CRITICS JUNE 22, 2010
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Sometimes Michael Kazin’s reasonableness disguises an apologetic lack of argument. His little reflection on my piece is a small anthology of the president’s foreign policy shibboleths.
Let us begin with Iran. “They hail the democratic insurgents in Iran but do not propose an intervention that would destroy their movement and many of their lives.” Who, precisely, is proposing such an intervention? Certainly not I. But it is the axiom of Obama’s outrageously diffident policy toward the Iranian resistance that a disastrous intervention on behalf of Iranian democracy is the only intervention imaginable. The White House would like us to think that the alternatives before us are just a sermon or a war. Like Obama and many other liberals, Kazin has fallen for the Bush-Cheney idea of democratization, according to which it takes place at the barrel of a gun. It suits Obama’s reluctance to challenge Muslim societies in any seriously critical way, his multicultural preference for celebrating their otherness and addressing them religiously, his realism costumed as idealism, to have the policy of democratization represented in the American mind by the Iraq war. And so Kazin obliges the president when he writes that whereas “it is a fine and necessary thing to speak out for ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’ [Kazin should be ashamed of those scare quotes]”, we must attend also to “the sad, often outrageous tales of policymakers whose convictions blinded them to the baleful consequences of their actions”—read: who invaded Iraq. When did it become admirable for liberals to sound like Brent Scowcroft? Worst of all, the Iranian dissidents themselves are angered by Obama’s refusal to take up their cause. Their feeling of abandonment by the administration—the same is true of Egyptian democrats—has been amply documented. Is their authority about their own needs and desires less than Obama’s? (Kazin reminds me here of certain anti-Cold War liberals who turned away from the politically and ideologically disturbing testimony of Eastern European and Soviet dissidents.) It is absurd to warn that the United States might “destroy their movement and many of their lives.” That is Khameini’s and Ahmadinejad’s objective. It is the role of the United States, or so I believe, to try and stop them.
Next, Afghanistan. “They have augmented the military commitment in Afghanistan but realize a stable peace is more likely to occur through humbling and co-opting the Taliban than by exterminating them.” Exterminating them: sounds evil, doesn’t it? In fact it is the Taliban who are the exterminators. But does Kazin read the news? If he does, he will have noted that the Taliban is not being at all humbled. Their history and their worldview, moreover, make it very likely that “co-optation” would mean for them simply an important milestone in their long march back to Kabul. What does Kazin know about Afghanistan than makes him so serenely confident in a “stable peace,” which is of course a very lovely notion? The “co-optation” of the Afghan Taliban will certainly have almost no impact upon the threat to American security that emanates from the jihadist peaks of western Pakistan. Kazin’s empty approval of the “augment[ation of] the military commitment in Afghanistan” elides the incoherence—the “dumb promise”, if you will—of Obama’s strategy there. Is it really impossible—I know I am being insolent here – that this new hope of co-opting the Taliban is owed mainly to Obama’s desire to get out of Afghanistan according to his timetable, and that his timetable is not so much strategic as political?
Then, Iraq. I will make two remarks in the vain hope that both of them will be remembered. The first is that George W. Bush took this country into a major war on false pretenses, and this was a historical scandal. The second is that this war has had the incontrovertible consequence of destroying an uncommonly vicious dictator and laying the groundwork for an open society in an Muslim state in the Middle East. One’s feeling about the origins of the Iraq war must have no bearing upon one’s perception of what is actually happening there. I do not regard the freedom of the Iraqi people as anything to lament, or their two national elections as reasons for regret. The emancipation of Iraq’s Kurds was genuinely an affair of justice. I like justice. I want to see more of it. I especially want to see it where it has never been seen before. I am pleased that Kazin learned something from my essay on liberalism and messianism, but I do not see how the war in Iraq can in any way be regarded as messianic. Kazin believes, against everything we know about Hitler (he brought it up!), that “an earlier alliance with the Soviet dictator might have prevented what became the most terrible war in history.” I wallow in a different counter-factual. I wish that the United States had entered the war against Hitler earlier, because our delay at such hours—and may our diplomats take care that they are few!—demeans us.
Now, about change. I made it perfectly clear in what I wrote that I was not championing dogmatism. Kazin nonetheless berates me that “the wisest policy is seldom merely to stand up for one’s beliefs, regardless of the exigencies of time.” I concede that I have a soft spot for standing up for one’s beliefs. I have also observed in my short life, and a good deal recently, that there are people who stand up for the exigencies of time regardless of their beliefs. Does Kazin really wish to deny that many liberals who were ardent enthusiasts for democracy and human rights, whether or not they supported the Iraq war, suddenly lost their appetite for those aims and ideals in the winter of 2008-2009? Obviously people change their minds about events. I have myself done so. What interests me is when they change their minds about first principles, and why. Which events deserve to retire, or transform, which principles? This is a complicated question. I do not see that opposition to the war in Iraq need amount to opposition to the modern tradition of American interventionism in toto. (The same should have been true, incidentally, about opposition to the war in Vietnam. It was not all you needed to know about the United States in the world.) Even if the war in Iraq was a mistake, I still believe in the power, and the obligation, of the United States to advance the cause of freedom in the world. I prefer that we not perform this role by military means, but in the face of ethnic cleansing and genocide and terrorists with biological or chemical weapons I prefer also not to wait for the arrival of troops from China. My quarrel is with the widespread assumption, which Kazin seems to share, that the Iraq war must now be the primal scene of American foreign policymaking, and so the primary goal of our foreign policy must be to avoid its repetition. I am not prepared to surrender the tradition of liberal internationalism to the loathing of Bush. The repudiation of that tradition—and make no mistake, Obama is repudiating it in many of its aspects—is leaving the world safer for many atrocities.
Since I believe in philosophy, I respect conversions. But genuinely philosophical conversions are rare, and many non-philosophical conversions like to present themselves as philosophical ones. At some point in one’s life as an intellectual in politics, one must find oneself out of place and out of time, far from the White House, useless to any gang, in the desert. Serial synchonicities are a bad sign. The sweet irony here is that such excessive flexibility is precisely what my friend Kazin is not guilty of. As far as I know, Michael has been remarkably consistent in his opinions over the decades. And that is precisely what I was praising. There have been times when I have wished he would practice what he now preaches, and change his eternally progressive mind. But in the light of his own history, it strikes me that what he is really defending in his reply to me is not the beauty of adopting new beliefs, but the beauty of adopting his beliefs.
Click here to read Michael Kazin's item.
18 comments
"It is absurd to warn that the United States might “destroy their movement and many of their lives.” That is Khameini’s and Ahmadinejad’s objective. It is the role of the United States, or so I believe, to try and stop them." And why is that exactly? LW seems to think that effects are the strict products of "objectives" when MK's whole point is that noble intentions often lead to disastrous results. Why is this an absurd position? Recent history shows that it is clearly not. When LW writes, that "It suits Obama’s reluctance to challenge Muslim societies in any seriously critical way ... to have the policy of democratization represented in the American mind by the Iraq war" am I the only one waiting to here what other policies he has in mind? Does LW have some specific actions that the US can take in mind here? Do tell! You can't complain that Obama is willfully ignoring available effective policies and not even hint at what those policies might be! The Iraq war should not be the first and last word on American policy, but if LW is going to challenge those who are preoccupied with learning lessons from it he should offer some other lessons for us to consider - other than merely complain that people sound like Brent Scowcroft.
- NR851651
June 23, 2010 at 4:48am
Well for one thing we could participate in the UN more effectively, starting with a challenge (another challenge) to the so-called Human Rights Council that doesn't support human rights but which is ok with making blasphemy illegal. http://en.rsf.org/human-rights-council-resolution-on-29-03-2010,36856.html Plus - sometimes "just" making speeches is the best we can and should do. Obama has both talent and opportunity and he isn't using them. One doesn't have to challenge "the other's" fundamental right to be different to clearly articulate the ideals of one's own culture, and so at the very least open a dialogue and provoke thought and self-examination. Engagement is the right idea I think - but engaging solely with the leaders - bad, oppressive leaders and/or radical groups - even dumber trying to find "moderation" in radical groups - is the wrong way to go. Rather we should be trying to engage with the people and that's where we'll find common ground. This is especially true in places like Iran where the people are often highly educated and cultured, the opposite of their government. It would work in Egypt and Lebanon as well. In Egypt there are two huge problems politically - MB et.al. and Mubarak, admittedly "our" dictator but nevertheless a person who throws bloggers and other dissidents into jail. Meantime opposition parties get exactly nowhere. Perhaps it would help if they sensed some open minds and at least some moral support in the West? There are millions and millions of people in Egypt and some of them are interested in learning about the West, or they are already learned and they lean toward being a modern Mediterranean state - they already have democratic ideals and they deplore both the dictatorship and the religious fundamentalists. There's some similarity in cosmopolitan Lebanon which nevertheless has a huge internal problem in the form of Hezbollah and the looming threat of Syria which doesn't really recognize Lebanese sovereignty. But instead of speaking out strongly against the extremism of Hezbollah and also the threat of Syria, we are trying to find "moderate" Hezbollahlim and "engage" with Assad. Why can't we speak to the people - in Iran, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria? This doesn't mean we can't deal with their governments as required but disappearing our own ideals in order to deal with the likes of Ahmadijenad can't be right. Also - by so doing we're assuming that the hardest, most radical line represents the majority of Muslims or the true nature of their communities or cultural ideals. Is that fair or even remotely accurate?
- Sophia
June 23, 2010 at 11:31am
I don't really care that much if the Iraq War is a problem for liberals in the same way that the Vietnam War was, in that it automatically makes all future American military action suspect and undesireable. Maybe some people in the Obama Administration think that way, but it's hardly obvious that the Administration as a whole acts on -- not with what they are doing in Afghanistan, not to mention the drones over Pakistan and continued special operations warfare in Eastern Africa and elsewhere. The real problem of the Iraq War that liberal interventionists like LW insist on ignoring is that it's an ongoing war, with an ongoing material and financial drain on America's finite resources. If there was no need to maintain troops in Iraq or on its borders -- and if there was no ongoing collateral damage to America's reputation in Europe and the Muslim world from the way in which the Iraq War was waged -- liberal interventionism in Iran, Afghanistan, Darfur and elsewhere (and America's moral authority on behalf of liberal democracy and human rights all over the world) would be much more feasible than it is today. It's a shame that some liberals have wholeheartedly embraced political realism the way they or their forebears had embraced isolationism in the aftermath of Vietnam. But at least today's realist liberals have the reality of the ongoing costs of Iraq to justify their beliefs in a way that yesterday's isolationist liberals didn't have once America's participation in the Vietnam War ended.
- wildboy
June 23, 2010 at 2:49pm
And who was it that lead the Iraqi dissidents to believe the US would be there to support them militarily if they challenged Hussein? It is hypocrits, not sinners, for whom Jesus expressed anger and contempt.
- rayward
June 23, 2010 at 4:42pm
"I do not see that opposition to the war in Iraq need amount to opposition to the modern tradition of American interventionism in toto." And just what tradition of American interventionism is that? Grenada? Panama? Wieseltier simply invented this "tradition" so as to be able to claim that it has been abandoned. Has the man read the UN charter to which we are a signatory? It does not provide for starting wars in order to remove governments we don't like, even very brutal governments we don't like. The permitted bases for military action are authorization by the Security Council or individual or collective self-defense. There is a liberal tradition of abiding by treaty obligations and taking multi-lateralism seriously, both of which were detested by the neo-cons, and seemingly by Wieseltier. It makes me uncomfortable when he purports to speak for liberalism, because I rather doubt that he is one. He appears to me to have a great deal more in common with neo-con idealists. And we see how well they have done.
- roidubouloi
June 23, 2010 at 11:31pm
When the old CON roidubouloi dies his tombstone will read: I was NOT A NEO CON What else was he, is he, who no one knows.
- jdyer
June 25, 2010 at 7:52pm
“There is a liberal tradition of abiding by treaty obligations and taking multi-lateralism seriously, both of which were detested by the neo-cons, and seemingly by Wieseltier.” “Seemingly” here is a crucial word. Was he or wasn’t he for multilateralism? Every President since Roosevelt including Republicans were multi-lateralists. Bush the elder was a multilateralist. To judge someone as liberal or conservative based on this one criteria strikes me as deficient. If Wieseltier is not a liberal the word has no meaning.
- jdyer
June 25, 2010 at 7:57pm
“The real problem of the Iraq War that liberal interventionists like LW insist on ignoring is that it's an ongoing war, with an ongoing material and financial drain on America's finite resources.” This is true, except that conservatives like Patrick Buchanan were also against the war in Iraq and pretty much for the same reason. Does this make wildboy a conservative?
- jdyer
June 25, 2010 at 8:01pm
I say "seemingly" because Wieseltier rights about policy in an idiosyncratic, poetic way that makes it somewhat difficult to discern what, if anything, he is really advocating. I am certain, however, that the "modern tradition of American intervention" is a complete fiction, and one that happens to echo the tropes of neo-con idealism. Does that make Wieseltier a neo-con? Well, he can call himself what he likes, but his main point is to make common cause with the main foreign policy tenets of the neo-cons -- American intervention, purportedly in the service of American ideals, without apparent regard for treaty obligations, international institutions, and multilateralism. If that is not what Wieseltier intends, then I have no idea what he is talking about and doubt that he does either. That is not a liberal agenda, certainly not one that I recognize, and I don't want it to be a liberal agenda. I want prudence to be the first principle, not adventurism. "Common cause" with like-minded nations to be the second principle. Military restraint and a preference for other means. Things like that. Bush I may have been a multilateralist, but Bush II sure as hell wasn't. There is no such thing as a neo-con multilateralist and Republican multilateralists have become few and far between. If anyone has abandoned first principles, it is the Republicans who have gone from being stone-hearted realists to weepy idealists. Liberals haven't changed that much, as Wieseltier pretends. Only the conservative critique of them has changed, from one extreme to the other. The conservatives used to find liberals insufficiently realist, now they think them insufficiently idealists. What they have been, at least since Roosevelt, is pragmatic. Wishing to act in concert with American ideals but realistic about what is achievable at any given moment in time and disinclined to use force unless it is a necessity.
- roidubouloi
June 26, 2010 at 11:59am
"writes" not "rights"
- roidubouloi
June 26, 2010 at 12:01pm
Roidubouloi “I say "seemingly" because Wieseltier rights (sic) about policy in an idiosyncratic, poetic way that makes it somewhat difficult to discern what, if anything, he is really advocating.” I may not agree with everything he says, but I have no difficulty understanding what he is saying. Perhaps you should read more poetry. In any case, you say “rights” I say “writes,” let’s call the whole thing off. “There is no such thing as a neo-con multilateralist” That may be so presently, though there is nothing in neo-conservative” dogma which negates “multilateralism.” They were multilateralists, btw, during the cold war. (I don’t agree with neo-conservative ideology whether its unilateralist or multilaterilist. I think of it in the same way I think of President Wilson’s attempt to bring democracy to the world. In both cases what they got instead was a more destructive form of tyranny.) “and Republican multilateralists have become few and far between.” Yes, but if it will suit their interests they will become multilateralists again as they were in the past. PS: I see that somebody edited and corrected Roi's post.
- jdyer
June 26, 2010 at 12:20pm
Neo-con dogma abhors anything that neo-cons think constrains the use of American power for their idealist adventures. Their dogma is that international institutions and multilateralism (if it consists of any more than "America leads, you follow") constrain American power. Hence, they are to be mocked and destroyed. The fact that these things, although limiting in some respects, enhance American power if used intelligently escapes them precisely because they are wedded to their dogma.
- roidubouloi
June 26, 2010 at 12:45pm
roidubouloi "Neo-con dogma abhors anything that neo-cons think constrains the use of American power for their idealist adventures." Where is the neo con manifesto to which all "neo cons" adhere to? I don't believe that there is a single "neo-con" dogma. Like all ideological movements there is plurality of points of views within it. The attempt to impose a uniformity of belief is in itself a sign of dogmatic thinking.
- jdyer
June 26, 2010 at 1:14pm
Of course, there is never unanimity on every single thing or a single authoritative voice, even in the Catholic Church. But that does not prevent us from understanding the main themes of an ideology, even in the absence of a manifesto. That the US should not subject itself to any of the constraints necessary for the successful function of international institutions or for the maintenance of coordinated multilateral approaches to problems is about as much in the core of neo-con belief as anything else. Applying your standard -- the absence of manifesto -- it becomes impossible ever to talk about what neo-cons believe or liberals believe or what almost anyone believes except one-by-one. By definition, "neo-cons believe" what most neo-cons profess to believe. It is dogma to the extent that it is impervious to factual refutation. The neo-con belief that participation in multi-national undertakings (other than, as I said, "we lead, you follow") diminishes American power is neo-con dogma. So is the idea of the US trotting the globe effecting regime change when there are regimes who do not share our values is possible or effective or does not lead to much worse (their version of the Wilsonian dogma that you describe) unless it is a mult-lateral undertaking and therefore reflects a much broader international consensus of moral or practical necessity.
- roidubouloi
June 26, 2010 at 2:46pm
roidubouloi "Of course, there is never unanimity on every single thing or a single authoritative voice, even in the Catholic Church. But that does not prevent us from understanding the main themes of an ideology, even in the absence of a manifesto." Yes, but the main theme as you presented it: "Neo-con dogma abhors anything that neo-cons think constrains the use of American power for their idealist adventures." Is not that different from the way all American administrations have acted at least in the 20th c. Wilson when he finally joined the fight in Europe (his adventure) insisted on his policies and so did Roosevelt. Where they neocons too? There is no American President who would willinlgy follow the lead of another country when engaging in conflict.
- jdyer
June 26, 2010 at 3:31pm
Yes, but it is not a liberal view that we should engage in armed conflict unilaterally unless in self-defense or that we should engage in armed conflict for other than the most urgent reasons and in the absence of a plausible alternative. Plus, liberals don't see the compromises necessary for multilateral action as unduly restraining the US. In every coalition war in which we have been involved, we have always had the tactical and strategic control by virtue of our power. Other than as a matter of dogmatic belief, the neo-con hostility to multilateralism makes no sense at all. Nor do I think we have undertaken wars for fundamentally idealistic reasons. I cannot think of one. We engage in war to protect ourselves, our power, our prerogatives, and our access to resources of various kinds. Even Iraq was for the purpose of demonstrating our power, what happens if we are defied, not for the purpose of liberating its people. This idea of Wieseltier's of a "modern tradition of interventionism" is a pure fiction -- right out of the neo-con critique of both conservative and liberal government.
- roidubouloi
June 26, 2010 at 4:05pm
roidubouloi “Yes, but it is not a liberal view that we should engage in armed conflict unilaterally unless in self-defense or that we should engage in armed conflict for other than the most urgent reasons and in the absence of a plausible alternative.” This is the liberal view of the moment. It wasn’t the view of Truman, for example, when he went to war in Korea. The US hadn’t been attacked. My point is that the neo cons are not something new in American history and politics. The self declared uber liberals like to see them as some malevolent force, that is new, but that is far from the case. For the rest we can continue this till it hails in hell without agreeing. I am posting while watching the US Ghana soccer game which interests me more that a conversation about the neo-cons whom I also hold in contempt, but for different reasons than yours. Time to say, "we disagree" and let it go at that. If you can say that, then you have gone a long way in rehabilitating yourself in my eyes.
- jdyer
June 26, 2010 at 4:35pm
The war in Korea was authorized by the Security Council. So there can be no question but that we disagree, seemingly about what facts are relevant among other things. Enjoy the game.
- roidubouloi
June 26, 2010 at 5:43pm