Two types of democracy promotion for Zimbabwe

There's an interesting article by Samantha Power in Time magazine, discussing the difficult issue of what to do about Zimbabwe. Power rejects both the strategy of 'constructive engagement' and the option of military intervention. (Just by the way there, I did like the economy of: 'Mbeki is not a mediator; he is an ally to a dictator.') Here is Power's own proposal:

One by one, those African and Western leaders who claim to be disgusted with Mugabe should announce that they bilaterally recognize the validity of the March 29 first-round election results, which showed the opposition winning 48% to 43%, though the margin was almost surely larger. The countries which do would make up the new "March 29 bloc" within the U.N. and would declare Morgan Tsvangirai the new President of Zimbabwe. They would then announce that Mugabe and the 130 leading cronies who have already been sanctioned by the West will not be permitted entry to their airports.

Tsvangirai and his senior aides should do as South Africa's African National Congress did throughout the 1960s and '70s: set up a government-in-exile and appoint ambassadors abroad - including to the U.N. That ambassador should be given forums for rebutting the ludicrous claims of the Zimbabwean and South African regimes.

If "the U.N." is disaggregated into its component parts, Mugabe's friends will be exposed. "June 27" countries will be those who favor electoral theft, while "March 29" countries will be those who believe that the Zimbabweans aren't the only ones who should stand up and be counted. This can be a recipe for gridlock in international institutions - but the gridlock won't get broken by lamenting its existence.

Writing in The Nation, Robert Dreyfuss regards this as forcing the issue. He agrees with Power that there has been 'ruthless[n]ess and savagery' in Zimbabwe. 'But', he says, 'it hardly rises to the level of genocide.' He, Dreyfuss, would prefer a coalition government between Mugabe and Tsvangirai. He dubs Power's suggestion 'an example of democracy promotion run wild' (my emphasis). Dreyfuss's own kind of democracy promotion is for a coalition between the man backed by the recently-expressed will of the Zimbabwean people and... a tyrant who has waged a campaign of brutal violence to overturn that democratic result. All this at one of the best-known venues of the American left. (Thanks: SC.)