A major defect in the anti-war movement has been its inability to construct a contemporary and relevant narrative. (more…)
The The New York Times has an article up which claims that there might be a war going on between pragmatists and neoconservatives in the McCain camp. They don’t have whole lot of facts to back their case up, nor do they have a good basis to argue that McCain is attracted to the neoconservative point of view all of a sudden. Kevin Sullivan responds: ‘The obvious assumption made throughout the article is that there are two camps in conservative circles; those who mistrust the world, and those who wish to blow it up. I expect such silly distinctions from the far, far Left, but it would be nice if the Paper of Record could do as Mario Cuomo once advised, and write in fine-quill pens rather than broad strokes that insult their readership.’
Cernig at Newshoggers has posted a critique of McCain’s proposal for a “league of democracies” to supplement the diminishing returns of the bloated United Nations. In his critique, however, Cernig embraces a classic strawman technique, ascribing a belief to McCain supporters that none of them actually embrace: (more…)
I have already said much about the disappointing lack of professionalism in military analyst Thomas P.M. Barnett’s Esquire piece on ADM William Fallon. Under pretense of a fawning profile, Barnett takes a series of hackneyed shots at the old “neocon” bogeymen, concluding with the prediction that Fallon’s retirement would be a harbinger of impending war.
Well, such irresponsible accusations can have serious consequences, as those not tuned into the typical U.S. political game of hyperbolic demonization might think that the predictions are for real. Now that Fallon actually has retired, the U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is trying to reassure jittery allies that war is not, in fact, iminent and that Barnett’s prediction was based on nothing. (more…)
The Washington Independent published quite an interesting article about Samantha Power, formerly the top foreign policy adviser to Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama. The main point: Power is a member of a completely different generation of advisers than we’re used to. She “is a fierce advocate who relishes confrontation.” And her “bellicose words” highlight “the adversarial style of a new generation of Democratic foreign-policy mavens who have more in common with the raucous world of bloggers than the somber, oak-lined environs of the Council on Foreign Relations.” (more…)
Military officers’ involvement in foreign policy is nothing new. (more…)
Yesterday was a big day for Senator John McCain: he can finally call himself the Republican nominee. Two days ago he collected enough delegates to win this thing. He has no opponents left. It’s a done deal. So, Republican President George W. Bush invited McCain to the White House, where the two of them held a press conference during which Bush endorsed McCain. (more…)
Kevin Sullivan agrees with something that my own sources in the region say is the real underlying dynamic regarding U.S.-Iran relations — playing one side off against the other. Where I differ from Kevin, however, is in who is doing the playing. Kevin argues that Iran is the one that promotes instability in an effort to keep the U.S. in the region. My source — a highly placed adviser to the government of a major Gulf state — argues that the non-Iran states are the ones who want to keep the U.S. and Iran at each other’s throats as a way of balancing growing Iranian power on the cheap. He argues that what many Gulf states fear most is the recognition by Iran and the U.S. of a common, cooperative interest that would enhance Iranian influence in the region to their detriment. (more…)
NATO ain’t what she used to be. (more…)
Eminent international relations scholar Stephan Walt takes note of the controversy over the New York Times hiring of William Kristol for its op-ed page and rejects the premise that it is neoconservative voices that are under-represented in public discourse regarding foreign policy. Instead, Walt argues that what is really missing is a realist perspective — an intellectual tradition long dominant in academic circles, but strangely lacking among “public intellectuals” like those that dominate op-ed pages.
If you want to read Governor Mike Huckabee’s foreign policy plans click here. He wrote the article for the magazine Foreign Affairs. Quite some bloggers have already analyzed it, we haven’t dealt with it yet. I’m not sure why none of the other contributors hasn’t done so, I simply didn’t have the time yet to do so. I’ll write an analysis, however, tomorrow. So for my take on his plans, you’ll have to wait 24 hours.
Meanwhile, here is Huckabee on foreign policy, h/t Hot Air (video after the fold): (more…)
I don’t think TNR comes out of the Beauchamp affair looking good. Beauchamp, from a distance, seems like a major douche whose reliability is weak. The anecdotes in question, however, are pretty trivial when compared to things that happen in every war, and can be viewed on Youtube if you look, as soldiers goof off. That’s why I’ve never quite grasped why this story was so maddening to the Bush right. But when you read a usually mild-mannered Pete Wehner accusing TNR of hating the troops and wanting to smear them, you realize how deep the nuttiness has gone… (more…)
Those looking for election fraud might finally have the real thing. (more…)
This post selectively quotes from the French President’s address to a Joint Session of Congress. The full text of his speech is available here.
On terrorism:
Let me tell you solemnly today: France will remain engaged in Afghanistan as long as it takes, because what’s at stake in that country is the future of our values and that of the Atlantic Alliance. For me, failure is not an option. Terrorism will not win because democracies are not weak, because we are not afraid of this barbarism. America can count on France.
On Iran: (more…)
“Six years after 9/11, it is clear that Al Qaeda does not have the organizational capacity or resources to pose a systematic danger to American lives or interests, and that common-sense counterterrorist measures–better intelligence, more effective border control and internationally coordinated police work–can dramatically reduce the risk of terrorist attack. It is also clear that Al Qaeda does not have the popular appeal in Muslim societies to constitute a threat to any significant government, despite the boost that Bush Administration policies may have given to Al Qaeda recruitment.”
That’s Sherle Schwenninger talking in the current (November 19) issue of The Nation. Her choice of words is notable in several respects. “It is clear” (a twice-used phrase) means that any thinking person cannot help but agree with her and that those who do not are ill-informed, ill-intentioned, or both. “Does not have the organizational capacity or resources to pose a systemic danger to American lives or interests” asserts as fact what is necessarily a matter of opinion and omits mention of the possibility that Al Qaeda will someday acquire and then use weapons of mass destruction. (more…)
Chanting “independence or death,” the shrouded women of the Persian revolutionary movement stormed the government building in Tehran. Demanding national independence and liberty, these women boldly unveiled, tossing their chadors to the ground in mass, public protest. Questioning the very manhood of the men who were an embarrassment to their fathers, these patriots threatened to take the lives of their sons, their husbands, in addition to their own, lest they live their remaining days in an occupied and stunted Persia.
This dramatic scene did not happen recently, nor did it occur during the more commonly understood Iranian Revolution of 1979. This happened during the waning days of a vibrant constitutional movement that would forever change the nation of Iran. From it they gained a parliament (or Majlis), and for the first time in Persian history, a set of rights and entitlements that didn’t flow from the crown or the cleric. Tradesmen, clergymen and secular intellectuals, men and women alike, desperately attempted to salvage the last vestiges of their young constitution from a despotic shah and his Cossack thugs.
After reading that headline, you’re probably wondering: “Steve who? I don’t remember a Presidential candidate named Steve.”
Rest easy. You’re not losing your mind. At least, not for this reason.
Steve’s not a candidate, but he is an exceptionally good blogger — viz., Steve Clemons at The Washington Note — who managed yesterday (like we all do sometimes) to “step in it” when he defended Barack and took an uncharacteristically weak jab at Hillary for their respective foreign-policy answers to one of the CNN/YouTube debate questions (and Hillary’s later defense of the same). This morning, after some uproar, Steve backtracked … slightly.
At Central Sanity, I’ve offered my take on Steve’s first and second posts. (In short, if you don’t want to click over, I dissed the first one and thought he was more constructive on the second.)
Now, if you care to share, I’d be interested in your opinions on this topic, because I think it is a critically important one in the overall scheme of evaluating the slate of U.S. Presidential candidates. As I wrote in my CS post:
… we need an adult running the country, not some over-anxious kid so desperate for bullies to like him that he’s willing to go out of his way to sit at their lunch table before he first considers the big picture and takes appropriate steps to protect himself and his friends.
And yes, by “over-anxious kid” I might have very well been referring to Senator Obama.
Dr. James Joyner links to Marc Lynch at Abu Aardvark, who “has been keeping track of the major agenda items at the wide circulation Arab media.” Some of Marc’s findings:
* “American public diplomacy is often better served by standing back, rather than doing more and inserting itself in every issue”
* “[T]he more that a unifying frame takes hold, placing the various regional crises into a single grand narrative, the more likely that it will trigger anti-American attitudes and popular hostility to American foreign policy - even if a sizable portion of the analysis is anti-Hamas, anti-Hezbollah, and sympathetic to American policy.”
James - quite accurately - comments: “So, when they’re really unified in concern about something they reflexively direct their anger at the United States even when they blame internal actors. If that’s the case, it would seem that there’s not a hell of a lot we can do to alter Arab public opinion any time soon.”
Canadian Tar Heel comments at Abu:
I hadn’t thought about it quite the way you’re putting it, but I have been thinking for weeks that there’s a narritive taking place. The US is supporting forces in Lebanon and Palestine and Iraq. People are getting killed. Here in the States, everyone I talk to basically says, oh, they’ve been killing each other forever.
But I’m afraid the Arab street sees it differently.
In essence the problem now is that America has become the boogyman. When something happens, Arabs blame the US, even when the US had nothing directly to do with it. Reading Marc’s post gives me the impression that the US might be best served by completely withdrawing itself from the Middle East: let them battle it out among themselves.
If only it were that easy. Sadly, it is not. If the US withdraws, the US will still be blamed and a very real danger exists that extremists will take over several countries and will attack the US through their proxies. Besides that, the reality of the situation is that the West needs oil. This automatically means that the US is always - in one way or another - involved in the Mideast.
Of course, this would mean that the US would have to become energy independent. On the other hand, I can imagine that the people in the Mideast will not love America more if America stops buying their oil: it is the only thing they have they can sell.
Jason wrote a good, thoughtful post about “liberal hawks,” in response to Ezra Klein’s post, Ron Chusid’s post and, finally, my post on this subject.
Jason writes:
In regards to Iran, Klein’s criticism of the moderate position relies on a failure common among ideological purists — the inability to see anything other than purist options on the table. He casts the question entirely as about the use of force, as if the only available options are to bomb now or, as he prefers, to downplay the danger of Ahmedinejad and treat him instead as a man we can successfully work with. Klein fears that any recognition of Ahmedinejad’s possibly genocidal and totalitarian agenda feeds a “pro-war narrative” that must be avoided at all costs. In doing so, he makes the classic error of the ideological purist in consciously setting aside a honest evaluation of the evidence for fear that it may lead to the “wrong” conclusions.
Klein need not be so fearful. “Liberal hawk” moderates do not long for war with Iran, nor are they so bereft of intelligence and reasoning powers as to be incapable of articulating alternative ideas in the aftermath of failure in Iraq. We can, in fact, identify a specific middle way that avoids the errors of Iraq without giving in to a weak approach towards Ahmedinejad now. Many elements of this approach can be seen in U.S. policy now, including support for diplomatic engagements with Iran seeking to provide incentives as well as punishments, economic and technological sanctions that serve to limit or at least slow the ability of Ahmedinejad’s regime to pursue nuclear weapons, economic and cultural pressures that target his regime’s political repression, and, yes, the maintenance of military options in the background for use if (and only if) all other pressures fail and Ahmedinejad actually moves to acquire nuclear warheads and the means to use them for fulfillment of his openly-stated goal of the genocidal destruction of Israel. Contrary to Klein’s claims, planning for military action does not mean embrace of a “pro-war narrative”. The threat is real and serious and our tools are limited and fallible, but progress is possible, as prior success in South Africa and recent breakthroughs with North Korea have demonstrated.
This multifaceted approach is not vagueness, as Klein charges, but rather pragmatism matched with an appreciation for the complexity of the situation and the insufficiency of single tools or single ideologies operating alone. In his desire to “play gotcha”, Klein has missed the point: The best approach is a moderate approach.
Jason is, of course, quite right. Foreign policy requires a flexible mind - this means, among other things, that every and all options should always be on the table. The decision to go to war should not be made lightly (we can now conclude that Bush made this mistake regarding Iraq), but sometimes using force is necessary, no matter how much we dislike it. We have to weigh all pros and cons, we first have to use all diplomatic tools available but, in the end, force can never be ruled out.
It is interesting to see that this debate returns every now and then. During the Cold War there was the same debate going on in America: Barry Goldwater dealt with that in his book The Conscience of a Conservative.
Many doves also believe that the US should lead a major effort to destroy all nuclear weapons: the world must - according to these people - become a nuclear-free zone. This sounds nice in theory, but there is one major problem: the US is so powerful militarily because it has nuclear weapons. If it would destroy its nuclear arsenal, it loses its edge. China, for instance, has the potential to have a much bigger and stronger army than the US has both countries only have (and / or use) conventional weapons. If the US has nuclear weapons - and is willing to use them if absolutely necessary - China will not be able to take advantage of the size of its military. If it tries to, it knows that it puts itself at risk. If the US, however, destroys all its nuclear weapons, there will be no stopping China if China decides to invade one country or another.
Ron Chusid, meanwhile, argues:
The first fallacy here is to define hawk and dove in a manner favorable to his own position and unfavorable to the opposing viewpoint when they do not accurately describe the views of those labeled. Doves would counter that they are willing to use force when needed, but that hawks turn to force before exhausting other remedies. In other words, doves could also quote John Kerry, including the passage linked above, his warnings that war should only be used as a last resort, and his pre-war warnings at Georgetown for George Bush not to rush to war.
In having both sides quote John Kerry we see the ultimate fallacy of declaring some people to permanently be hawks and the others doves. While perhaps true of some, for many it depends upon the particular circumstances. Currently dove might be applied to those who oppose the Iraq war, while those in support are considered hawks. This is misleading as many of us who opposed the Iraq war supported the war in Afghanistan, and part of our opposition included the fact that the war was a distraction from the more important war against al Qaeda following the 9/11 attacks. Are those of us who supported one war and opposed another hawks, doves, or just sensible individuals?
[…]
Labels such as hawk and dove simply fail to describe the views of many individuals, and when used it is a mistake to claim that doves “oppose using military force, because it is military force.” Statements such as this belittle all the arguments used against going to war, which is especially erroneous considering the degree to which the events which have unfolded have proven us right.
And that is - of course - where Ron is wrong. There are quite some progressives who are now calling on politicians to rule out using military force against Iran. They are not just talking about not using military force now, they are talking about not using military force ever. You can even hear them argue that Iran with a nuclear weapon will not be as bad, as dangerous, as hawks suggest. Next ‘argument’: Israel has WMDs as well, if Israel is allowed to have them, shouldn’t we allow Iran to have them as well? All in all, these people would never support using force to prevent Iran from developing WMDs.
Of course, there are also the ones who simply believe that the West should not strike against Iran now, but we are not talking about those people here (I mean, I am one of them). We are talking about people like Ezra Klein who believe that we should not talk about the bad things Iran does, because doing so might encourage haws to attack Iran.
Want to know what the weakest states in the world are? Head on over to Foreign Policy. The ‘top’ 10:
1- Sudan
2- Iraq
3- Somalia
4- Zimbabwe
5- Chad
6- Ivory Coast
7- Congo
8- Afghanistan
9- Guinea
10- Central African Republic
Good: Iraq is not number one.
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