. Although most Middle East experts and the State Department view him warily, Chalabi enjoys the full support of the Defense Department. In fact, it was the U.S. Air Force that flew him into southern Iraq. The Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz anti-evil axis hopes Chalabi will become a leading voice in the political reconstruction of Iraq, which got underway last week in the biblical city of Ur.

The situation described in the first paragraph, however, was not that of Chalabi and Iraq. Instead, it was Korea 58 years ago, and the exile in question was Syngman Rhee. Yet, the parallels between Rhee and Chalabi offer some important lessons for U.S. officials who see in the exile Iraqi community some of Iraq’s future political leaders.

After suffering nearly 40 years of brutal Japanese colonial rule, the newly liberated Korean people were at once enthusiastic, vengeful and confused about their future. An American occupation army had just landed, shipped over from Okinawa, to keep the Soviets from straying south of the newly set demarcation line at the 38th parallel.

Meanwhile, liberation committees had sprung up throughout Korea, and some prominent citizens in Seoul had even organized a Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence. The variety of political views was overwhelming: It included democrats, populists, wartime Japanese collaborationists, capitalists and communists. As historians Carter Eckert and Ki-baek Lee noted: “Dozens of leaders from the domestic and exile groups emerged in competition for leadership of a liberated Korea.”

To Lt. Gen. John R. Hodge, commander of the occupation forces, there were too many political stripes in the South, and because the Cold War had begun, he was especially worried about the communist one. Washington had warned him not to recognize any home-grown government apparatus. When he asked his boss, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, to help him sort out matters, MacArthur had a suggestion. In October, he dispatched Rhee to Seoul, flying him in on his plane from Tokyo.

Rhee was then 70. Once a reformist rebel, he had been banished by the king before the Japanese occupation and had fled to the U.S. His most recent visit to Korea had been in 1910. Although he was a leader of the exile provisional government, Rhee had spent nearly all his time in the United States, urging U.S. politicians and church leaders to support the cause of Korean independence. Not surprisingly, his contacts among Koreans at home greatly diminished, and the State Department at first refused to give him a passport. It took MacArthur’s clout to get him through.

Once established in Korea, Rhee used his American connections, his unyielding anti-communism and his good English to gain political visibility. After serving two years as a leader of an occupation advisory group, he became the first president of the Republic of Korea, winning the U.S.-sponsored elections in 1948. The following year, the American military government folded its tent and sailed away, assuming, unwisely, that Rhee would carry on its work.

The mistake was soon evident. Although a rallying symbol for South Koreans during war with the communist North, Rhee had no patience for the give-and-take of democratic politics. Through the 1950s, his rule degenerated into one long power grab, scarred by corruption and police-state intimidation. This went on behind the facade of democratic laws and institutions -- and the nervous support of South Korea’s ally, the U.S.

A citizens’ revolt in 1960 chased Rhee into exile. His successors brought South Korea to an undreamed-of level of economic prosperity, but, taking a cue from Rhee, they ruled as autocrats. It was not until 1987 that a wave of middle-class protests forced on the Korean president the rule of law that holders of the office had long flouted.

Today, the Republic of Korea stands as a model of popular democracy, as well as strong free enterprise, exactly what the first U.S. occupation hoped to achieve. But it took almost half a century to get there.

Perhaps Chalabi will turn out to be a gifted political leader despite his 45 years in exile and his past difficulties in the banking business. But the precedent of Rhee’s fall from democracy and the hardships of South Korea’s subsequent prolonged recovery should remind President Bush and Chalabi admirers that hasty political sponsorships can lead to disaster -- and require a long, long time to correct. For all their lofty rhetoric, they continue to sound like men in too much of a hurry.