The New Republic

I'm not sure that the majority of Americans are mad about the situation in Iran simply because they see the election as "stolen".  Ahmadinejad has - maybe fairly - been made out as an anti-American nutjob, hell-bent on destroying everything we Americans stand for.  We want him to lose, and we hope the next guy will be better.  I'm not sure there would be this kind of outrage if the tables were turned and a pro-American leader was fixing the vote against an anti-American challenger.  The anger here is more a product of Ahmadinejad and Mousavi's stances toward the U.S. rather than any real sympathy for the Iranian people.  If travesties like Darfur and Myanmar and Tibet don't spark widespread outrage, one measly fixed election surely won't, I hate to say.

- dmalato2

June 16, 2009 at 1:26am

Is there a college somewhere out in the heartland of America that pops out foreign policy experts like the OctoMom pops our babies.?

Or maybe they all graduated from Bilderberg U?

This is but another surreal commentary that aims to dislocate American foreign policy from the reality of history itself.

Instead, the agenda is said to come down to the principled idealists who are waging a punditocrat war against the, "I'm all right Jack", realists.

Consensus?

What was the "consensus on Iran" back in the 1950s when we drove from office a democratically elected government? What was the consensus when we installed one of histories most brutal dictators in Tehran? What was the consensus when, after the Shah was deposed, we backed the dictator Saddam Hussein against Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran?

Does Richard Just have an informed opinion about the manner in which the Monroe Doctrine was brutally enforced in Caentral and South America for decades and decades? Is he able to note where the American government came down hard on the European nations as they went around the globe colonizing Third World nations?

Note for me please a single Democratic or Republican administration who came out against this flagrant imperialism by shaming its proponents with words like "democracy", "freedom", "human rights".

WHAT foreign policy idealism, Mr Just?!

If the American government was so outraged at what unfolded during the "Tiananmen Square crackdown" why did it grant China most favored nation trade status? Why did our government [and Wall Street] jack up economic contracts with these brutal oppressors of freedom and human rights in China?

This is just my opinion, of course, but how could any pundit in America actually reconcile the reality of American foreign policy over the centuries with this:

"And it is refreshing to see, for the first time in a long time, that so many Americans of so many different political inclinations are watching a struggle over freedom in a faraway place, and are ready to take sides."

George:

Will this happen in Iran before or after Clinton and Obama cracks down on, say, Saudi Arabia?

And if democracy is so precious to America how come we kicked Hamas in the teeth after they won their own democratic election a couple of years ago?

george walton

- iambiguous

June 16, 2009 at 1:30am

George is funny.  He should get his own blog: bilderbergwatch.blogspot.com.  

I think dmalato is right: there was a tension between extremist Iranian interests and American sensibilities that A'jad was very much exploiting with his rhetoric, so we were personally involved when he was up for election.  Clever way to get attention, but now it looks like it has its consequences.  I wonder if America would have been so unified if Hexbollah carried the needed percentage of the Lebanese elections to grant them the power share that they (Hezbollah) needed to really break the camel's back with respect to Middle Eastern power structure.  I suppose not, because Hezbollah isn't as outspoken as A'jad, but I think there is a good chance that Nation readers would be excited about such developments if not for there entirely legal returns.  

- dylanposer

June 16, 2009 at 2:07am

dylan:

George is funny. He should get his own blog: bilderbergwatch.blogspot.com.

george:

Ah, yet another who obviates the arguments I make by subsuming them in the inside-the-beltway winks and nods of the MSM country club?

So, you suspect my point about the Bilderberg group is just a joke; that to suggest these very rich and very powerful men and women do not have enormous influence and impact on global events is the only logical perspective a rational mind would pursue?

Okay, why don't you take the opportunity to read the argument below. Then you can pick their arguments apart while humiliating me at the same time. I suspect lots of folks at TNR would like to bear witness to the unfolding of that.

You see, there really is a bilderberg website!!

From bilderberg.net:

What are Bilderberg Conferences all about?

The Bilderberg Secretariat proclaims the conferences to be '...private in order to encourage frank and open discussion'. Frank and open discussion is a good thing in any forum but when those doing the discussing are some of the very most powerful financiers and media tycoons in the world it begs the question: If what they discuss is for the good of ordinary people why not publicise it! Isn't it a perverted use of the word 'open' when no-one can find out what they're saying?

Is Bilderberg a secret conspiracy?

When such rich and powerful people meet up in secret, with military intelligence managing their security, with hardly a whisper escaping of what goes on inside, people are right to be suspicious. But the true power of Bilderberg comes from the fact that participants are in a bubble, sealed off from reality and the devastating implications on the ground of the black-science economic solutions on the table.

No, it's not a 'conspiracy'. The world's leading financiers and foreign policy strategists don't get together at Bilderberg to draw up their 'secret plans for the future'. It's subtler than that. These meetings create an artificial 'consensus' in an attempt to spellbind visiting politicians and and other men of influence. Blair has fallen for this hook, line and sinker. It's about reinforcing - often to the very people who are on the edge of condemning Globalisation - the illusion that Globalisation is 'good', 'popular' and that it's inevitable.

Bilderberg is an extremely influential lobbying group. That's not to say though that the organisers don't have a hidden agenda, they do, namely acumulation of wealth and power into their own hands whilst explaining to the participants that globalisation is for the good of all. It is also a very good forum for 'interviewing' potential future political figures such as Clinton (1991) and Blair (1993). [see above for more on this]

The ideology put forward at the Bilderberg conferences is that what's good for banking and big business is good for the mere mortals of the world. Silently banished are the critical voices, those that might point out that debt is spiralling out of control, that wealth is being sucked away from ordinary people and into the hands of the faceless corporate institutions, that millions are dying as a direct result of the global heavyweight Rockefeller/Rothschild economic strategies.

When looking at one of the (partially reliable) participant lists it should be remembered that quite a number of participants are invited in an attempt to get them on-board the globalisation project. These are carefully selected people of influence, who have been openly critical of globalisation. Examples are Jonathan Porritt (Bilderberg 1999) and Will Hutton (Bilderberg 1997) but there are many others. Most of these kinds of participants are happy to speak about the conference afterwards, and may even be refreshingly critical.

The Bilderberg organisers are accepted by those 'in the know' as the prophets of Capitalism. Will Hutton, deputy Editor of The Observer newspaper in London and left-leaning Economist, described private clubs of the elite as masterminded by 'The High Priests of Globalisation'. The ecclesiastical allusion is not accidental. The Bilderberg high-priests are a force against good, out to wipe morality from the earth. For the organisers Bilderberg Conferences are an annual ideological assault by the world's most power-hungry people. Not content with owning unimaginable amounts of money and property they want to use that wealth to acquire even more power for themselves. Power is the most dangerous and addictive drugs known to man. Will the craving be satisfied when a handful of men own and control everything on earth?

And just like the Nazi party in the 1930's the global Capitalist Elite are rising in power by peaceful means. There are some very uncomfortanble and unexplained connections between Bilderberg and the Nazis through the Conference's founder Prince Bernhard.

These crown princes of capital use violence at the sharp end - the destruction of dissent - the repossession of homes men and women have worked a lifetime for - needless deaths from starvation and geopolitical machinations - this violence is notable by its absence from the annual meetings.

One can't help but wonder, when the Bilderberg organisers, Rothschild, Rockefeller, Kissinger and the rest have completed their project of enclosing all global goods and services into their own hands, enclosing too the media to stop people freely discussing what they are up to. What then?? What happens when the men who would be gods turn out to be the global devils?

Who is behind Bilderberg?

If you're wondering who's responsible for so much of the capital-friendly and dissent-crushing law-making, poverty and general misery in the world this may be the place to look. Up-to-date lists are available from the Bilderberg Secretariat. This is the closest approximation to a shadow world government. And this is another hidden agenda at Bilderberg.

There must certainly be some sociopathic minds behind Bilderberg since they go to so much trouble to promote policies that lead to exploitation, inequality and despair. These individuals seem oddly switched off from the suffering they are clearly causing. Surely only pernicious people would want to control the ideology of the world's mainstream press, and undermine natural political discourse. Public opinion and democratic institutions are a threat when you want to own the world.

The perverse objective of the Bilderberg Steering Group is to dress totalitarian corporate ideology up to appear rational and push it out, unattributable, for mass consumption under Chatham House rules. Meanwhile, outside the Bilder-bubble, 'god-is-money' globalisation is the new religon with the greedy given a pat on the back as they plunder both the earth and a large part of the human spirit.

george walton

- iambiguous

June 16, 2009 at 2:47am

 What matters to Just, it seems, is less what we do (mere "tactics") than how we feel about it.  While I appreciate Just's concern (obsession?) with first principles this seems like an overly protestant notion of foreign policy to me - our faith is important, but it isn't what's decisive.  

- benberger

June 16, 2009 at 5:14am

Good post, Mr. Just.  Americans do have democratic instincts, and want others to enjoy the freedoms we sometimes take for granted.  But other factors are at work here.  It's much easier to have a hawkish foreign policy when our enemies are nut jobs.  But what is one to do if our "enemies" want the same freedoms as we do?  With exceptions (Mr. Kristol being the biggest), it appears that the Iranian election has taken a left/right turn, and I mean in the US as well as in Iran.  Could it be that the left in the US views the election as cause for not attacking Iran?  And the right in the US views the election as cause for the US to underestimate the threat posed by Iran, whoever prevails in the election's aftermath.  The stridency in the blogs is stupefying, with those on the right  making up facts (the pre-election poll being but one example) and those on the left breaking out in song to the tune of the Battle Hymn of the Republic.  Mr. Just should be commended for at least posting a measured view of the events and what it may mean for the US.

- raylward

June 16, 2009 at 6:45am

"he principle is the same. McCain was identifying what he believed to be the more liberal, more democratic side in a faraway conflict and expressing his unabashed support for it. To hear the ridicule that greeted McCain's statement, you might have concluded that Americans had lost their appetite for foreign policy idealism of any kind."

There is a fundamental problem described in but not noticed by the author of this account, and it is summed up by the phrase, "expressing his unabashed support." Yes, McCain said "We are all Georgians." But that is no more an expression of "support" than sticking a yellow-ribbon magnet on the back of your car. Not one Georgian was aided, not one Russian was hindered, by McCain's rhetoric. Yet McCain spent three days strutting around bragging about how firm his "support" for Georgia was, as if merely speaking the words "We are all Georgians" fell somewhere on the continuum of actions between personally taking up arms against the Russian Army and airdropping boxes of rations and ammunition to the Georgian defenders. When in reality, merely saying words does not fall anywhere on any continuum of action, because words are not actions.

Over the course of the Bush years, it seems as if many Americans, including but not limited to those who identify as "conservative," have come not only to confuse words with deeds, but to earnestly believe that words are superior to deeds, such that "strength" is defined not by what you do, but by what you say. So a president who says "Bring 'em on" to our enemies, and then dithers while those enemies nearly defeat the entire U.S. military, is seen to be "strong," and a president who says nothing but sends in the Marines to kill the pirates dead and rescue their American hostage is seen to be "weak."

And back to McCain, his little three-day orgy of self-congratulatory prancing for "supporting" Georgia with his big, tough words had real and negative consequences for America. When a great power speaks in a foreign crisis, its words are seen by the world as either promises or threats. When a president, or as it turns out a candidate for president, says "We are all Georgians now," Georgians see that statement as a promise, and Russians see it as a threat. When not only is the promise/threat not followed up by actions to make good on the promise/threat, but the man who made the promise/threat cannot even, when asked, suggest what actions he might consider taking, American credibility is reduced. We lessen the respect of our friends and the fear of our enemies.

The simple rules that allow an individual to master a crisis also apply to the conduct of state policy in a crisis: Shut up. Keep calm. Assess the situation and prioritize the problems. Decide what you want to accomplish, and what actions you must take to accomplish it. Act. Repeat.

Personally, I consider myself a foreign policy idealist; I believe that American national interests are best served by the spread of liberty and the rule of law. However, my idealism is focused on achieving outcomes that serve American interest, not in slapping bumper stickers on the metaphorical SUV of state. Because of my preference for achieving ends with actions rather than simply saying whatever it feels best at the moment to say, I wind up sounding like a heartless realist when discussing foreign policy. I ridiculed McCain for declaring his "support" for Georgia not because I didn't wish Georgia success, but because I wanted actually to support Georgia. John McCain wanted to give Georgia a pep talk. I wanted to dispatch the Sixth Fleet to airlift supplies -- weapons as well as humanitarian aid -- and immediately pull out of the 2014 Winter Olympics and suspend Russia from the G7. If there were to be words, I wanted them written into the text of a Security Council resolution, and I wanted that resolution put to a vote so that Russia would be forced to veto it.

In Iran, as in Georgia, it may not at this early stage be obvious what the right thing to do is. But it is obvious that what the people we want to help don't need is a pep talk from the president of the United States. Actions, not words, and words only to the extent that we can back them with our actions. The foreign policy of theatrics and pep talks and big mouths, small sticks, is not "idealism." It is a foreign policy of masturbation, and it is a foreign policy that can lead only to our ruin as a great power and an advocate of liberty in the world.

- rhubarbs

June 16, 2009 at 8:11am

Well, I'm one of the millions out here who is motivated by real sympathy for the Iranian people more than anything else.

- Wandreycer1

June 16, 2009 at 8:41am

I don't think Americans ever stopped being idealistic in those brief moments when the average American bothers to consider foreign policy at all. [I suspect the average American is more concerned about idealism in our domestic policies, but I know domestic policy bores the hell out of many TNR contributors.]

Of course, just what one means by 'idealism' is pretty important. If it is just a word used to justify attacking countries with bad governments because those bad governments might pose a threat to Israel, I don't think this "new idealism" is going to get very far in the Obama administration. Not enough dunderheads working in the White House these days. Sorry 'bout that, chumps.

- DC Spence

June 16, 2009 at 9:08am

The Return Of Idealism: Has Iran Reawakened Our Concern For Human Rights? by Richard Just Can Ukraine's

- Anonymous

June 16, 2009 at 10:07am

Rhub, I thought the same thing about McCain's speech as you did and agree with most of what you said, except the end part: I wanted to dispatch the Sixth Fleet to airlift supplies -- weapons as well as humanitarian aid -- and immediately pull out of the 2014 Winter Olympics and suspend Russia from the G7.

That I disagree with, more weapons would have only gotten more Georgians killed, and I disagree with playing politics with the Olympics. Georgia has completely fallen off the radar for everyone and we don't have the stomach for a new cold war over it. (especially since the causes of that conflict as so muddy, which was a byproduct of borderlines being arbitrarily drawn in Moscow under the czars)

- blackton

June 16, 2009 at 10:45am

What Rhubarbs said.  Squared.

- austinexpat

June 16, 2009 at 11:20am

For me there is an abiding intellectual problem with Just’s post that shows up, for example, in the statement: “ Of course, there are sharp disagreements over how we should support the protesters. Should Obama speak out loudly on their behalf” and in the confusion between saying on the one hand , “I can understand why people did not want to hear from us when we argued for sending troops to Darfur or threatening the Burmese generals during the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis or taking a harder line on human rights in China. I still think we were right on these three issues,…” and on the other hand, “and I think that foreign policy idealism remains a far more compelling, humane way to view geopolitics than the alternative--a cold, calculating realism.”

Firstly I am not sure who Just thinks was “right on these three issues”: those who wanted more active involvement or the deciders who held back. I think he’s referring to the latter. If that’s right then his assessment of correctness seems in paradoxical tension with his immediately following lauding of foreign policy idealism.

That tension, if so it be, brings me back to my first point: Just, whose pieces I enjoy and respect,  presents an opposition between idealism and realism in foreign policy, which is trite. He adds nothing that I read to an analysis of how to steer between them and really elides that issue in noting we are liberal Iranians now, but ducking on the question of what is his view of the proper position to take on the issue and why. Rather, he disappointingly calls the elided issue tactics: “These are important questions, but they are tactical ones”.

- basman

June 16, 2009 at 11:51am

I like to think of myself as a prudent idealist in foreign policy and also as a follower of Woodrow Wilson

- Anonymous

June 16, 2009 at 11:52am

p.s. If I have misread Just and he's saying it was the activists who were right in his three examples, that resolves some of the confusion I found on first reading, but I don't think softens my underlying critique.

- basman

June 16, 2009 at 12:20pm

First, excellent post, Rhubarbs.

Second, I want to push back on Just's question: "But if we reach a situation--for instance, a Tiananmen-style crackdown--where it becomes obvious that strong condemnations and tough diplomacy will be required to protect Iranian liberals, will Obama have the stomach for it?" "Have the stomach for it" is a ridiculous frame, and underscores the points Rhubs raises. Look, if an Iranian division appears on the Canadian border ready to invade or if the Iranian air force (if it has one) launches sorties against Israel or an American aircraft carrier or whatever, Obama - and Bo, the dog, every single member of Congress, and all but about fifteen Americans - will "have the stomach" to respond to and repel the attack by any and all necessary means. If Obama's daughters were old enough to enlist, Obama and Michelle would have the fortitude to let them (a fortitude held in common with the thousands of parents of soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan).

It's not a question of fortitude - committing troops to a shooting war is gut-wrenching, but when the provocation is obvious and there's no choice but to respond with force, even force that will cost American and Iranian civilian lives, the decision is gut-wrenching, but it's also easy. (I doubt FDR deliberated more than a nanosecond on Dec. 7th, despite the tact that he knew that in a best case scenario hundreds of thousands of soldiers would be killed or wounded.)  Problems that require only guts to solve get solved pretty easily - even idiots like Achmadinejerk and Bolton can talk tough with the best of them. Even so, neither Bolton nor A-jad has an impressive foreign policy track record (and let's pray that A-jad doesn't add an Iraq-like debacle to his resume), which demonstrates that bluster is usually ineffective. Problems that require guts and wisdom and moral courage and a concern for results are more difficult. Unfortunately, the latter sort of problems are more numerous than the former (in no small part because easy problems are easily solved).

We don't need to worry about Obama's guts or yarbles - I don't have any inside knowledge, but I'd bet a substantial amount that they're up to the task. The organs I worry about are the ones above his shoulders and those of his foreign policy advisors. They are formidable, but so is the problem. So far, the best reason for hope is that Obama and his team have not wavered in the face of transparent attempts from his opponents to score easy points by accusing them of  pusillanimity.  

- Geoff G

June 16, 2009 at 12:59pm

McCain's statement that "We are all Georgians now" was silly not because both sides were sovereign states, as Just suggests.  It was silly because it implied that we were prepared to do something real to support "our Georgian brothers".

Since it was clear that the US was far to over-extended to do a damn thing, McCain's statement came across as pseudo-Churchillian political postering.

- nathang

June 16, 2009 at 3:07pm

I think it's also worth saying -- echoing Rhubarbs and a few others here -- that not only is it a masturbatory foreign policy (nothing against, you know, but . . .) to do the "we're all Georgians now" thing, but the implied suggestion that we are re-connecting with a tough, Cold War idealism by doing so is nonsense.

At least on the level of individual protests/uprisings in Soviet Bloc countries, we did not intervene militarily in East Germany in 1953, in Hungary in 1957, in Czechoslovakia in 1968, or in Poland in 1970 or 1981.  The reason for not doing so was, perhaps, the lack of purpose in confronting the Soviets in a way that could escalte out of control.  Our help to Yugoslavia in the 1950s took place after Tito managed to kick out the Russians, and about our Cuban escapade little more can be added to the miles of words already spoken.

Indeed, in the case of Czechoslovakia we had already abandoned a pro-American leader in 1948, seemingly without too much moral wrenching.

In fact we spent the Cold War not intervening, except in Korea and Vietnam.  There was a reason why Wilsonian rhetoric was replaced by the more measured -- although still committed -- tones on FDR in the mid 20th century.

- ironyroad

June 16, 2009 at 4:29pm

As Amir Taheri's new book points out, Mossadegh wasn't "democratically elected" , he was appointed by the Shah, who was already the head of state. Mossadegh had dissolved the Parliment and was ruling by decree. The Soviet Union was making incursions into Iran. The coup was actually driven by the British and it failed. The religious fundamentalists actually deposed him.

- burdojs

June 16, 2009 at 11:45pm

Or not:

en.wikipedia.org/.../Mohammed_Mosaddeq

- ironyroad

June 17, 2009 at 4:44am

What should we make of Iran's contested elections? Here's a roundup of some of TNR's best

- Anonymous

June 17, 2009 at 9:56am

Learning From Clinton , by Stanley B. Greenberg Ayatollah Khamenei's Massive Miscalculation About

- Anonymous

June 17, 2009 at 4:07pm