Thursday, May 27, 2004
Slogging Ahead
“Mookie,” the Despair Coalition, and magic in Iraq.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This editorial appears in the (forthcoming) June 14, 2004, issue of National Review.
In a primetime speech, the first of several he is to give weekly, President Bush reiterated his vision for the new Iraq. If the speech didn't contain anything new, except for the symbolic gesture of proposing to destroy Abu Ghraib, it usefully signaled the president's resolve and engagement. Bush did not grovel and apologize for past mistakes, as his critics would like. But he spoke relatively frankly about the difficulties in Iraq and our "failure" — his word — to create a credible Iraqi military force. He stood by his essential vision of a free Iraq, but did it in a non-utopian key. He declared his goal "a representative government that protects basic rights," and stipulated that "Iraqis will raise up a government that reflects their own culture and values." Just so.
Bush's speech came in an environment characterized by declining public support, increasing elite panic, and deepening distress among the war's most fervent supporters. Some perspective: It is important always to keep in mind the achievement of toppling Saddam, which removed a persistent threat to the region and our interests there. The deterrent effect on other rogue regimes will work in our favor in the future, and already has with Qaddafi's Libya. Yes, the occupation has been difficult, but it should be judged by Iraqi standards rather than American ones. Iraq is a Third World country ravaged by three decades of tyranny. In that context, the limited progress we have made in a year should be mildly encouraging and certainly not a cause for the black despair that has seized the political class. It is even becoming respectable to call for an American pullout, once the position only of the fringe Dennis Kucinich. Such a pullout would be a self-fulfilling recipe for disaster: Nothing would so ensure that Iraq goes down as "another Vietnam," the favorite phrase of Bush's critics.
Even some supporters of the war have joined the Despair Caucus, if for different reasons. A cadre of conservatives has been harshly denouncing the Bush administration for the raid on Ahmed Chalabi. It was indeed a ham-fisted way to distance ourselves from Chalabi. Whatever the merits of the head of the Iraqi National Congress — who has often been accused of wrongdoing — he is perceived as an ally of the United States and this public slap at him sends the message that it is risky to be our friend. That said, the Bush administration has been much more prudent in its dealings with Chalabi than the Iraqi's boosters in the U.S would have wanted. We gave Chalabi a chance to generate political support as one of 25 members of the Iraqi Governing Council, and his popularity is not yet in evidence.
But Chalabi is a footnote to the larger story in Iraq, no matter what his fervent critics in the press or fervent friends in Washington say. It has lately become a cliche among certain opinion writers that the U.S. must be seen to "lose" in Iraq, either militarily or politically, in order to give the force defeating us stature and legitimacy. This is nonsense. The U.S. must be seen to win by both Iraqis and Arabs generally, first by crushing its violent opponents in Iraq and then by establishing a stable, decent government — the ultimate victory. In this regard, no recent development has been more important than the U.S. operations against Moqtada ("Mookie," as the troops call him) al-Sadr in the south. The U.S. has dealt severe military blows to the forces of al-Sadr at the same time as it has isolated him politically by working with other, more reasonable clerics. This is a significant achievement, although one that is obscured by the media's obsession with Abu Ghraib.
The political process appears to be roughly on track for the June 30 handover to an interim government. June 30 won't be the magic date when attacks in Iraq cease or when they are perceived to be assaults against the Iraqi people, as the administration has sometimes suggested. But it will be a step forward, and the consultative assembly slated for selection in July in a caucus-like process will be Iraq's first genuinely, if crudely, representative institution in decades. Many hard days are ahead. Bush is now seeking the fourth post-invasion U.N. resolution, but it is unlikely to bring much in the way of international help. Bush has called Iraq a "heavy lift," and Rumsfeld has called it a "hard slog." We have no choice but to keep lifting, keep slogging.
“Mookie,” the Despair Coalition, and magic in Iraq.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This editorial appears in the (forthcoming) June 14, 2004, issue of National Review.
In a primetime speech, the first of several he is to give weekly, President Bush reiterated his vision for the new Iraq. If the speech didn't contain anything new, except for the symbolic gesture of proposing to destroy Abu Ghraib, it usefully signaled the president's resolve and engagement. Bush did not grovel and apologize for past mistakes, as his critics would like. But he spoke relatively frankly about the difficulties in Iraq and our "failure" — his word — to create a credible Iraqi military force. He stood by his essential vision of a free Iraq, but did it in a non-utopian key. He declared his goal "a representative government that protects basic rights," and stipulated that "Iraqis will raise up a government that reflects their own culture and values." Just so.
Bush's speech came in an environment characterized by declining public support, increasing elite panic, and deepening distress among the war's most fervent supporters. Some perspective: It is important always to keep in mind the achievement of toppling Saddam, which removed a persistent threat to the region and our interests there. The deterrent effect on other rogue regimes will work in our favor in the future, and already has with Qaddafi's Libya. Yes, the occupation has been difficult, but it should be judged by Iraqi standards rather than American ones. Iraq is a Third World country ravaged by three decades of tyranny. In that context, the limited progress we have made in a year should be mildly encouraging and certainly not a cause for the black despair that has seized the political class. It is even becoming respectable to call for an American pullout, once the position only of the fringe Dennis Kucinich. Such a pullout would be a self-fulfilling recipe for disaster: Nothing would so ensure that Iraq goes down as "another Vietnam," the favorite phrase of Bush's critics.
Even some supporters of the war have joined the Despair Caucus, if for different reasons. A cadre of conservatives has been harshly denouncing the Bush administration for the raid on Ahmed Chalabi. It was indeed a ham-fisted way to distance ourselves from Chalabi. Whatever the merits of the head of the Iraqi National Congress — who has often been accused of wrongdoing — he is perceived as an ally of the United States and this public slap at him sends the message that it is risky to be our friend. That said, the Bush administration has been much more prudent in its dealings with Chalabi than the Iraqi's boosters in the U.S would have wanted. We gave Chalabi a chance to generate political support as one of 25 members of the Iraqi Governing Council, and his popularity is not yet in evidence.
But Chalabi is a footnote to the larger story in Iraq, no matter what his fervent critics in the press or fervent friends in Washington say. It has lately become a cliche among certain opinion writers that the U.S. must be seen to "lose" in Iraq, either militarily or politically, in order to give the force defeating us stature and legitimacy. This is nonsense. The U.S. must be seen to win by both Iraqis and Arabs generally, first by crushing its violent opponents in Iraq and then by establishing a stable, decent government — the ultimate victory. In this regard, no recent development has been more important than the U.S. operations against Moqtada ("Mookie," as the troops call him) al-Sadr in the south. The U.S. has dealt severe military blows to the forces of al-Sadr at the same time as it has isolated him politically by working with other, more reasonable clerics. This is a significant achievement, although one that is obscured by the media's obsession with Abu Ghraib.
The political process appears to be roughly on track for the June 30 handover to an interim government. June 30 won't be the magic date when attacks in Iraq cease or when they are perceived to be assaults against the Iraqi people, as the administration has sometimes suggested. But it will be a step forward, and the consultative assembly slated for selection in July in a caucus-like process will be Iraq's first genuinely, if crudely, representative institution in decades. Many hard days are ahead. Bush is now seeking the fourth post-invasion U.N. resolution, but it is unlikely to bring much in the way of international help. Bush has called Iraq a "heavy lift," and Rumsfeld has called it a "hard slog." We have no choice but to keep lifting, keep slogging.
So sad if true!
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-viorst27may27,1,4162457.story
Is a New Strongman Iraq's Solution?
Perhaps only a national hero can nudge it toward Western values.
By Milton Viorst
Milton Viorst, former Middle East correspondent for the New Yorker, has written five books on the region's politics and religion.
May 27, 2004
King Abdullah II of Jordan, our best friend among the Arab leaders, this week dismissed the White House promise to install a democratic system in Iraq and said that what Baghdad needed instead was a strongman, probably from the ranks of the military, to preside over the transition to a permanent government.
His words made me recall talks I had in Baghdad on the eve of the war, when Iraqis repeatedly told me that although the impending American invasion would surely put an end to the Saddam Hussein regime, it would produce in its place not democracy but a carbon copy of Hussein. They said this without glee but rather with resignation. Most did not want another tyrant, but they had no faith in democracy's prospects or in Washington's ability to impose it.
Abdullah, however, was not calling for the restoration of a Hussein-like regime. He suggested a hero of the Iran-Iraq war, tough but untainted by Baathism, a consensus figure. Though not washing his hands of democracy entirely, he reminded us that Arab tradition tilted more readily toward authoritarianism. He seemed to be looking Arab history straight in the eye and concluding that it was all but impossible for us to build a democratic system on the rubble of the Iraqi battlefield.
Painful as it is for Americans to lay democracy aside, the king may be right. Did our planners really think Iraqis would embrace democracy coming from the barrel of a gun?
Scholars differ on the long-standing reasons for democracy's poor prospects in Iraq — religious and ethnic divisions, tribalism, Islamic theology, social patriarchy. But what is undisputed is Iraq's historical rage toward the West. The American vision of overriding that rage to design a state in our own image was never realistic, and the disorder fed by the occupation made matters only worse.
Iraq's anger, rooted in centuries of Christian-Islamic rivalry, was reborn in earnest when Britain replaced Turkey as Iraq's colonizer after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the wake of World War I. The Turks, who were both Middle Eastern and Muslim, had shared basic values with the Arabs. The British, who were Western and Christian, brought values that tore Arab society apart. It did not impress Arabs that Britain was governed democratically.
The British in Iraq organized a democratic regime, to be sure, but it was only a facade for safeguarding their own power. When they departed a few decades later, and the Arabs found themselves free to choose for themselves, they overthrew the pseudo-democracy that the colonizers had left behind and put a strongman in its place. By the time Hussein reached the top he was already known for brutality, but at least, in the eyes of Iraqis, he had none of the smell of the foreigner about him. To the end, Iraqis were proud to be ruled by one of their own.
Turkey was the one Muslim state in the region to opt for democracy, but under its own unique circumstances. The hub of a grand empire, it was often defeated in battle but never occupied by the Christian West. Used to making political decisions, it accepted the leadership of Kemal Ataturk, a strong-arm military man who preached that the country's lost grandeur could be restored only by adopting the ways of its conquerors. Democratizing Turkey was no easy task, and today, 80 years after Ataturk took power, it is far from finished. But Turkey's democracy has proved resilient.
Abdullah, though a strongman himself, is the model of a benevolent monarch. Both he and his late father, King Hussein, kept ultimate control of the state in their own hands while nudging the country toward Western values — the antidote, in their view, to the Arab world's economic and social stagnation. Although President Bush insists that it is condescending to say that Iraqis are unready for democracy, Abdullah clearly disagrees. He knows Arabs well enough to recognize the pointlessness of foisting on the Iraqis a democratic system before they are ready to embrace it on their own.
His proposal suggests a regime much like Ataturk's and a little like his own, but, in the Iraqi context, it will not be easy to keep it from sliding into Husseinism.
Iraqis are no doubt aware of the danger. Yet if the current uprising tells us anything, it is not that they want a democratic or an Islamic or a military state but that — whatever the price in blood and resources — they want to be in charge themselves of the process of choosing.
Iraq may one day get to democracy, but not as an American gift. Iraqis will have to do it the hard way, getting there on their own.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-viorst27may27,1,4162457.story
Is a New Strongman Iraq's Solution?
Perhaps only a national hero can nudge it toward Western values.
By Milton Viorst
Milton Viorst, former Middle East correspondent for the New Yorker, has written five books on the region's politics and religion.
May 27, 2004
King Abdullah II of Jordan, our best friend among the Arab leaders, this week dismissed the White House promise to install a democratic system in Iraq and said that what Baghdad needed instead was a strongman, probably from the ranks of the military, to preside over the transition to a permanent government.
His words made me recall talks I had in Baghdad on the eve of the war, when Iraqis repeatedly told me that although the impending American invasion would surely put an end to the Saddam Hussein regime, it would produce in its place not democracy but a carbon copy of Hussein. They said this without glee but rather with resignation. Most did not want another tyrant, but they had no faith in democracy's prospects or in Washington's ability to impose it.
Abdullah, however, was not calling for the restoration of a Hussein-like regime. He suggested a hero of the Iran-Iraq war, tough but untainted by Baathism, a consensus figure. Though not washing his hands of democracy entirely, he reminded us that Arab tradition tilted more readily toward authoritarianism. He seemed to be looking Arab history straight in the eye and concluding that it was all but impossible for us to build a democratic system on the rubble of the Iraqi battlefield.
Painful as it is for Americans to lay democracy aside, the king may be right. Did our planners really think Iraqis would embrace democracy coming from the barrel of a gun?
Scholars differ on the long-standing reasons for democracy's poor prospects in Iraq — religious and ethnic divisions, tribalism, Islamic theology, social patriarchy. But what is undisputed is Iraq's historical rage toward the West. The American vision of overriding that rage to design a state in our own image was never realistic, and the disorder fed by the occupation made matters only worse.
Iraq's anger, rooted in centuries of Christian-Islamic rivalry, was reborn in earnest when Britain replaced Turkey as Iraq's colonizer after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the wake of World War I. The Turks, who were both Middle Eastern and Muslim, had shared basic values with the Arabs. The British, who were Western and Christian, brought values that tore Arab society apart. It did not impress Arabs that Britain was governed democratically.
The British in Iraq organized a democratic regime, to be sure, but it was only a facade for safeguarding their own power. When they departed a few decades later, and the Arabs found themselves free to choose for themselves, they overthrew the pseudo-democracy that the colonizers had left behind and put a strongman in its place. By the time Hussein reached the top he was already known for brutality, but at least, in the eyes of Iraqis, he had none of the smell of the foreigner about him. To the end, Iraqis were proud to be ruled by one of their own.
Turkey was the one Muslim state in the region to opt for democracy, but under its own unique circumstances. The hub of a grand empire, it was often defeated in battle but never occupied by the Christian West. Used to making political decisions, it accepted the leadership of Kemal Ataturk, a strong-arm military man who preached that the country's lost grandeur could be restored only by adopting the ways of its conquerors. Democratizing Turkey was no easy task, and today, 80 years after Ataturk took power, it is far from finished. But Turkey's democracy has proved resilient.
Abdullah, though a strongman himself, is the model of a benevolent monarch. Both he and his late father, King Hussein, kept ultimate control of the state in their own hands while nudging the country toward Western values — the antidote, in their view, to the Arab world's economic and social stagnation. Although President Bush insists that it is condescending to say that Iraqis are unready for democracy, Abdullah clearly disagrees. He knows Arabs well enough to recognize the pointlessness of foisting on the Iraqis a democratic system before they are ready to embrace it on their own.
His proposal suggests a regime much like Ataturk's and a little like his own, but, in the Iraqi context, it will not be easy to keep it from sliding into Husseinism.
Iraqis are no doubt aware of the danger. Yet if the current uprising tells us anything, it is not that they want a democratic or an Islamic or a military state but that — whatever the price in blood and resources — they want to be in charge themselves of the process of choosing.
Iraq may one day get to democracy, but not as an American gift. Iraqis will have to do it the hard way, getting there on their own.
La visita di Bush in Italia
Il 4 giugno il presidente degli Stati Uniti Georg W. Bush arriva in visita ufficiale in Italia. Come va accolto?
1. Come il paladino di una "guerra giusta", nonostante le violenze e le torture denunciate dai media di tutto il mondo. 2%
2. Come l'artefice di una guerra che ha fatto migliaia di morti. Bisogna manifestare contro di lui. 43%
3. Come il presidente di un paese che si batte per la libertà. Infatti è in Italia per celebrare la liberazione dal nazifascismo. 9%
4. Come l'artefice di una "guerra sbagliata". Va esposta la bandiera della pace. 46%
33857 voti alle 10:47
sondaggio aperto alle 07:52 del 26-05-2004
Il 4 giugno il presidente degli Stati Uniti Georg W. Bush arriva in visita ufficiale in Italia. Come va accolto?
1. Come il paladino di una "guerra giusta", nonostante le violenze e le torture denunciate dai media di tutto il mondo. 2%
2. Come l'artefice di una guerra che ha fatto migliaia di morti. Bisogna manifestare contro di lui. 43%
3. Come il presidente di un paese che si batte per la libertà. Infatti è in Italia per celebrare la liberazione dal nazifascismo. 9%
4. Come l'artefice di una "guerra sbagliata". Va esposta la bandiera della pace. 46%
33857 voti alle 10:47
sondaggio aperto alle 07:52 del 26-05-2004
Wednesday, May 26, 2004
Questa sinistra moderata che non sa commuovere
di GIANNI RIOTTA
Sottovoce, i leader della sinistra moderata assicurano di non essere d'accordo, ma l'opposizione si allinea sull'Iraq con un Fausto Bertinotti in gran spolvero, felpato e ferreo nell'imporre il «tutti a casa» alle nostre truppe, che rivendica ora anche per l'Afghanistan. Poco importa che lo sfidante democratico di George W. Bush, John Kerry, chieda agli alleati di restare, poco o nulla che Kofi Annan e l'Onu assicurino che solo la forza multinazionale può dare stabilità e che perfino Hans Blix, sì l'ex ispettore scandinavo nemesi sulle armi di Saddam, dichiari candido a La Stampa : «L'Onu non può sostituire gli Usa». La scelta del centrosinistra risponde a un'opportunità elettorale, fare il pieno di voti pacifisti alle Europee, ma lascia aperto un dilemma strategico. Perché mai, cioè, la sinistra radicale detiene il monopolio delle passioni e delle emozioni, perché solo i movimentisti sanno evocare un Pantheon di eroi, usando la politica come arena etica? Perché la sinistra raziocinante crede che basti elencare le idee giuste in un istituto di ricerca, avere la battuta azzeccata al talk show di stagione e lucidare le note a piè di pagina, per contare? Ponendo questi interrogativi agli uomini della sinistra moderata, Prodi, Veltroni, Fassino, Rutelli, Letta, Bersani, Amato, Debenedetti, Ranieri, per nominarne solo alcuni, si ottengono spalle strette e risposte d'attesa, per ora va così. Ma andrà sempre così finché la sinistra pragmatica non avrà il coraggio di cambiar musica. Di capire che, accanto ai ragionamenti, ai calcoli, ai progetti, ai seminari perbene, deve saper colpire l'immaginazione e l'anima dell'opinione pubblica, commuovendo e non solo snocciolando statistiche. Lo studioso Stan Davis dimostra che, nei dibattiti tra no global e teorici dello sviluppo, i primi fanno sempre buona figura parlando dei bambini denutriti, e i secondi passano per Paperoni, malgrado - come si dirà oggi alla Conferenza di Shanghai della Banca Mondiale - dal 1981 il numero di esseri umani che la sfanga con meno di un dollaro al giorno sia diminuito di 375 milioni, un'America in meno.
La passione della democrazia, dello sviluppo, della ricerca, della libertà, dei diritti civili e umani dove sono finite? Perché la sinistra illuminata non attacca Castro e la sua dittatura dicendo: «Oggi il Che starebbe con i dissidenti a Cuba!»? Perché non cita le tre cifre dell'orrore contemporaneo, 900 miliardi l'anno in spese militari, 360 miliardi in sussidi all'agricoltura ricca e solo 50 in aiuti allo sviluppo dei poveri? Perché non guarda al Sudan, dove è in corso un genocidio silenzioso, e, denunciate le sevizie ad Abu Ghraib, non mette all'indice gli aguzzini in Siria, i soldati israeliani che spezzano le ossa agli arrestati, i palestinesi che giustiziano i delatori senza processo? Il sindaco Walter Veltroni potrebbe aprire Roma a un Forum permanente dei diritti, dalla Cina all'Egitto, alla Russia, al Venezuela e la Palestina, dove parli il Che Guevara di Timor Est, Jose Ramos Horta, premio Nobel per la pace persuaso che prendere le armi contro i dittatori sia giusto. Dove parli Ivo Daalder, che ha proposto sul Washington Pos t l'alleanza dei Paesi democratici, dagli Usa al Lussemburgo, per discutere dei propri valori e di come diffonderli nel mondo, magari con più successo della guerra unilaterale di Bush. Può nascere un Corpo della Pace, volontari finanziati dai Paesi ricchi?
Le idee della sinistra radicale commuovono in tv, ma spesso nascondono egoismo, negano diritti a chi non ce li ha, vezzeggiano dittatori decrepiti, perpetuano ingiustizie economiche e sociali con dazi e protezionismo. Se la sinistra delle riforme non ha l'eleganza di Roosevelt e Kennedy (rileggete i vecchi articoli kennedyani di Furio Colombo, Baldini&Castoldi), la passione di Havel, i piani di Brandt e Palme, l'energia malinconica di Keynes, e perfino la sensualità accattivante di Clinton, si vedrà messa alle corde da tribuni che, alla fine, non sono capaci né di vincere le elezioni, né di aiutare i poveri.
www.corriere.it/riotta
di GIANNI RIOTTA
Sottovoce, i leader della sinistra moderata assicurano di non essere d'accordo, ma l'opposizione si allinea sull'Iraq con un Fausto Bertinotti in gran spolvero, felpato e ferreo nell'imporre il «tutti a casa» alle nostre truppe, che rivendica ora anche per l'Afghanistan. Poco importa che lo sfidante democratico di George W. Bush, John Kerry, chieda agli alleati di restare, poco o nulla che Kofi Annan e l'Onu assicurino che solo la forza multinazionale può dare stabilità e che perfino Hans Blix, sì l'ex ispettore scandinavo nemesi sulle armi di Saddam, dichiari candido a La Stampa : «L'Onu non può sostituire gli Usa». La scelta del centrosinistra risponde a un'opportunità elettorale, fare il pieno di voti pacifisti alle Europee, ma lascia aperto un dilemma strategico. Perché mai, cioè, la sinistra radicale detiene il monopolio delle passioni e delle emozioni, perché solo i movimentisti sanno evocare un Pantheon di eroi, usando la politica come arena etica? Perché la sinistra raziocinante crede che basti elencare le idee giuste in un istituto di ricerca, avere la battuta azzeccata al talk show di stagione e lucidare le note a piè di pagina, per contare? Ponendo questi interrogativi agli uomini della sinistra moderata, Prodi, Veltroni, Fassino, Rutelli, Letta, Bersani, Amato, Debenedetti, Ranieri, per nominarne solo alcuni, si ottengono spalle strette e risposte d'attesa, per ora va così. Ma andrà sempre così finché la sinistra pragmatica non avrà il coraggio di cambiar musica. Di capire che, accanto ai ragionamenti, ai calcoli, ai progetti, ai seminari perbene, deve saper colpire l'immaginazione e l'anima dell'opinione pubblica, commuovendo e non solo snocciolando statistiche. Lo studioso Stan Davis dimostra che, nei dibattiti tra no global e teorici dello sviluppo, i primi fanno sempre buona figura parlando dei bambini denutriti, e i secondi passano per Paperoni, malgrado - come si dirà oggi alla Conferenza di Shanghai della Banca Mondiale - dal 1981 il numero di esseri umani che la sfanga con meno di un dollaro al giorno sia diminuito di 375 milioni, un'America in meno.
La passione della democrazia, dello sviluppo, della ricerca, della libertà, dei diritti civili e umani dove sono finite? Perché la sinistra illuminata non attacca Castro e la sua dittatura dicendo: «Oggi il Che starebbe con i dissidenti a Cuba!»? Perché non cita le tre cifre dell'orrore contemporaneo, 900 miliardi l'anno in spese militari, 360 miliardi in sussidi all'agricoltura ricca e solo 50 in aiuti allo sviluppo dei poveri? Perché non guarda al Sudan, dove è in corso un genocidio silenzioso, e, denunciate le sevizie ad Abu Ghraib, non mette all'indice gli aguzzini in Siria, i soldati israeliani che spezzano le ossa agli arrestati, i palestinesi che giustiziano i delatori senza processo? Il sindaco Walter Veltroni potrebbe aprire Roma a un Forum permanente dei diritti, dalla Cina all'Egitto, alla Russia, al Venezuela e la Palestina, dove parli il Che Guevara di Timor Est, Jose Ramos Horta, premio Nobel per la pace persuaso che prendere le armi contro i dittatori sia giusto. Dove parli Ivo Daalder, che ha proposto sul Washington Pos t l'alleanza dei Paesi democratici, dagli Usa al Lussemburgo, per discutere dei propri valori e di come diffonderli nel mondo, magari con più successo della guerra unilaterale di Bush. Può nascere un Corpo della Pace, volontari finanziati dai Paesi ricchi?
Le idee della sinistra radicale commuovono in tv, ma spesso nascondono egoismo, negano diritti a chi non ce li ha, vezzeggiano dittatori decrepiti, perpetuano ingiustizie economiche e sociali con dazi e protezionismo. Se la sinistra delle riforme non ha l'eleganza di Roosevelt e Kennedy (rileggete i vecchi articoli kennedyani di Furio Colombo, Baldini&Castoldi), la passione di Havel, i piani di Brandt e Palme, l'energia malinconica di Keynes, e perfino la sensualità accattivante di Clinton, si vedrà messa alle corde da tribuni che, alla fine, non sono capaci né di vincere le elezioni, né di aiutare i poveri.
www.corriere.it/riotta
Questa sinistra moderata che non sa commuovere
di GIANNI RIOTTA
Sottovoce, i leader della sinistra moderata assicurano di non essere d'accordo, ma l'opposizione si allinea sull'Iraq con un Fausto Bertinotti in gran spolvero, felpato e ferreo nell'imporre il «tutti a casa» alle nostre truppe, che rivendica ora anche per l'Afghanistan. Poco importa che lo sfidante democratico di George W. Bush, John Kerry, chieda agli alleati di restare, poco o nulla che Kofi Annan e l'Onu assicurino che solo la forza multinazionale può dare stabilità e che perfino Hans Blix, sì l'ex ispettore scandinavo nemesi sulle armi di Saddam, dichiari candido a La Stampa : «L'Onu non può sostituire gli Usa». La scelta del centrosinistra risponde a un'opportunità elettorale, fare il pieno di voti pacifisti alle Europee, ma lascia aperto un dilemma strategico. Perché mai, cioè, la sinistra radicale detiene il monopolio delle passioni e delle emozioni, perché solo i movimentisti sanno evocare un Pantheon di eroi, usando la politica come arena etica? Perché la sinistra raziocinante crede che basti elencare le idee giuste in un istituto di ricerca, avere la battuta azzeccata al talk show di stagione e lucidare le note a piè di pagina, per contare? Ponendo questi interrogativi agli uomini della sinistra moderata, Prodi, Veltroni, Fassino, Rutelli, Letta, Bersani, Amato, Debenedetti, Ranieri, per nominarne solo alcuni, si ottengono spalle strette e risposte d'attesa, per ora va così. Ma andrà sempre così finché la sinistra pragmatica non avrà il coraggio di cambiar musica. Di capire che, accanto ai ragionamenti, ai calcoli, ai progetti, ai seminari perbene, deve saper colpire l'immaginazione e l'anima dell'opinione pubblica, commuovendo e non solo snocciolando statistiche. Lo studioso Stan Davis dimostra che, nei dibattiti tra no global e teorici dello sviluppo, i primi fanno sempre buona figura parlando dei bambini denutriti, e i secondi passano per Paperoni, malgrado - come si dirà oggi alla Conferenza di Shanghai della Banca Mondiale - dal 1981 il numero di esseri umani che la sfanga con meno di un dollaro al giorno sia diminuito di 375 milioni, un'America in meno.
La passione della democrazia, dello sviluppo, della ricerca, della libertà, dei diritti civili e umani dove sono finite? Perché la sinistra illuminata non attacca Castro e la sua dittatura dicendo: «Oggi il Che starebbe con i dissidenti a Cuba!»? Perché non cita le tre cifre dell'orrore contemporaneo, 900 miliardi l'anno in spese militari, 360 miliardi in sussidi all'agricoltura ricca e solo 50 in aiuti allo sviluppo dei poveri? Perché non guarda al Sudan, dove è in corso un genocidio silenzioso, e, denunciate le sevizie ad Abu Ghraib, non mette all'indice gli aguzzini in Siria, i soldati israeliani che spezzano le ossa agli arrestati, i palestinesi che giustiziano i delatori senza processo? Il sindaco Walter Veltroni potrebbe aprire Roma a un Forum permanente dei diritti, dalla Cina all'Egitto, alla Russia, al Venezuela e la Palestina, dove parli il Che Guevara di Timor Est, Jose Ramos Horta, premio Nobel per la pace persuaso che prendere le armi contro i dittatori sia giusto. Dove parli Ivo Daalder, che ha proposto sul Washington Pos t l'alleanza dei Paesi democratici, dagli Usa al Lussemburgo, per discutere dei propri valori e di come diffonderli nel mondo, magari con più successo della guerra unilaterale di Bush. Può nascere un Corpo della Pace, volontari finanziati dai Paesi ricchi?
Le idee della sinistra radicale commuovono in tv, ma spesso nascondono egoismo, negano diritti a chi non ce li ha, vezzeggiano dittatori decrepiti, perpetuano ingiustizie economiche e sociali con dazi e protezionismo. Se la sinistra delle riforme non ha l'eleganza di Roosevelt e Kennedy (rileggete i vecchi articoli kennedyani di Furio Colombo, Baldini&Castoldi), la passione di Havel, i piani di Brandt e Palme, l'energia malinconica di Keynes, e perfino la sensualità accattivante di Clinton, si vedrà messa alle corde da tribuni che, alla fine, non sono capaci né di vincere le elezioni, né di aiutare i poveri.
www.corriere.it/riotta
di GIANNI RIOTTA
Sottovoce, i leader della sinistra moderata assicurano di non essere d'accordo, ma l'opposizione si allinea sull'Iraq con un Fausto Bertinotti in gran spolvero, felpato e ferreo nell'imporre il «tutti a casa» alle nostre truppe, che rivendica ora anche per l'Afghanistan. Poco importa che lo sfidante democratico di George W. Bush, John Kerry, chieda agli alleati di restare, poco o nulla che Kofi Annan e l'Onu assicurino che solo la forza multinazionale può dare stabilità e che perfino Hans Blix, sì l'ex ispettore scandinavo nemesi sulle armi di Saddam, dichiari candido a La Stampa : «L'Onu non può sostituire gli Usa». La scelta del centrosinistra risponde a un'opportunità elettorale, fare il pieno di voti pacifisti alle Europee, ma lascia aperto un dilemma strategico. Perché mai, cioè, la sinistra radicale detiene il monopolio delle passioni e delle emozioni, perché solo i movimentisti sanno evocare un Pantheon di eroi, usando la politica come arena etica? Perché la sinistra raziocinante crede che basti elencare le idee giuste in un istituto di ricerca, avere la battuta azzeccata al talk show di stagione e lucidare le note a piè di pagina, per contare? Ponendo questi interrogativi agli uomini della sinistra moderata, Prodi, Veltroni, Fassino, Rutelli, Letta, Bersani, Amato, Debenedetti, Ranieri, per nominarne solo alcuni, si ottengono spalle strette e risposte d'attesa, per ora va così. Ma andrà sempre così finché la sinistra pragmatica non avrà il coraggio di cambiar musica. Di capire che, accanto ai ragionamenti, ai calcoli, ai progetti, ai seminari perbene, deve saper colpire l'immaginazione e l'anima dell'opinione pubblica, commuovendo e non solo snocciolando statistiche. Lo studioso Stan Davis dimostra che, nei dibattiti tra no global e teorici dello sviluppo, i primi fanno sempre buona figura parlando dei bambini denutriti, e i secondi passano per Paperoni, malgrado - come si dirà oggi alla Conferenza di Shanghai della Banca Mondiale - dal 1981 il numero di esseri umani che la sfanga con meno di un dollaro al giorno sia diminuito di 375 milioni, un'America in meno.
La passione della democrazia, dello sviluppo, della ricerca, della libertà, dei diritti civili e umani dove sono finite? Perché la sinistra illuminata non attacca Castro e la sua dittatura dicendo: «Oggi il Che starebbe con i dissidenti a Cuba!»? Perché non cita le tre cifre dell'orrore contemporaneo, 900 miliardi l'anno in spese militari, 360 miliardi in sussidi all'agricoltura ricca e solo 50 in aiuti allo sviluppo dei poveri? Perché non guarda al Sudan, dove è in corso un genocidio silenzioso, e, denunciate le sevizie ad Abu Ghraib, non mette all'indice gli aguzzini in Siria, i soldati israeliani che spezzano le ossa agli arrestati, i palestinesi che giustiziano i delatori senza processo? Il sindaco Walter Veltroni potrebbe aprire Roma a un Forum permanente dei diritti, dalla Cina all'Egitto, alla Russia, al Venezuela e la Palestina, dove parli il Che Guevara di Timor Est, Jose Ramos Horta, premio Nobel per la pace persuaso che prendere le armi contro i dittatori sia giusto. Dove parli Ivo Daalder, che ha proposto sul Washington Pos t l'alleanza dei Paesi democratici, dagli Usa al Lussemburgo, per discutere dei propri valori e di come diffonderli nel mondo, magari con più successo della guerra unilaterale di Bush. Può nascere un Corpo della Pace, volontari finanziati dai Paesi ricchi?
Le idee della sinistra radicale commuovono in tv, ma spesso nascondono egoismo, negano diritti a chi non ce li ha, vezzeggiano dittatori decrepiti, perpetuano ingiustizie economiche e sociali con dazi e protezionismo. Se la sinistra delle riforme non ha l'eleganza di Roosevelt e Kennedy (rileggete i vecchi articoli kennedyani di Furio Colombo, Baldini&Castoldi), la passione di Havel, i piani di Brandt e Palme, l'energia malinconica di Keynes, e perfino la sensualità accattivante di Clinton, si vedrà messa alle corde da tribuni che, alla fine, non sono capaci né di vincere le elezioni, né di aiutare i poveri.
www.corriere.it/riotta
Questa sinistra moderata che non sa commuovere
di GIANNI RIOTTA
Sottovoce, i leader della sinistra moderata assicurano di non essere d'accordo, ma l'opposizione si allinea sull'Iraq con un Fausto Bertinotti in gran spolvero, felpato e ferreo nell'imporre il «tutti a casa» alle nostre truppe, che rivendica ora anche per l'Afghanistan. Poco importa che lo sfidante democratico di George W. Bush, John Kerry, chieda agli alleati di restare, poco o nulla che Kofi Annan e l'Onu assicurino che solo la forza multinazionale può dare stabilità e che perfino Hans Blix, sì l'ex ispettore scandinavo nemesi sulle armi di Saddam, dichiari candido a La Stampa : «L'Onu non può sostituire gli Usa». La scelta del centrosinistra risponde a un'opportunità elettorale, fare il pieno di voti pacifisti alle Europee, ma lascia aperto un dilemma strategico. Perché mai, cioè, la sinistra radicale detiene il monopolio delle passioni e delle emozioni, perché solo i movimentisti sanno evocare un Pantheon di eroi, usando la politica come arena etica? Perché la sinistra raziocinante crede che basti elencare le idee giuste in un istituto di ricerca, avere la battuta azzeccata al talk show di stagione e lucidare le note a piè di pagina, per contare? Ponendo questi interrogativi agli uomini della sinistra moderata, Prodi, Veltroni, Fassino, Rutelli, Letta, Bersani, Amato, Debenedetti, Ranieri, per nominarne solo alcuni, si ottengono spalle strette e risposte d'attesa, per ora va così. Ma andrà sempre così finché la sinistra pragmatica non avrà il coraggio di cambiar musica. Di capire che, accanto ai ragionamenti, ai calcoli, ai progetti, ai seminari perbene, deve saper colpire l'immaginazione e l'anima dell'opinione pubblica, commuovendo e non solo snocciolando statistiche. Lo studioso Stan Davis dimostra che, nei dibattiti tra no global e teorici dello sviluppo, i primi fanno sempre buona figura parlando dei bambini denutriti, e i secondi passano per Paperoni, malgrado - come si dirà oggi alla Conferenza di Shanghai della Banca Mondiale - dal 1981 il numero di esseri umani che la sfanga con meno di un dollaro al giorno sia diminuito di 375 milioni, un'America in meno.
La passione della democrazia, dello sviluppo, della ricerca, della libertà, dei diritti civili e umani dove sono finite? Perché la sinistra illuminata non attacca Castro e la sua dittatura dicendo: «Oggi il Che starebbe con i dissidenti a Cuba!»? Perché non cita le tre cifre dell'orrore contemporaneo, 900 miliardi l'anno in spese militari, 360 miliardi in sussidi all'agricoltura ricca e solo 50 in aiuti allo sviluppo dei poveri? Perché non guarda al Sudan, dove è in corso un genocidio silenzioso, e, denunciate le sevizie ad Abu Ghraib, non mette all'indice gli aguzzini in Siria, i soldati israeliani che spezzano le ossa agli arrestati, i palestinesi che giustiziano i delatori senza processo? Il sindaco Walter Veltroni potrebbe aprire Roma a un Forum permanente dei diritti, dalla Cina all'Egitto, alla Russia, al Venezuela e la Palestina, dove parli il Che Guevara di Timor Est, Jose Ramos Horta, premio Nobel per la pace persuaso che prendere le armi contro i dittatori sia giusto. Dove parli Ivo Daalder, che ha proposto sul Washington Pos t l'alleanza dei Paesi democratici, dagli Usa al Lussemburgo, per discutere dei propri valori e di come diffonderli nel mondo, magari con più successo della guerra unilaterale di Bush. Può nascere un Corpo della Pace, volontari finanziati dai Paesi ricchi?
Le idee della sinistra radicale commuovono in tv, ma spesso nascondono egoismo, negano diritti a chi non ce li ha, vezzeggiano dittatori decrepiti, perpetuano ingiustizie economiche e sociali con dazi e protezionismo. Se la sinistra delle riforme non ha l'eleganza di Roosevelt e Kennedy (rileggete i vecchi articoli kennedyani di Furio Colombo, Baldini&Castoldi), la passione di Havel, i piani di Brandt e Palme, l'energia malinconica di Keynes, e perfino la sensualità accattivante di Clinton, si vedrà messa alle corde da tribuni che, alla fine, non sono capaci né di vincere le elezioni, né di aiutare i poveri.
www.corriere.it/riotta
di GIANNI RIOTTA
Sottovoce, i leader della sinistra moderata assicurano di non essere d'accordo, ma l'opposizione si allinea sull'Iraq con un Fausto Bertinotti in gran spolvero, felpato e ferreo nell'imporre il «tutti a casa» alle nostre truppe, che rivendica ora anche per l'Afghanistan. Poco importa che lo sfidante democratico di George W. Bush, John Kerry, chieda agli alleati di restare, poco o nulla che Kofi Annan e l'Onu assicurino che solo la forza multinazionale può dare stabilità e che perfino Hans Blix, sì l'ex ispettore scandinavo nemesi sulle armi di Saddam, dichiari candido a La Stampa : «L'Onu non può sostituire gli Usa». La scelta del centrosinistra risponde a un'opportunità elettorale, fare il pieno di voti pacifisti alle Europee, ma lascia aperto un dilemma strategico. Perché mai, cioè, la sinistra radicale detiene il monopolio delle passioni e delle emozioni, perché solo i movimentisti sanno evocare un Pantheon di eroi, usando la politica come arena etica? Perché la sinistra raziocinante crede che basti elencare le idee giuste in un istituto di ricerca, avere la battuta azzeccata al talk show di stagione e lucidare le note a piè di pagina, per contare? Ponendo questi interrogativi agli uomini della sinistra moderata, Prodi, Veltroni, Fassino, Rutelli, Letta, Bersani, Amato, Debenedetti, Ranieri, per nominarne solo alcuni, si ottengono spalle strette e risposte d'attesa, per ora va così. Ma andrà sempre così finché la sinistra pragmatica non avrà il coraggio di cambiar musica. Di capire che, accanto ai ragionamenti, ai calcoli, ai progetti, ai seminari perbene, deve saper colpire l'immaginazione e l'anima dell'opinione pubblica, commuovendo e non solo snocciolando statistiche. Lo studioso Stan Davis dimostra che, nei dibattiti tra no global e teorici dello sviluppo, i primi fanno sempre buona figura parlando dei bambini denutriti, e i secondi passano per Paperoni, malgrado - come si dirà oggi alla Conferenza di Shanghai della Banca Mondiale - dal 1981 il numero di esseri umani che la sfanga con meno di un dollaro al giorno sia diminuito di 375 milioni, un'America in meno.
La passione della democrazia, dello sviluppo, della ricerca, della libertà, dei diritti civili e umani dove sono finite? Perché la sinistra illuminata non attacca Castro e la sua dittatura dicendo: «Oggi il Che starebbe con i dissidenti a Cuba!»? Perché non cita le tre cifre dell'orrore contemporaneo, 900 miliardi l'anno in spese militari, 360 miliardi in sussidi all'agricoltura ricca e solo 50 in aiuti allo sviluppo dei poveri? Perché non guarda al Sudan, dove è in corso un genocidio silenzioso, e, denunciate le sevizie ad Abu Ghraib, non mette all'indice gli aguzzini in Siria, i soldati israeliani che spezzano le ossa agli arrestati, i palestinesi che giustiziano i delatori senza processo? Il sindaco Walter Veltroni potrebbe aprire Roma a un Forum permanente dei diritti, dalla Cina all'Egitto, alla Russia, al Venezuela e la Palestina, dove parli il Che Guevara di Timor Est, Jose Ramos Horta, premio Nobel per la pace persuaso che prendere le armi contro i dittatori sia giusto. Dove parli Ivo Daalder, che ha proposto sul Washington Pos t l'alleanza dei Paesi democratici, dagli Usa al Lussemburgo, per discutere dei propri valori e di come diffonderli nel mondo, magari con più successo della guerra unilaterale di Bush. Può nascere un Corpo della Pace, volontari finanziati dai Paesi ricchi?
Le idee della sinistra radicale commuovono in tv, ma spesso nascondono egoismo, negano diritti a chi non ce li ha, vezzeggiano dittatori decrepiti, perpetuano ingiustizie economiche e sociali con dazi e protezionismo. Se la sinistra delle riforme non ha l'eleganza di Roosevelt e Kennedy (rileggete i vecchi articoli kennedyani di Furio Colombo, Baldini&Castoldi), la passione di Havel, i piani di Brandt e Palme, l'energia malinconica di Keynes, e perfino la sensualità accattivante di Clinton, si vedrà messa alle corde da tribuni che, alla fine, non sono capaci né di vincere le elezioni, né di aiutare i poveri.
www.corriere.it/riotta
Questa sinistra moderata che non sa commuovere
di GIANNI RIOTTA
Sottovoce, i leader della sinistra moderata assicurano di non essere d'accordo, ma l'opposizione si allinea sull'Iraq con un Fausto Bertinotti in gran spolvero, felpato e ferreo nell'imporre il «tutti a casa» alle nostre truppe, che rivendica ora anche per l'Afghanistan. Poco importa che lo sfidante democratico di George W. Bush, John Kerry, chieda agli alleati di restare, poco o nulla che Kofi Annan e l'Onu assicurino che solo la forza multinazionale può dare stabilità e che perfino Hans Blix, sì l'ex ispettore scandinavo nemesi sulle armi di Saddam, dichiari candido a La Stampa : «L'Onu non può sostituire gli Usa». La scelta del centrosinistra risponde a un'opportunità elettorale, fare il pieno di voti pacifisti alle Europee, ma lascia aperto un dilemma strategico. Perché mai, cioè, la sinistra radicale detiene il monopolio delle passioni e delle emozioni, perché solo i movimentisti sanno evocare un Pantheon di eroi, usando la politica come arena etica? Perché la sinistra raziocinante crede che basti elencare le idee giuste in un istituto di ricerca, avere la battuta azzeccata al talk show di stagione e lucidare le note a piè di pagina, per contare? Ponendo questi interrogativi agli uomini della sinistra moderata, Prodi, Veltroni, Fassino, Rutelli, Letta, Bersani, Amato, Debenedetti, Ranieri, per nominarne solo alcuni, si ottengono spalle strette e risposte d'attesa, per ora va così. Ma andrà sempre così finché la sinistra pragmatica non avrà il coraggio di cambiar musica. Di capire che, accanto ai ragionamenti, ai calcoli, ai progetti, ai seminari perbene, deve saper colpire l'immaginazione e l'anima dell'opinione pubblica, commuovendo e non solo snocciolando statistiche. Lo studioso Stan Davis dimostra che, nei dibattiti tra no global e teorici dello sviluppo, i primi fanno sempre buona figura parlando dei bambini denutriti, e i secondi passano per Paperoni, malgrado - come si dirà oggi alla Conferenza di Shanghai della Banca Mondiale - dal 1981 il numero di esseri umani che la sfanga con meno di un dollaro al giorno sia diminuito di 375 milioni, un'America in meno.
La passione della democrazia, dello sviluppo, della ricerca, della libertà, dei diritti civili e umani dove sono finite? Perché la sinistra illuminata non attacca Castro e la sua dittatura dicendo: «Oggi il Che starebbe con i dissidenti a Cuba!»? Perché non cita le tre cifre dell'orrore contemporaneo, 900 miliardi l'anno in spese militari, 360 miliardi in sussidi all'agricoltura ricca e solo 50 in aiuti allo sviluppo dei poveri? Perché non guarda al Sudan, dove è in corso un genocidio silenzioso, e, denunciate le sevizie ad Abu Ghraib, non mette all'indice gli aguzzini in Siria, i soldati israeliani che spezzano le ossa agli arrestati, i palestinesi che giustiziano i delatori senza processo? Il sindaco Walter Veltroni potrebbe aprire Roma a un Forum permanente dei diritti, dalla Cina all'Egitto, alla Russia, al Venezuela e la Palestina, dove parli il Che Guevara di Timor Est, Jose Ramos Horta, premio Nobel per la pace persuaso che prendere le armi contro i dittatori sia giusto. Dove parli Ivo Daalder, che ha proposto sul Washington Pos t l'alleanza dei Paesi democratici, dagli Usa al Lussemburgo, per discutere dei propri valori e di come diffonderli nel mondo, magari con più successo della guerra unilaterale di Bush. Può nascere un Corpo della Pace, volontari finanziati dai Paesi ricchi?
Le idee della sinistra radicale commuovono in tv, ma spesso nascondono egoismo, negano diritti a chi non ce li ha, vezzeggiano dittatori decrepiti, perpetuano ingiustizie economiche e sociali con dazi e protezionismo. Se la sinistra delle riforme non ha l'eleganza di Roosevelt e Kennedy (rileggete i vecchi articoli kennedyani di Furio Colombo, Baldini&Castoldi), la passione di Havel, i piani di Brandt e Palme, l'energia malinconica di Keynes, e perfino la sensualità accattivante di Clinton, si vedrà messa alle corde da tribuni che, alla fine, non sono capaci né di vincere le elezioni, né di aiutare i poveri.
www.corriere.it/riotta
di GIANNI RIOTTA
Sottovoce, i leader della sinistra moderata assicurano di non essere d'accordo, ma l'opposizione si allinea sull'Iraq con un Fausto Bertinotti in gran spolvero, felpato e ferreo nell'imporre il «tutti a casa» alle nostre truppe, che rivendica ora anche per l'Afghanistan. Poco importa che lo sfidante democratico di George W. Bush, John Kerry, chieda agli alleati di restare, poco o nulla che Kofi Annan e l'Onu assicurino che solo la forza multinazionale può dare stabilità e che perfino Hans Blix, sì l'ex ispettore scandinavo nemesi sulle armi di Saddam, dichiari candido a La Stampa : «L'Onu non può sostituire gli Usa». La scelta del centrosinistra risponde a un'opportunità elettorale, fare il pieno di voti pacifisti alle Europee, ma lascia aperto un dilemma strategico. Perché mai, cioè, la sinistra radicale detiene il monopolio delle passioni e delle emozioni, perché solo i movimentisti sanno evocare un Pantheon di eroi, usando la politica come arena etica? Perché la sinistra raziocinante crede che basti elencare le idee giuste in un istituto di ricerca, avere la battuta azzeccata al talk show di stagione e lucidare le note a piè di pagina, per contare? Ponendo questi interrogativi agli uomini della sinistra moderata, Prodi, Veltroni, Fassino, Rutelli, Letta, Bersani, Amato, Debenedetti, Ranieri, per nominarne solo alcuni, si ottengono spalle strette e risposte d'attesa, per ora va così. Ma andrà sempre così finché la sinistra pragmatica non avrà il coraggio di cambiar musica. Di capire che, accanto ai ragionamenti, ai calcoli, ai progetti, ai seminari perbene, deve saper colpire l'immaginazione e l'anima dell'opinione pubblica, commuovendo e non solo snocciolando statistiche. Lo studioso Stan Davis dimostra che, nei dibattiti tra no global e teorici dello sviluppo, i primi fanno sempre buona figura parlando dei bambini denutriti, e i secondi passano per Paperoni, malgrado - come si dirà oggi alla Conferenza di Shanghai della Banca Mondiale - dal 1981 il numero di esseri umani che la sfanga con meno di un dollaro al giorno sia diminuito di 375 milioni, un'America in meno.
La passione della democrazia, dello sviluppo, della ricerca, della libertà, dei diritti civili e umani dove sono finite? Perché la sinistra illuminata non attacca Castro e la sua dittatura dicendo: «Oggi il Che starebbe con i dissidenti a Cuba!»? Perché non cita le tre cifre dell'orrore contemporaneo, 900 miliardi l'anno in spese militari, 360 miliardi in sussidi all'agricoltura ricca e solo 50 in aiuti allo sviluppo dei poveri? Perché non guarda al Sudan, dove è in corso un genocidio silenzioso, e, denunciate le sevizie ad Abu Ghraib, non mette all'indice gli aguzzini in Siria, i soldati israeliani che spezzano le ossa agli arrestati, i palestinesi che giustiziano i delatori senza processo? Il sindaco Walter Veltroni potrebbe aprire Roma a un Forum permanente dei diritti, dalla Cina all'Egitto, alla Russia, al Venezuela e la Palestina, dove parli il Che Guevara di Timor Est, Jose Ramos Horta, premio Nobel per la pace persuaso che prendere le armi contro i dittatori sia giusto. Dove parli Ivo Daalder, che ha proposto sul Washington Pos t l'alleanza dei Paesi democratici, dagli Usa al Lussemburgo, per discutere dei propri valori e di come diffonderli nel mondo, magari con più successo della guerra unilaterale di Bush. Può nascere un Corpo della Pace, volontari finanziati dai Paesi ricchi?
Le idee della sinistra radicale commuovono in tv, ma spesso nascondono egoismo, negano diritti a chi non ce li ha, vezzeggiano dittatori decrepiti, perpetuano ingiustizie economiche e sociali con dazi e protezionismo. Se la sinistra delle riforme non ha l'eleganza di Roosevelt e Kennedy (rileggete i vecchi articoli kennedyani di Furio Colombo, Baldini&Castoldi), la passione di Havel, i piani di Brandt e Palme, l'energia malinconica di Keynes, e perfino la sensualità accattivante di Clinton, si vedrà messa alle corde da tribuni che, alla fine, non sono capaci né di vincere le elezioni, né di aiutare i poveri.
www.corriere.it/riotta
Questa sinistra moderata che non sa commuovere
di GIANNI RIOTTA
Sottovoce, i leader della sinistra moderata assicurano di non essere d'accordo, ma l'opposizione si allinea sull'Iraq con un Fausto Bertinotti in gran spolvero, felpato e ferreo nell'imporre il «tutti a casa» alle nostre truppe, che rivendica ora anche per l'Afghanistan. Poco importa che lo sfidante democratico di George W. Bush, John Kerry, chieda agli alleati di restare, poco o nulla che Kofi Annan e l'Onu assicurino che solo la forza multinazionale può dare stabilità e che perfino Hans Blix, sì l'ex ispettore scandinavo nemesi sulle armi di Saddam, dichiari candido a La Stampa : «L'Onu non può sostituire gli Usa». La scelta del centrosinistra risponde a un'opportunità elettorale, fare il pieno di voti pacifisti alle Europee, ma lascia aperto un dilemma strategico. Perché mai, cioè, la sinistra radicale detiene il monopolio delle passioni e delle emozioni, perché solo i movimentisti sanno evocare un Pantheon di eroi, usando la politica come arena etica? Perché la sinistra raziocinante crede che basti elencare le idee giuste in un istituto di ricerca, avere la battuta azzeccata al talk show di stagione e lucidare le note a piè di pagina, per contare? Ponendo questi interrogativi agli uomini della sinistra moderata, Prodi, Veltroni, Fassino, Rutelli, Letta, Bersani, Amato, Debenedetti, Ranieri, per nominarne solo alcuni, si ottengono spalle strette e risposte d'attesa, per ora va così. Ma andrà sempre così finché la sinistra pragmatica non avrà il coraggio di cambiar musica. Di capire che, accanto ai ragionamenti, ai calcoli, ai progetti, ai seminari perbene, deve saper colpire l'immaginazione e l'anima dell'opinione pubblica, commuovendo e non solo snocciolando statistiche. Lo studioso Stan Davis dimostra che, nei dibattiti tra no global e teorici dello sviluppo, i primi fanno sempre buona figura parlando dei bambini denutriti, e i secondi passano per Paperoni, malgrado - come si dirà oggi alla Conferenza di Shanghai della Banca Mondiale - dal 1981 il numero di esseri umani che la sfanga con meno di un dollaro al giorno sia diminuito di 375 milioni, un'America in meno.
La passione della democrazia, dello sviluppo, della ricerca, della libertà, dei diritti civili e umani dove sono finite? Perché la sinistra illuminata non attacca Castro e la sua dittatura dicendo: «Oggi il Che starebbe con i dissidenti a Cuba!»? Perché non cita le tre cifre dell'orrore contemporaneo, 900 miliardi l'anno in spese militari, 360 miliardi in sussidi all'agricoltura ricca e solo 50 in aiuti allo sviluppo dei poveri? Perché non guarda al Sudan, dove è in corso un genocidio silenzioso, e, denunciate le sevizie ad Abu Ghraib, non mette all'indice gli aguzzini in Siria, i soldati israeliani che spezzano le ossa agli arrestati, i palestinesi che giustiziano i delatori senza processo? Il sindaco Walter Veltroni potrebbe aprire Roma a un Forum permanente dei diritti, dalla Cina all'Egitto, alla Russia, al Venezuela e la Palestina, dove parli il Che Guevara di Timor Est, Jose Ramos Horta, premio Nobel per la pace persuaso che prendere le armi contro i dittatori sia giusto. Dove parli Ivo Daalder, che ha proposto sul Washington Pos t l'alleanza dei Paesi democratici, dagli Usa al Lussemburgo, per discutere dei propri valori e di come diffonderli nel mondo, magari con più successo della guerra unilaterale di Bush. Può nascere un Corpo della Pace, volontari finanziati dai Paesi ricchi?
Le idee della sinistra radicale commuovono in tv, ma spesso nascondono egoismo, negano diritti a chi non ce li ha, vezzeggiano dittatori decrepiti, perpetuano ingiustizie economiche e sociali con dazi e protezionismo. Se la sinistra delle riforme non ha l'eleganza di Roosevelt e Kennedy (rileggete i vecchi articoli kennedyani di Furio Colombo, Baldini&Castoldi), la passione di Havel, i piani di Brandt e Palme, l'energia malinconica di Keynes, e perfino la sensualità accattivante di Clinton, si vedrà messa alle corde da tribuni che, alla fine, non sono capaci né di vincere le elezioni, né di aiutare i poveri.
www.corriere.it/riotta
di GIANNI RIOTTA
Sottovoce, i leader della sinistra moderata assicurano di non essere d'accordo, ma l'opposizione si allinea sull'Iraq con un Fausto Bertinotti in gran spolvero, felpato e ferreo nell'imporre il «tutti a casa» alle nostre truppe, che rivendica ora anche per l'Afghanistan. Poco importa che lo sfidante democratico di George W. Bush, John Kerry, chieda agli alleati di restare, poco o nulla che Kofi Annan e l'Onu assicurino che solo la forza multinazionale può dare stabilità e che perfino Hans Blix, sì l'ex ispettore scandinavo nemesi sulle armi di Saddam, dichiari candido a La Stampa : «L'Onu non può sostituire gli Usa». La scelta del centrosinistra risponde a un'opportunità elettorale, fare il pieno di voti pacifisti alle Europee, ma lascia aperto un dilemma strategico. Perché mai, cioè, la sinistra radicale detiene il monopolio delle passioni e delle emozioni, perché solo i movimentisti sanno evocare un Pantheon di eroi, usando la politica come arena etica? Perché la sinistra raziocinante crede che basti elencare le idee giuste in un istituto di ricerca, avere la battuta azzeccata al talk show di stagione e lucidare le note a piè di pagina, per contare? Ponendo questi interrogativi agli uomini della sinistra moderata, Prodi, Veltroni, Fassino, Rutelli, Letta, Bersani, Amato, Debenedetti, Ranieri, per nominarne solo alcuni, si ottengono spalle strette e risposte d'attesa, per ora va così. Ma andrà sempre così finché la sinistra pragmatica non avrà il coraggio di cambiar musica. Di capire che, accanto ai ragionamenti, ai calcoli, ai progetti, ai seminari perbene, deve saper colpire l'immaginazione e l'anima dell'opinione pubblica, commuovendo e non solo snocciolando statistiche. Lo studioso Stan Davis dimostra che, nei dibattiti tra no global e teorici dello sviluppo, i primi fanno sempre buona figura parlando dei bambini denutriti, e i secondi passano per Paperoni, malgrado - come si dirà oggi alla Conferenza di Shanghai della Banca Mondiale - dal 1981 il numero di esseri umani che la sfanga con meno di un dollaro al giorno sia diminuito di 375 milioni, un'America in meno.
La passione della democrazia, dello sviluppo, della ricerca, della libertà, dei diritti civili e umani dove sono finite? Perché la sinistra illuminata non attacca Castro e la sua dittatura dicendo: «Oggi il Che starebbe con i dissidenti a Cuba!»? Perché non cita le tre cifre dell'orrore contemporaneo, 900 miliardi l'anno in spese militari, 360 miliardi in sussidi all'agricoltura ricca e solo 50 in aiuti allo sviluppo dei poveri? Perché non guarda al Sudan, dove è in corso un genocidio silenzioso, e, denunciate le sevizie ad Abu Ghraib, non mette all'indice gli aguzzini in Siria, i soldati israeliani che spezzano le ossa agli arrestati, i palestinesi che giustiziano i delatori senza processo? Il sindaco Walter Veltroni potrebbe aprire Roma a un Forum permanente dei diritti, dalla Cina all'Egitto, alla Russia, al Venezuela e la Palestina, dove parli il Che Guevara di Timor Est, Jose Ramos Horta, premio Nobel per la pace persuaso che prendere le armi contro i dittatori sia giusto. Dove parli Ivo Daalder, che ha proposto sul Washington Pos t l'alleanza dei Paesi democratici, dagli Usa al Lussemburgo, per discutere dei propri valori e di come diffonderli nel mondo, magari con più successo della guerra unilaterale di Bush. Può nascere un Corpo della Pace, volontari finanziati dai Paesi ricchi?
Le idee della sinistra radicale commuovono in tv, ma spesso nascondono egoismo, negano diritti a chi non ce li ha, vezzeggiano dittatori decrepiti, perpetuano ingiustizie economiche e sociali con dazi e protezionismo. Se la sinistra delle riforme non ha l'eleganza di Roosevelt e Kennedy (rileggete i vecchi articoli kennedyani di Furio Colombo, Baldini&Castoldi), la passione di Havel, i piani di Brandt e Palme, l'energia malinconica di Keynes, e perfino la sensualità accattivante di Clinton, si vedrà messa alle corde da tribuni che, alla fine, non sono capaci né di vincere le elezioni, né di aiutare i poveri.
www.corriere.it/riotta
Questa sinistra moderata che non sa commuovere
di GIANNI RIOTTA
Sottovoce, i leader della sinistra moderata assicurano di non essere d'accordo, ma l'opposizione si allinea sull'Iraq con un Fausto Bertinotti in gran spolvero, felpato e ferreo nell'imporre il «tutti a casa» alle nostre truppe, che rivendica ora anche per l'Afghanistan. Poco importa che lo sfidante democratico di George W. Bush, John Kerry, chieda agli alleati di restare, poco o nulla che Kofi Annan e l'Onu assicurino che solo la forza multinazionale può dare stabilità e che perfino Hans Blix, sì l'ex ispettore scandinavo nemesi sulle armi di Saddam, dichiari candido a La Stampa : «L'Onu non può sostituire gli Usa». La scelta del centrosinistra risponde a un'opportunità elettorale, fare il pieno di voti pacifisti alle Europee, ma lascia aperto un dilemma strategico. Perché mai, cioè, la sinistra radicale detiene il monopolio delle passioni e delle emozioni, perché solo i movimentisti sanno evocare un Pantheon di eroi, usando la politica come arena etica? Perché la sinistra raziocinante crede che basti elencare le idee giuste in un istituto di ricerca, avere la battuta azzeccata al talk show di stagione e lucidare le note a piè di pagina, per contare? Ponendo questi interrogativi agli uomini della sinistra moderata, Prodi, Veltroni, Fassino, Rutelli, Letta, Bersani, Amato, Debenedetti, Ranieri, per nominarne solo alcuni, si ottengono spalle strette e risposte d'attesa, per ora va così. Ma andrà sempre così finché la sinistra pragmatica non avrà il coraggio di cambiar musica. Di capire che, accanto ai ragionamenti, ai calcoli, ai progetti, ai seminari perbene, deve saper colpire l'immaginazione e l'anima dell'opinione pubblica, commuovendo e non solo snocciolando statistiche. Lo studioso Stan Davis dimostra che, nei dibattiti tra no global e teorici dello sviluppo, i primi fanno sempre buona figura parlando dei bambini denutriti, e i secondi passano per Paperoni, malgrado - come si dirà oggi alla Conferenza di Shanghai della Banca Mondiale - dal 1981 il numero di esseri umani che la sfanga con meno di un dollaro al giorno sia diminuito di 375 milioni, un'America in meno.
La passione della democrazia, dello sviluppo, della ricerca, della libertà, dei diritti civili e umani dove sono finite? Perché la sinistra illuminata non attacca Castro e la sua dittatura dicendo: «Oggi il Che starebbe con i dissidenti a Cuba!»? Perché non cita le tre cifre dell'orrore contemporaneo, 900 miliardi l'anno in spese militari, 360 miliardi in sussidi all'agricoltura ricca e solo 50 in aiuti allo sviluppo dei poveri? Perché non guarda al Sudan, dove è in corso un genocidio silenzioso, e, denunciate le sevizie ad Abu Ghraib, non mette all'indice gli aguzzini in Siria, i soldati israeliani che spezzano le ossa agli arrestati, i palestinesi che giustiziano i delatori senza processo? Il sindaco Walter Veltroni potrebbe aprire Roma a un Forum permanente dei diritti, dalla Cina all'Egitto, alla Russia, al Venezuela e la Palestina, dove parli il Che Guevara di Timor Est, Jose Ramos Horta, premio Nobel per la pace persuaso che prendere le armi contro i dittatori sia giusto. Dove parli Ivo Daalder, che ha proposto sul Washington Pos t l'alleanza dei Paesi democratici, dagli Usa al Lussemburgo, per discutere dei propri valori e di come diffonderli nel mondo, magari con più successo della guerra unilaterale di Bush. Può nascere un Corpo della Pace, volontari finanziati dai Paesi ricchi?
Le idee della sinistra radicale commuovono in tv, ma spesso nascondono egoismo, negano diritti a chi non ce li ha, vezzeggiano dittatori decrepiti, perpetuano ingiustizie economiche e sociali con dazi e protezionismo. Se la sinistra delle riforme non ha l'eleganza di Roosevelt e Kennedy (rileggete i vecchi articoli kennedyani di Furio Colombo, Baldini&Castoldi), la passione di Havel, i piani di Brandt e Palme, l'energia malinconica di Keynes, e perfino la sensualità accattivante di Clinton, si vedrà messa alle corde da tribuni che, alla fine, non sono capaci né di vincere le elezioni, né di aiutare i poveri.
www.corriere.it/riotta
di GIANNI RIOTTA
Sottovoce, i leader della sinistra moderata assicurano di non essere d'accordo, ma l'opposizione si allinea sull'Iraq con un Fausto Bertinotti in gran spolvero, felpato e ferreo nell'imporre il «tutti a casa» alle nostre truppe, che rivendica ora anche per l'Afghanistan. Poco importa che lo sfidante democratico di George W. Bush, John Kerry, chieda agli alleati di restare, poco o nulla che Kofi Annan e l'Onu assicurino che solo la forza multinazionale può dare stabilità e che perfino Hans Blix, sì l'ex ispettore scandinavo nemesi sulle armi di Saddam, dichiari candido a La Stampa : «L'Onu non può sostituire gli Usa». La scelta del centrosinistra risponde a un'opportunità elettorale, fare il pieno di voti pacifisti alle Europee, ma lascia aperto un dilemma strategico. Perché mai, cioè, la sinistra radicale detiene il monopolio delle passioni e delle emozioni, perché solo i movimentisti sanno evocare un Pantheon di eroi, usando la politica come arena etica? Perché la sinistra raziocinante crede che basti elencare le idee giuste in un istituto di ricerca, avere la battuta azzeccata al talk show di stagione e lucidare le note a piè di pagina, per contare? Ponendo questi interrogativi agli uomini della sinistra moderata, Prodi, Veltroni, Fassino, Rutelli, Letta, Bersani, Amato, Debenedetti, Ranieri, per nominarne solo alcuni, si ottengono spalle strette e risposte d'attesa, per ora va così. Ma andrà sempre così finché la sinistra pragmatica non avrà il coraggio di cambiar musica. Di capire che, accanto ai ragionamenti, ai calcoli, ai progetti, ai seminari perbene, deve saper colpire l'immaginazione e l'anima dell'opinione pubblica, commuovendo e non solo snocciolando statistiche. Lo studioso Stan Davis dimostra che, nei dibattiti tra no global e teorici dello sviluppo, i primi fanno sempre buona figura parlando dei bambini denutriti, e i secondi passano per Paperoni, malgrado - come si dirà oggi alla Conferenza di Shanghai della Banca Mondiale - dal 1981 il numero di esseri umani che la sfanga con meno di un dollaro al giorno sia diminuito di 375 milioni, un'America in meno.
La passione della democrazia, dello sviluppo, della ricerca, della libertà, dei diritti civili e umani dove sono finite? Perché la sinistra illuminata non attacca Castro e la sua dittatura dicendo: «Oggi il Che starebbe con i dissidenti a Cuba!»? Perché non cita le tre cifre dell'orrore contemporaneo, 900 miliardi l'anno in spese militari, 360 miliardi in sussidi all'agricoltura ricca e solo 50 in aiuti allo sviluppo dei poveri? Perché non guarda al Sudan, dove è in corso un genocidio silenzioso, e, denunciate le sevizie ad Abu Ghraib, non mette all'indice gli aguzzini in Siria, i soldati israeliani che spezzano le ossa agli arrestati, i palestinesi che giustiziano i delatori senza processo? Il sindaco Walter Veltroni potrebbe aprire Roma a un Forum permanente dei diritti, dalla Cina all'Egitto, alla Russia, al Venezuela e la Palestina, dove parli il Che Guevara di Timor Est, Jose Ramos Horta, premio Nobel per la pace persuaso che prendere le armi contro i dittatori sia giusto. Dove parli Ivo Daalder, che ha proposto sul Washington Pos t l'alleanza dei Paesi democratici, dagli Usa al Lussemburgo, per discutere dei propri valori e di come diffonderli nel mondo, magari con più successo della guerra unilaterale di Bush. Può nascere un Corpo della Pace, volontari finanziati dai Paesi ricchi?
Le idee della sinistra radicale commuovono in tv, ma spesso nascondono egoismo, negano diritti a chi non ce li ha, vezzeggiano dittatori decrepiti, perpetuano ingiustizie economiche e sociali con dazi e protezionismo. Se la sinistra delle riforme non ha l'eleganza di Roosevelt e Kennedy (rileggete i vecchi articoli kennedyani di Furio Colombo, Baldini&Castoldi), la passione di Havel, i piani di Brandt e Palme, l'energia malinconica di Keynes, e perfino la sensualità accattivante di Clinton, si vedrà messa alle corde da tribuni che, alla fine, non sono capaci né di vincere le elezioni, né di aiutare i poveri.
www.corriere.it/riotta
What Europe Doesn't Understand
Neoconservatism is neither neo nor conservative. It's just American.
BY ZACHARY SELDEN
Wednesday, May 26, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT
Americans working and living in Europe are often struck by the preoccupation in defense and security circles with the pernicious influence of "neoconservatives" on U.S. foreign policy. There is a pervasive sense that American foreign policy is being driven down a radically new path by a small band of ideologues who have virtually hijacked the policymaking process.
European defense and foreign policy elites are not the only ones who seem to believe that current U.S. foreign policy is something of an aberration; this view is found more broadly in European public opinion as well. In a 2003 Pew poll, approximately 75% of those surveyed in France and Germany said the current "problem with the U.S." was mainly President Bush, while only 21% said it had more to do with the United States in general. The end result is a dominant opinion in much of Europe that little will be repaired in the trans-Atlantic relationship until there is a new presidential administration in the United States, or at least a marked reduction in the influence of the small group of neoconservative extremists who surround Mr. Bush.
Although there are notable exceptions, many European commentators and much of the public are resorting to conspiratorial theories to explain the direction of U.S. foreign policy and somehow overlook the fact that American public opinion runs in favor of the president's handling of foreign affairs. Perhaps more important, however, they overlook the deep historical roots of the current direction of American foreign policy. It is not driven by a "neocon cabal." Rather, it is that certain individuals associated with the neoconservative label have been particularly articulate in expressing a set of policies that flow from two ideas that resonate deeply in American public opinion. The first is a belief that the United States has a responsibility to spread its vision of individual liberty. The second is that the primary and perhaps exclusive task of the federal government is to protect its citizens from external threats. Whatever the actual causes of U.S. action in any particular instance, those principles loom large in the public debate and shape how and when the United States becomes involved in other countries' affairs.
The first principle is often credited to Woodrow Wilson, but in some ways its roots stretch back into the 18th century. It is founded on the moral assertions that have been part of American political thought since the early days of the republic. Chief among them is the idea that individual liberty is a moral absolute and that a system of governance that enshrines individual liberty is morally and practically superior to all others. This is a very fundamental belief, deeply embedded in American political thought and public opinion. It is a principle, however, that does not necessarily have the same level of importance in modern European political systems, whose constitutions tend to place a greater emphasis on social harmony than on individual liberty.
The second principle conflicts somewhat with the first and serves to moderate the impulse to intervention. Since the republic's founding, there has been a vigorous debate as to the proper role of the federal government, a debate that is still at the heart of most cases brought before the U.S. Supreme Court. But there has always been a strong trend toward the idea of a limited federal government whose sole exclusive area of responsibility is in foreign affairs and the protection of the nation from external enemies. In fact, the first five numbers of the Federalist focus almost exclusively on foreign affairs and the need for a federal government to protect the nation from foreign influence. The end result of this idea is a broad consensus across the political spectrum that cautions against foreign interventions unless they are required for national security reasons.
We see these contradictory principles at work today. Since the 1970s, there have been those who argue for American military intervention in the Middle East, optimistically promoting what essentially boils down to a set of "American" values for the region. But most Americans have looked askance at such ideas without a national-security justification for direct intervention. September 11, 2001, was the turning point. An increasingly large proportion of public opinion became more certain that the only way to ensure the nation's security against transnational enemies operating from the Middle East was to transform the region. What was previously seen as too risky became acceptable in the aftermath of 9/11.
In essence, public opinion shifted in favor of policies that have been articulated by neoconservatives for at least a decade, and neocons have been very adept at articulating a policy that resonates with longstanding ideas in American public life. Therefore, what many label "neoconservative" is a product of ideas that are neither "neo" nor "conservative," but a worldview that has broad appeal to American citizens in ways that are difficult for many Europeans to fully fathom within the context of their own political systems.
In short, if Europe is waiting for a new administration or a new set of policy professionals to rise to positions of influence, the Continent may be in for a very long wait. The style in which affairs are conducted may change, and the blunt take-it-or-leave-it pronouncements of the current administration might be softened, but the substance of American foreign policy will remain roughly the same. The current direction of U.S. foreign policy--reshaping the Middle East, pre-emptive confrontations with potentially threatening adversaries, and an ambivalent attitude toward international organizations that constrain the use of American power to achieve those ends--is unlikely to change substantially with any new administration that could conceivably come to the White House in the near future.
It is not the case that the president and a small band of advisors are steering America on a radically new path; rather, they are following a pattern in U.S. foreign policy with deep historical roots. If there is to be reconciliation within the trans-Atlantic partnership, it must start with this recognition.
There is no shortage of studies on the roots of American foreign policy or the labels that can be associated with the enduring ideas that continue to guide it. Diplomatic historian Robert W. Tucker views it as a balance between those content to make the United States an exemplar of democratic virtues and those who want to launch crusades to impart those values throughout the world. Arthur Schlesinger sees it as a contest between realism and messianism. Henry Kissinger calls it a balance between isolationism and globalism. Walter McDougall identifies eight guiding principles, and Thomas Bailey finds five. Walter Russell Mead, in his "Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How it Changed the World" (Knopf, 2001), notes four tendencies that he labels Wilsonian, Jeffersonian, Jacksonian and Hamiltonian. My purpose here is not to engage in a historical debate, but to highlight the core ideas that historians generally find at the roots of U.S. foreign policy.
Clearly, one set of core ideas is associated with American exceptionalism and, flowing from that idea, a revolutionary or messianic ethos that rises periodically to push the United States into global intervention in the name of individual liberty and freedom. Behind this tendency lies an assumption so prevalent and historically accepted in American political thought that it is rarely questioned: that American liberal values and institutions constitute a generalizable model that promotes human rights and prosperity. Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points are a classic example of this messianic belief, but so is the construction of the liberal international order forged out of the detritus of the Second World War.
Many around the world find the idea positively risible. America's interventions in Latin America, its support for dictatorships, its interventions for pure Realpolitik and commercial reasons are all said to expose this belief as a sham. There is no doubt that the United States is guilty of talking idealism and walking realism, but, as Mr. McDougall has written, U.S. foreign policy has always been a mix of "the good, the bad, and the ugly." Regardless, the idea endures and repeatedly captures the public imagination. America as liberator is a powerful popular image that motivates a fair amount of U.S. foreign policy, even if the bad and the ugly often raise their heads as well.
Critics also raise the question of selective intervention. Sub-Saharan Africa is rife with repressive regimes guilty of horrific human rights abuses, yet the United States is not about to become embroiled in that continent. If spreading individual liberty is truly one of the core beliefs of American foreign policy, then why, ask the critics, does the U.S. virtually ignore Africa?
The answer lies in that second core belief shaping U.S. foreign policy: The federal government should be limited in its authority. How does this principle of domestic governance affect foreign policy? In a very basic sense, it shapes a prevalent conviction in American political thought that the primary--and, some would say, only--task of the federal government is to protect its citizens from foreign enemies. To a large extent, the whole framework of the federal government is based on the idea that is necessary to ward off enemies that could otherwise threaten individual states. This was an impetus behind abandoning the original Articles of Confederation and drafting the Constitution in 1787. Of course, investing power in the federal government diminished the power of the individual states, and in many ways this was seen at the time as a necessary evil. Thomas Jefferson spoke (and probably still speaks) for many Americans when he said, "We should be made one nation in every case concerning foreign affairs and separate ones in what is merely domestic."
This idea is also at the root of John Adams's famous assertion that America should not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. It is a two-centuries-old statement that probably still reflects a large swath of American public opinion, and it restricts the predilection toward intervention. Foreign adventures would only increase the power of the federal government, diminishing the authority of state and local governments. Becoming too embroiled in world events would mean raising a large standing military and increasing taxes along with other demands on the people and the individual states. For a republic founded on the idea of individual liberty above all else, resting on a Constitution that specifically limits the power of the federal government, this is a dangerous prospect.
In large part, many of these fears have been realized. The power of the federal government has increased dramatically over the past century as the U.S. has become gradually more active and finally dominant in world affairs. But this only makes the principle of limiting the power of the federal government all the more relevant in American politics. Therefore, any American president who seeks to convince the public to back an intervention for purposes that are not explicitly in the interest of national security will face an uphill battle. American public opinion was divided over interventions in Bosnia, Kosovo and Haiti for precisely this reason.
Even in the abstract, Americans are far less likely to favor committing troops to such operations than Europeans. In the Worldviews 2002 survey, less than half of Americans (48%) favored using the military to "bring peace in a region where there is civil war" while 72% of Europeans favored the same. At the root of American ambivalence lies a fundamental conviction that the federal government should remain within limited powers--not launch crusades that detract from its core purpose.
It takes a significant event to move American public opinion away from supporting a constrained foreign policy to supporting a grand reshaping of the international environment, but such shifts in public opinion can be massive and rapid once the nation is threatened. Woodrow Wilson could not muster popular support for the U.S. entrance into World War i until German U-boat activity convinced the public that Germany constituted a threat to American national security. Franklin Roosevelt failed to stir public opinion to enter World War ii before Pearl Harbor. Here was a clear case of blatant aggression and fascist brutalization of millions of people around the world, but the American impulse toward intervention was checked by a more fundamental question: Does such an intervention fit within the primary task of the federal government? Roosevelt tried for over a year to bring the U.S. into the war, but until Pearl Harbor the American public remained very divided.
President Bush himself evinces these contradictory impulses. As a candidate, Mr. Bush pledged a "humble" approach to global affairs--to refrain from using American forces for the sort of unclear peacekeeping and nation-building exercises that characterized the deployment of the U.S. armed forces in the 1990s. Once the nation was threatened, however, he shifted his rhetoric and policy decisions to support what is probably the largest nation-building exercise since World War ii.
In Robert Kagan's now-famous assessment, "Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus." Mr. Kagan traces the differences in attitudes on the use of power in the international environment to the fact that the United States has the ability to project power and Europe does not. In fact, it is precisely America's capability to project power that allowed the great experiment of a united Europe to flourish along with what Mr. Kagan, following the scholar-diplomat Robert Cooper, calls the "postmodern" ideas that clash with America's "Hobbesian" view of the world. But as Mr. Kagan also notes, there are differences between the trans-Atlantic partners that have more to do with the distribution of ideas than the current distribution of power.
At a very basic level, much of Europe fails to appreciate the seriousness of the core principles animating American foreign policy and how deeply they affect popular opinion. Where Europe sees imperialism, America sees the use of power for moral purposes. Where Europe asks by what right America imposes its values, America sees those values as universal and moral absolutes. Where Europe sees hypocrisy, America sees a balance between competing principles.
Those principles are very real and are reflected in the founding documents of the republic and the writings of early observers such as Tocqueville. The messianic aspects of American exceptionalism are found throughout many of the basic texts of American history, although they tend to focus on America as the exemplar of liberty (John Winthrop's "city upon a hill") rather than as a crusading state bringing the benefits of individual liberty to the oppressed. However, the two visions rapidly became conflated in early American history. By his second term as president, Thomas Jefferson began to speak less of America as the "exemplar of liberty" and more of America as the "empire of liberty."
At the same time, the more cautionary and limiting principles regarding how the nation should be governed are readily apparent in the Constitution. Despite the fact that the document explicitly gives all powers not specifically designated as federal responsibilities to the individual states and the people in general, the states demanded additional restrictions on the federal government as found in the first 10 amendments to the Constitution.
Cynics may be correct that many U.S. citizens are unaware of the actual content of the Constitution, but they are very aware of its basic purpose: to restrict the power of the government in the name of individual liberty. The U.S. Constitution is essentially a product of 18th-century Enlightenment thought that elevates the protection of individual liberty as a core purpose of government. As a result, many of the rights set down in it are protections against the intrusion of the state (e.g., "Congress shall make no law . . ."). Regardless of the number of individuals who can cite chapter and verse from the Constitution, most understand that it is a document designed to protect the citizen from an overreaching government.
This is a very different social contract from what is found in European constitutions. Those documents were generally drafted later and reflect social democratic ideas arising in the 19th century. As a result, they often establish expanded conceptions of what the state will provide its citizens, including social security, housing, and even environmental protection. Often those same constitutions also spell out what the citizen is expected to give the state in return, such as obligatory military service.
The difference is quite fundamental. The U.S. Constitution puts a premium on individual liberty and freedom from governmental interference in the citizens' daily affairs. Most European constitutions place a premium on social harmony, reserving the right of the state to more directly affect the lives of its citizens for the provision of specific public goods. One can argue that those documents are a reflection of the values found in their societies or, conversely, that the values found in society are imposed by the system of governance flowing from the founding document. Either way, the end result is that Europe and the United States hold up different ideas about the role of government and the ideals that undergird the political system.
We should be skeptical of making vast generalizations based on such a cursory look at a few documents--clearly there are exceptions--but the assessment presented here is a condensation of longstanding comparative analyses. What is important to note, however, is that it is precisely those principles that distinguish the United States from Europe that neoconservatives have invoked to argue for the current direction of American foreign policy.
It is difficult to define neoconservative foreign policy or to spell out what distinguishes it from other strains of political thought. Originally the label was applied to former leftists who became anticommunist after World War II and to Democrats who found themselves more in the Republican camp in the post-Vietnam era. But many of the individuals identified as neocons today are too young to have been part of the original group or were never associated with the Democratic Party.
Some turn to a more arcane definition of "the neoconservatives" as the students of the University of Chicago political philosophy professor Leo Strauss. Others note the Jewish surnames of many of the president's foreign affairs and defense advisors and hint darkly that the U.S. government is being manipulated for the benefit of Israel. Once again, these definitions fail to satisfy. Strauss may have been an influence on some, but it is difficult to believe that a relatively obscure philosophy professor dead for 30 years could now suddenly wield such influence over the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. By the same token, many of President Bush's advisors may indeed have Jewish roots, but many do not; it is, moreover, truly bizarre to believe that individuals can work their way to the top of the U.S. foreign policy apparatus by advocating the interests of another state to the detriment of the United States.
More often than not, the label is now employed as a pejorative to mean "hawkish on foreign policy." But this description applies to much of the American public since September 11. What has happened is that some commentators and defense intellectuals associated with the neocon label have been successful after 9/11 in articulating ideas that resonate with the general public and deep-seated beliefs that have historically guided the conduct of American foreign policy.
As much as some may have wanted to push the U.S. toward intervention in Iraq and take a firmer line with state supporters of terrorism, it simply was not politically possible until the clear and present danger presented itself. The arguments of Paul Wolfowitz and others were originally made in the early 1990s. They pressed for a more interventionist policy based on the threat to U.S. national security posed by inaction in the Greater Middle East, particularly in Iraq. One does not have to look any further than the Defense Planning Guidance of 1992 (co-authored by Mr. Wolfowitz), which in part advises removing the Saddam Hussein regime, to see the pattern. Others have long been advocating increased U.S. pressure on other regimes in the region, such as Iran and Syria. But it was not until September 11 that such a policy could have resonance in American public opinion.
There is also a strong misperception in Europe that the ideas ascribed to the neocons represent a small, extreme faction of the Republican Party. Although the so-called neocons may in general be Republicans, their ideas have a fair degree of approval within the ranks of the Democratic Party as well. In my own recollection, the first two individuals to promote the idea of military action to remove Saddam Hussein from power were both Democratic Party figures--one a retired congressman and the other a former Clinton administration official. It also bears repeating that 81 Democrats in the House voted in favor of authorizing the president to use military force in Iraq. Clearly there is more involved here than a handful of Rasputin-like ideologues whispering in the president's ear.
In truth, much of what has been identified as the neoconservative agenda has little to do with Republican versus Democrat; it is more a contest between realists and idealists--with the neocons firmly in the idealist camp. Realists are generally conservative in the true sense of the word. They do not seek to take risks to extend liberal democratic ideals. On the contrary, they seek to maintain American primacy and would not risk diluting finite resources to take on an enormous and protracted mission such as remaking the Middle East.
The realist school of thought contrasts sharply with the neoconservative camp, whose agenda would not be unfamiliar to Woodrow Wilson. He too sought to remake the international system from a position of relative strength, to spread democracy and the rule of law. It is true that today's crusaders are not about to place their trust in international institutions to do the job, but the basic ideals are similar in that they seek to use American power to reshape the global environment in the name of a set of liberal democratic ideals. It is their belief that this will make the United States more secure by reducing the seemingly intractable problems of the Middle East, thus getting at some of the root causes of terrorism. In taking up this banner, the neocons play into a very deep and old aspect of American political thought. This is why President Bush could speak for a large majority of the country when he set forth such an ambitious agenda based on their proposals.
Grand conspiracy theories are not needed to explain the direction of American foreign policy. What is needed is an appreciation of the core ideas that have guided it over the years and how those ideas differ from what is found in European political thought. If the trans-Atlantic relationship is to recover from the current rift, it is important to understand the roots of the differences.
Of course, some may argue that the political ideas held by the American public are simply a product of the messages that the national leadership broadcasts. Therefore, the entire idea of looking at core ideas and principles is suspect. There is no doubt that leaders shape and mold public opinion, but it seems extremely unlikely in an age of instant access to information from a variety of sources that the American public could be so held in sway by its leaders if the message those leaders delivered was not in line with their basic sentiments and opinions.
The argument presented here may be a cause for further pessimism about the trans-Atlantic alliance. If the two sides are truly on divergent paths and operating from very different root beliefs, many could say it is time to finalize the divorce and move on. But a few factors counsel against this level of resignation. First, the divergent root beliefs have always been there. The current direction of American foreign policy is not at all out of character with past actions and grows from deep-seated principles. Second, the U.S. may choose to deal with its allies in a somewhat different manner depending on the administration or the particular officials within the current administration.
The current administration's emphasis on pragmatism and frank speaking has a certain cultural appeal to many Americans, but given the hegemonic position of the U.S. in the global environment, frank speaking often sounds dictatorial. Consider some of the international agreements that the U.S. refuses to sign that many in Europe cite as evidence of American intransigence: the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Biological Weapons Convention Protocol, the International Criminal Court and the Kyoto Protocol. Many Americans see those agreements as deeply flawed in their current state, and it is safe to say that none would stand a chance of being ratified by the U.S. Senate. Indeed, the Senate voted unanimously to reject the Kyoto Protocol in its current form in a sense of the Senate resolution.
Given the far more independent role of the Congress in foreign policy compared with most European legislatures, an American president faces a very difficult task in moving any international agreement forward without a large degree of congressional support. The Bush administration chose to be blunt in its approach to all four and remove the U.S. from the negotiations. At one level, there is a pragmatic appeal to this approach: Why continue to spend countless hours negotiating agreements that the Senate is unlikely to support? On another level, however, there is certainly room in American foreign policy to maintain the process in the hope that something worthwhile and acceptable will eventually emerge. One can only wonder whether the current state of the trans-Atlantic relationship would be better at this point had the U.S. chosen that path.
In other words, style may change even if substance remains largely the same. This may help alleviate the current rift in trans-Atlantic relations, but it will not erase the basic differences in how and why the United States acts in the international environment. Those causes are deeply rooted in basic principles that have guided American foreign policy for a very long time, and they are unlikely to change anytime soon.
Mr. Selden is the director of the Defense and Security Committee of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. This article appears in the April issue of Policy Review.
Neoconservatism is neither neo nor conservative. It's just American.
BY ZACHARY SELDEN
Wednesday, May 26, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT
Americans working and living in Europe are often struck by the preoccupation in defense and security circles with the pernicious influence of "neoconservatives" on U.S. foreign policy. There is a pervasive sense that American foreign policy is being driven down a radically new path by a small band of ideologues who have virtually hijacked the policymaking process.
European defense and foreign policy elites are not the only ones who seem to believe that current U.S. foreign policy is something of an aberration; this view is found more broadly in European public opinion as well. In a 2003 Pew poll, approximately 75% of those surveyed in France and Germany said the current "problem with the U.S." was mainly President Bush, while only 21% said it had more to do with the United States in general. The end result is a dominant opinion in much of Europe that little will be repaired in the trans-Atlantic relationship until there is a new presidential administration in the United States, or at least a marked reduction in the influence of the small group of neoconservative extremists who surround Mr. Bush.
Although there are notable exceptions, many European commentators and much of the public are resorting to conspiratorial theories to explain the direction of U.S. foreign policy and somehow overlook the fact that American public opinion runs in favor of the president's handling of foreign affairs. Perhaps more important, however, they overlook the deep historical roots of the current direction of American foreign policy. It is not driven by a "neocon cabal." Rather, it is that certain individuals associated with the neoconservative label have been particularly articulate in expressing a set of policies that flow from two ideas that resonate deeply in American public opinion. The first is a belief that the United States has a responsibility to spread its vision of individual liberty. The second is that the primary and perhaps exclusive task of the federal government is to protect its citizens from external threats. Whatever the actual causes of U.S. action in any particular instance, those principles loom large in the public debate and shape how and when the United States becomes involved in other countries' affairs.
The first principle is often credited to Woodrow Wilson, but in some ways its roots stretch back into the 18th century. It is founded on the moral assertions that have been part of American political thought since the early days of the republic. Chief among them is the idea that individual liberty is a moral absolute and that a system of governance that enshrines individual liberty is morally and practically superior to all others. This is a very fundamental belief, deeply embedded in American political thought and public opinion. It is a principle, however, that does not necessarily have the same level of importance in modern European political systems, whose constitutions tend to place a greater emphasis on social harmony than on individual liberty.
The second principle conflicts somewhat with the first and serves to moderate the impulse to intervention. Since the republic's founding, there has been a vigorous debate as to the proper role of the federal government, a debate that is still at the heart of most cases brought before the U.S. Supreme Court. But there has always been a strong trend toward the idea of a limited federal government whose sole exclusive area of responsibility is in foreign affairs and the protection of the nation from external enemies. In fact, the first five numbers of the Federalist focus almost exclusively on foreign affairs and the need for a federal government to protect the nation from foreign influence. The end result of this idea is a broad consensus across the political spectrum that cautions against foreign interventions unless they are required for national security reasons.
We see these contradictory principles at work today. Since the 1970s, there have been those who argue for American military intervention in the Middle East, optimistically promoting what essentially boils down to a set of "American" values for the region. But most Americans have looked askance at such ideas without a national-security justification for direct intervention. September 11, 2001, was the turning point. An increasingly large proportion of public opinion became more certain that the only way to ensure the nation's security against transnational enemies operating from the Middle East was to transform the region. What was previously seen as too risky became acceptable in the aftermath of 9/11.
In essence, public opinion shifted in favor of policies that have been articulated by neoconservatives for at least a decade, and neocons have been very adept at articulating a policy that resonates with longstanding ideas in American public life. Therefore, what many label "neoconservative" is a product of ideas that are neither "neo" nor "conservative," but a worldview that has broad appeal to American citizens in ways that are difficult for many Europeans to fully fathom within the context of their own political systems.
In short, if Europe is waiting for a new administration or a new set of policy professionals to rise to positions of influence, the Continent may be in for a very long wait. The style in which affairs are conducted may change, and the blunt take-it-or-leave-it pronouncements of the current administration might be softened, but the substance of American foreign policy will remain roughly the same. The current direction of U.S. foreign policy--reshaping the Middle East, pre-emptive confrontations with potentially threatening adversaries, and an ambivalent attitude toward international organizations that constrain the use of American power to achieve those ends--is unlikely to change substantially with any new administration that could conceivably come to the White House in the near future.
It is not the case that the president and a small band of advisors are steering America on a radically new path; rather, they are following a pattern in U.S. foreign policy with deep historical roots. If there is to be reconciliation within the trans-Atlantic partnership, it must start with this recognition.
There is no shortage of studies on the roots of American foreign policy or the labels that can be associated with the enduring ideas that continue to guide it. Diplomatic historian Robert W. Tucker views it as a balance between those content to make the United States an exemplar of democratic virtues and those who want to launch crusades to impart those values throughout the world. Arthur Schlesinger sees it as a contest between realism and messianism. Henry Kissinger calls it a balance between isolationism and globalism. Walter McDougall identifies eight guiding principles, and Thomas Bailey finds five. Walter Russell Mead, in his "Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How it Changed the World" (Knopf, 2001), notes four tendencies that he labels Wilsonian, Jeffersonian, Jacksonian and Hamiltonian. My purpose here is not to engage in a historical debate, but to highlight the core ideas that historians generally find at the roots of U.S. foreign policy.
Clearly, one set of core ideas is associated with American exceptionalism and, flowing from that idea, a revolutionary or messianic ethos that rises periodically to push the United States into global intervention in the name of individual liberty and freedom. Behind this tendency lies an assumption so prevalent and historically accepted in American political thought that it is rarely questioned: that American liberal values and institutions constitute a generalizable model that promotes human rights and prosperity. Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points are a classic example of this messianic belief, but so is the construction of the liberal international order forged out of the detritus of the Second World War.
Many around the world find the idea positively risible. America's interventions in Latin America, its support for dictatorships, its interventions for pure Realpolitik and commercial reasons are all said to expose this belief as a sham. There is no doubt that the United States is guilty of talking idealism and walking realism, but, as Mr. McDougall has written, U.S. foreign policy has always been a mix of "the good, the bad, and the ugly." Regardless, the idea endures and repeatedly captures the public imagination. America as liberator is a powerful popular image that motivates a fair amount of U.S. foreign policy, even if the bad and the ugly often raise their heads as well.
Critics also raise the question of selective intervention. Sub-Saharan Africa is rife with repressive regimes guilty of horrific human rights abuses, yet the United States is not about to become embroiled in that continent. If spreading individual liberty is truly one of the core beliefs of American foreign policy, then why, ask the critics, does the U.S. virtually ignore Africa?
The answer lies in that second core belief shaping U.S. foreign policy: The federal government should be limited in its authority. How does this principle of domestic governance affect foreign policy? In a very basic sense, it shapes a prevalent conviction in American political thought that the primary--and, some would say, only--task of the federal government is to protect its citizens from foreign enemies. To a large extent, the whole framework of the federal government is based on the idea that is necessary to ward off enemies that could otherwise threaten individual states. This was an impetus behind abandoning the original Articles of Confederation and drafting the Constitution in 1787. Of course, investing power in the federal government diminished the power of the individual states, and in many ways this was seen at the time as a necessary evil. Thomas Jefferson spoke (and probably still speaks) for many Americans when he said, "We should be made one nation in every case concerning foreign affairs and separate ones in what is merely domestic."
This idea is also at the root of John Adams's famous assertion that America should not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. It is a two-centuries-old statement that probably still reflects a large swath of American public opinion, and it restricts the predilection toward intervention. Foreign adventures would only increase the power of the federal government, diminishing the authority of state and local governments. Becoming too embroiled in world events would mean raising a large standing military and increasing taxes along with other demands on the people and the individual states. For a republic founded on the idea of individual liberty above all else, resting on a Constitution that specifically limits the power of the federal government, this is a dangerous prospect.
In large part, many of these fears have been realized. The power of the federal government has increased dramatically over the past century as the U.S. has become gradually more active and finally dominant in world affairs. But this only makes the principle of limiting the power of the federal government all the more relevant in American politics. Therefore, any American president who seeks to convince the public to back an intervention for purposes that are not explicitly in the interest of national security will face an uphill battle. American public opinion was divided over interventions in Bosnia, Kosovo and Haiti for precisely this reason.
Even in the abstract, Americans are far less likely to favor committing troops to such operations than Europeans. In the Worldviews 2002 survey, less than half of Americans (48%) favored using the military to "bring peace in a region where there is civil war" while 72% of Europeans favored the same. At the root of American ambivalence lies a fundamental conviction that the federal government should remain within limited powers--not launch crusades that detract from its core purpose.
It takes a significant event to move American public opinion away from supporting a constrained foreign policy to supporting a grand reshaping of the international environment, but such shifts in public opinion can be massive and rapid once the nation is threatened. Woodrow Wilson could not muster popular support for the U.S. entrance into World War i until German U-boat activity convinced the public that Germany constituted a threat to American national security. Franklin Roosevelt failed to stir public opinion to enter World War ii before Pearl Harbor. Here was a clear case of blatant aggression and fascist brutalization of millions of people around the world, but the American impulse toward intervention was checked by a more fundamental question: Does such an intervention fit within the primary task of the federal government? Roosevelt tried for over a year to bring the U.S. into the war, but until Pearl Harbor the American public remained very divided.
President Bush himself evinces these contradictory impulses. As a candidate, Mr. Bush pledged a "humble" approach to global affairs--to refrain from using American forces for the sort of unclear peacekeeping and nation-building exercises that characterized the deployment of the U.S. armed forces in the 1990s. Once the nation was threatened, however, he shifted his rhetoric and policy decisions to support what is probably the largest nation-building exercise since World War ii.
In Robert Kagan's now-famous assessment, "Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus." Mr. Kagan traces the differences in attitudes on the use of power in the international environment to the fact that the United States has the ability to project power and Europe does not. In fact, it is precisely America's capability to project power that allowed the great experiment of a united Europe to flourish along with what Mr. Kagan, following the scholar-diplomat Robert Cooper, calls the "postmodern" ideas that clash with America's "Hobbesian" view of the world. But as Mr. Kagan also notes, there are differences between the trans-Atlantic partners that have more to do with the distribution of ideas than the current distribution of power.
At a very basic level, much of Europe fails to appreciate the seriousness of the core principles animating American foreign policy and how deeply they affect popular opinion. Where Europe sees imperialism, America sees the use of power for moral purposes. Where Europe asks by what right America imposes its values, America sees those values as universal and moral absolutes. Where Europe sees hypocrisy, America sees a balance between competing principles.
Those principles are very real and are reflected in the founding documents of the republic and the writings of early observers such as Tocqueville. The messianic aspects of American exceptionalism are found throughout many of the basic texts of American history, although they tend to focus on America as the exemplar of liberty (John Winthrop's "city upon a hill") rather than as a crusading state bringing the benefits of individual liberty to the oppressed. However, the two visions rapidly became conflated in early American history. By his second term as president, Thomas Jefferson began to speak less of America as the "exemplar of liberty" and more of America as the "empire of liberty."
At the same time, the more cautionary and limiting principles regarding how the nation should be governed are readily apparent in the Constitution. Despite the fact that the document explicitly gives all powers not specifically designated as federal responsibilities to the individual states and the people in general, the states demanded additional restrictions on the federal government as found in the first 10 amendments to the Constitution.
Cynics may be correct that many U.S. citizens are unaware of the actual content of the Constitution, but they are very aware of its basic purpose: to restrict the power of the government in the name of individual liberty. The U.S. Constitution is essentially a product of 18th-century Enlightenment thought that elevates the protection of individual liberty as a core purpose of government. As a result, many of the rights set down in it are protections against the intrusion of the state (e.g., "Congress shall make no law . . ."). Regardless of the number of individuals who can cite chapter and verse from the Constitution, most understand that it is a document designed to protect the citizen from an overreaching government.
This is a very different social contract from what is found in European constitutions. Those documents were generally drafted later and reflect social democratic ideas arising in the 19th century. As a result, they often establish expanded conceptions of what the state will provide its citizens, including social security, housing, and even environmental protection. Often those same constitutions also spell out what the citizen is expected to give the state in return, such as obligatory military service.
The difference is quite fundamental. The U.S. Constitution puts a premium on individual liberty and freedom from governmental interference in the citizens' daily affairs. Most European constitutions place a premium on social harmony, reserving the right of the state to more directly affect the lives of its citizens for the provision of specific public goods. One can argue that those documents are a reflection of the values found in their societies or, conversely, that the values found in society are imposed by the system of governance flowing from the founding document. Either way, the end result is that Europe and the United States hold up different ideas about the role of government and the ideals that undergird the political system.
We should be skeptical of making vast generalizations based on such a cursory look at a few documents--clearly there are exceptions--but the assessment presented here is a condensation of longstanding comparative analyses. What is important to note, however, is that it is precisely those principles that distinguish the United States from Europe that neoconservatives have invoked to argue for the current direction of American foreign policy.
It is difficult to define neoconservative foreign policy or to spell out what distinguishes it from other strains of political thought. Originally the label was applied to former leftists who became anticommunist after World War II and to Democrats who found themselves more in the Republican camp in the post-Vietnam era. But many of the individuals identified as neocons today are too young to have been part of the original group or were never associated with the Democratic Party.
Some turn to a more arcane definition of "the neoconservatives" as the students of the University of Chicago political philosophy professor Leo Strauss. Others note the Jewish surnames of many of the president's foreign affairs and defense advisors and hint darkly that the U.S. government is being manipulated for the benefit of Israel. Once again, these definitions fail to satisfy. Strauss may have been an influence on some, but it is difficult to believe that a relatively obscure philosophy professor dead for 30 years could now suddenly wield such influence over the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. By the same token, many of President Bush's advisors may indeed have Jewish roots, but many do not; it is, moreover, truly bizarre to believe that individuals can work their way to the top of the U.S. foreign policy apparatus by advocating the interests of another state to the detriment of the United States.
More often than not, the label is now employed as a pejorative to mean "hawkish on foreign policy." But this description applies to much of the American public since September 11. What has happened is that some commentators and defense intellectuals associated with the neocon label have been successful after 9/11 in articulating ideas that resonate with the general public and deep-seated beliefs that have historically guided the conduct of American foreign policy.
As much as some may have wanted to push the U.S. toward intervention in Iraq and take a firmer line with state supporters of terrorism, it simply was not politically possible until the clear and present danger presented itself. The arguments of Paul Wolfowitz and others were originally made in the early 1990s. They pressed for a more interventionist policy based on the threat to U.S. national security posed by inaction in the Greater Middle East, particularly in Iraq. One does not have to look any further than the Defense Planning Guidance of 1992 (co-authored by Mr. Wolfowitz), which in part advises removing the Saddam Hussein regime, to see the pattern. Others have long been advocating increased U.S. pressure on other regimes in the region, such as Iran and Syria. But it was not until September 11 that such a policy could have resonance in American public opinion.
There is also a strong misperception in Europe that the ideas ascribed to the neocons represent a small, extreme faction of the Republican Party. Although the so-called neocons may in general be Republicans, their ideas have a fair degree of approval within the ranks of the Democratic Party as well. In my own recollection, the first two individuals to promote the idea of military action to remove Saddam Hussein from power were both Democratic Party figures--one a retired congressman and the other a former Clinton administration official. It also bears repeating that 81 Democrats in the House voted in favor of authorizing the president to use military force in Iraq. Clearly there is more involved here than a handful of Rasputin-like ideologues whispering in the president's ear.
In truth, much of what has been identified as the neoconservative agenda has little to do with Republican versus Democrat; it is more a contest between realists and idealists--with the neocons firmly in the idealist camp. Realists are generally conservative in the true sense of the word. They do not seek to take risks to extend liberal democratic ideals. On the contrary, they seek to maintain American primacy and would not risk diluting finite resources to take on an enormous and protracted mission such as remaking the Middle East.
The realist school of thought contrasts sharply with the neoconservative camp, whose agenda would not be unfamiliar to Woodrow Wilson. He too sought to remake the international system from a position of relative strength, to spread democracy and the rule of law. It is true that today's crusaders are not about to place their trust in international institutions to do the job, but the basic ideals are similar in that they seek to use American power to reshape the global environment in the name of a set of liberal democratic ideals. It is their belief that this will make the United States more secure by reducing the seemingly intractable problems of the Middle East, thus getting at some of the root causes of terrorism. In taking up this banner, the neocons play into a very deep and old aspect of American political thought. This is why President Bush could speak for a large majority of the country when he set forth such an ambitious agenda based on their proposals.
Grand conspiracy theories are not needed to explain the direction of American foreign policy. What is needed is an appreciation of the core ideas that have guided it over the years and how those ideas differ from what is found in European political thought. If the trans-Atlantic relationship is to recover from the current rift, it is important to understand the roots of the differences.
Of course, some may argue that the political ideas held by the American public are simply a product of the messages that the national leadership broadcasts. Therefore, the entire idea of looking at core ideas and principles is suspect. There is no doubt that leaders shape and mold public opinion, but it seems extremely unlikely in an age of instant access to information from a variety of sources that the American public could be so held in sway by its leaders if the message those leaders delivered was not in line with their basic sentiments and opinions.
The argument presented here may be a cause for further pessimism about the trans-Atlantic alliance. If the two sides are truly on divergent paths and operating from very different root beliefs, many could say it is time to finalize the divorce and move on. But a few factors counsel against this level of resignation. First, the divergent root beliefs have always been there. The current direction of American foreign policy is not at all out of character with past actions and grows from deep-seated principles. Second, the U.S. may choose to deal with its allies in a somewhat different manner depending on the administration or the particular officials within the current administration.
The current administration's emphasis on pragmatism and frank speaking has a certain cultural appeal to many Americans, but given the hegemonic position of the U.S. in the global environment, frank speaking often sounds dictatorial. Consider some of the international agreements that the U.S. refuses to sign that many in Europe cite as evidence of American intransigence: the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Biological Weapons Convention Protocol, the International Criminal Court and the Kyoto Protocol. Many Americans see those agreements as deeply flawed in their current state, and it is safe to say that none would stand a chance of being ratified by the U.S. Senate. Indeed, the Senate voted unanimously to reject the Kyoto Protocol in its current form in a sense of the Senate resolution.
Given the far more independent role of the Congress in foreign policy compared with most European legislatures, an American president faces a very difficult task in moving any international agreement forward without a large degree of congressional support. The Bush administration chose to be blunt in its approach to all four and remove the U.S. from the negotiations. At one level, there is a pragmatic appeal to this approach: Why continue to spend countless hours negotiating agreements that the Senate is unlikely to support? On another level, however, there is certainly room in American foreign policy to maintain the process in the hope that something worthwhile and acceptable will eventually emerge. One can only wonder whether the current state of the trans-Atlantic relationship would be better at this point had the U.S. chosen that path.
In other words, style may change even if substance remains largely the same. This may help alleviate the current rift in trans-Atlantic relations, but it will not erase the basic differences in how and why the United States acts in the international environment. Those causes are deeply rooted in basic principles that have guided American foreign policy for a very long time, and they are unlikely to change anytime soon.
Mr. Selden is the director of the Defense and Security Committee of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. This article appears in the April issue of Policy Review.
Tuesday, May 25, 2004
Bush's Epic Gamble
By DAVID BROOKS
Last night, George Bush made it clear that American military victories alone will not secure Iraq. We keep winning victories, but somehow the violence just keeps on coming.
Furthermore, American nation-building will not secure Iraq. We've tried to pour money into Iraq, to build a decent nation and then hand it back gift-wrapped to the Iraqi people. But that turns out not to work either. The longer we keep control, the bigger the mess grows.
The only real way to secure Iraq, Bush argued, is through self-governing democracy. Only representative self-government denies the terrorists the pretext they need to kill. It is only through the mundane acts of democratic citizenship that Iraqis will be able to build a civil society. It is only through self-government that Iraq can become secure.
The political transition Bush described implies an infinitude of concrete acts. The 400 parties that now exist in Iraq will have to meld into just a few. Conferences will convene, and people will debate. Politicians will vie for power; petitions will be signed; protests will be lodged. That, Bush implied, is the only practical path to normalcy.
It's a huge gamble to think that the solution to chaos is liberty. But it's fitting that during the gravest crisis of his presidency, President Bush reverted to his most fundamental political belief. He began this war in Iraq repeating the sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence, that our creator has endowed all human beings with the right to liberty, and the ability to function as democratic citizens. He said last night with absolute confidence that the Iraqis are democrats at heart.
Bush is betting his presidency, and the near-term future of this nation, on that central American creed.
It's an epic gamble. Because, let's face it, we don't know whether all people really do want to live in freedom. We don't know whether Iraqis have any notion of what democratic citizenship really means. We don't know whether they hear words like freedom, liberty and pluralism as deadly insults to the way of life they hold dear. We don't know who our enemies are. Are they the small minority of Baathists and jihadists, or is there a little bit of Moktada al-Sadr in every Iraqi's breast?
Bush is putting this tenet of our national creed to a fearsome test in the worst possible circumstances. For the past year Americans have committed horrible blunders. And if this gamble fails, it won't be only the competence of our officials that will be called into question — it will be the American creed itself. Since before the nation's founding, Americans have thought of themselves as the great democratic champions of the globe.
If this gamble fails to come off, then that mission will seem, to many, false. Perhaps democracy and freedom are not really universal values, some will say. Perhaps they are just the outgrowths of a specific culture. People on the left and right will race to withdraw from the world. It will become difficult to take on the tyrants who will menace the world.
On the other hand, if we muddle through in Iraq and some semidemocratic nation slowly emerges, it won't be because of American skill. It will be because the democratic creed is so strong it can withstand the highest incompetence. Then there really will be hope for a democratic Middle East. The war on terror will really look winnable.
If it all works out, then Iraqis will feel they control their lives. They will stop playing both sides of the fence. They will take responsibility for their future. They will try to expel the foreign jihadists. They will regard Americans as necessary guests, and Americans will behave like guests.
Right now that happy outcome feels a long way away. But at least Bush has now squarely faced the consequences of his creed. There was always something antidemocratic about nation-building — the idea that a country could go into a foreign place, then hand it back to the locals.
Bush is betting his presidency on the Iraqis and their ability to govern themselves better than we governed them. At least he is now behaving consistently with the elemental conviction of this nation. If we have faith in anything, it should be in this democratic dream, which has so far, in our history, vindicated our hopes.
By DAVID BROOKS
Last night, George Bush made it clear that American military victories alone will not secure Iraq. We keep winning victories, but somehow the violence just keeps on coming.
Furthermore, American nation-building will not secure Iraq. We've tried to pour money into Iraq, to build a decent nation and then hand it back gift-wrapped to the Iraqi people. But that turns out not to work either. The longer we keep control, the bigger the mess grows.
The only real way to secure Iraq, Bush argued, is through self-governing democracy. Only representative self-government denies the terrorists the pretext they need to kill. It is only through the mundane acts of democratic citizenship that Iraqis will be able to build a civil society. It is only through self-government that Iraq can become secure.
The political transition Bush described implies an infinitude of concrete acts. The 400 parties that now exist in Iraq will have to meld into just a few. Conferences will convene, and people will debate. Politicians will vie for power; petitions will be signed; protests will be lodged. That, Bush implied, is the only practical path to normalcy.
It's a huge gamble to think that the solution to chaos is liberty. But it's fitting that during the gravest crisis of his presidency, President Bush reverted to his most fundamental political belief. He began this war in Iraq repeating the sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence, that our creator has endowed all human beings with the right to liberty, and the ability to function as democratic citizens. He said last night with absolute confidence that the Iraqis are democrats at heart.
Bush is betting his presidency, and the near-term future of this nation, on that central American creed.
It's an epic gamble. Because, let's face it, we don't know whether all people really do want to live in freedom. We don't know whether Iraqis have any notion of what democratic citizenship really means. We don't know whether they hear words like freedom, liberty and pluralism as deadly insults to the way of life they hold dear. We don't know who our enemies are. Are they the small minority of Baathists and jihadists, or is there a little bit of Moktada al-Sadr in every Iraqi's breast?
Bush is putting this tenet of our national creed to a fearsome test in the worst possible circumstances. For the past year Americans have committed horrible blunders. And if this gamble fails, it won't be only the competence of our officials that will be called into question — it will be the American creed itself. Since before the nation's founding, Americans have thought of themselves as the great democratic champions of the globe.
If this gamble fails to come off, then that mission will seem, to many, false. Perhaps democracy and freedom are not really universal values, some will say. Perhaps they are just the outgrowths of a specific culture. People on the left and right will race to withdraw from the world. It will become difficult to take on the tyrants who will menace the world.
On the other hand, if we muddle through in Iraq and some semidemocratic nation slowly emerges, it won't be because of American skill. It will be because the democratic creed is so strong it can withstand the highest incompetence. Then there really will be hope for a democratic Middle East. The war on terror will really look winnable.
If it all works out, then Iraqis will feel they control their lives. They will stop playing both sides of the fence. They will take responsibility for their future. They will try to expel the foreign jihadists. They will regard Americans as necessary guests, and Americans will behave like guests.
Right now that happy outcome feels a long way away. But at least Bush has now squarely faced the consequences of his creed. There was always something antidemocratic about nation-building — the idea that a country could go into a foreign place, then hand it back to the locals.
Bush is betting his presidency on the Iraqis and their ability to govern themselves better than we governed them. At least he is now behaving consistently with the elemental conviction of this nation. If we have faith in anything, it should be in this democratic dream, which has so far, in our history, vindicated our hopes.
President Outlines Steps to Help Iraq Achieve Democracy and Freedom
Remarks by the President on Iraq and the War on Terror
United States Army War College
Carlisle, Pennsylvania
8:00 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all. Thank you and good evening. I'm honored to visit the Army War College. Generations of officers have come here to study the strategies and history of warfare. I've come here tonight to report to all Americans, and to the Iraqi people, on the strategy our nation is pursuing in Iraq, and the specific steps were taking to achieve our goals.
The actions of our enemies over the last few weeks have been brutal, calculating, and instructive. We've seen a car bombing take the life of a 61-year-old Iraqi named Izzedin Saleem, who was serving as President of the Governing Council. This crime shows our enemy's intention to prevent Iraqi self-government, even if that means killing a lifelong Iraqi patriot and a faithful Muslim. Mr. Saleem was assassinated by terrorists seeking the return of tyranny and the death of democracy.
We've also seen images of a young American facing decapitation. This vile display shows a contempt for all the rules of warfare, and all the bounds of civilized behavior. It reveals a fanaticism that was not caused by any action of ours, and would not be appeased by any concession. We suspect that the man with the knife was an al Qaeda associate named Zarqawi. He and other terrorists know that Iraq is now the central front in the war on terror. And we must understand that, as well. The return of tyranny to Iraq would be an unprecedented terrorist victory, and a cause for killers to rejoice. It would also embolden the terrorists, leading to more bombings, more beheadings, and more murders of the innocent around the world.
The rise of a free and self-governing Iraq will deny terrorists a base of operation, discredit their narrow ideology, and give momentum to reformers across the region. This will be a decisive blow to terrorism at the heart of its power, and a victory for the security of America and the civilized world.
Our work in Iraq has been hard. Our coalition has faced changing conditions of war, and that has required perseverance, sacrifice, and an ability to adapt. The swift removal of Saddam Hussein's regime last spring had an unintended effect: Instead of being killed or captured on the battlefield, some of Saddam's elite guards shed their uniforms and melted into the civilian population. These elements of Saddam's repressive regime and secret police have reorganized, rearmed, and adopted sophisticated terrorist tactics. They've linked up with foreign fighters and terrorists. In a few cities, extremists have tried to sow chaos and seize regional power for themselves. These groups and individuals have conflicting ambitions, but they share a goal: They hope to wear out the patience of Americans, our coalition, and Iraqis before the arrival of effective self-government, and before Iraqis have the capability to defend their freedom.
Iraq now faces a critical moment. As the Iraqi people move closer to governing themselves, the terrorists are likely to become more active and more brutal. There are difficult days ahead, and the way forward may sometimes appear chaotic. Yet our coalition is strong, our efforts are focused and unrelenting, and no power of the enemy will stop Iraq's progress. (Applause.)
Helping construct a stable democracy after decades of dictatorship is a massive undertaking. Yet we have a great advantage. Whenever people are given a choice in the matter, they prefer lives of freedom to lives of fear. Our enemies in Iraq are good at filling hospitals, but they do not build any. They can incite men to murder and suicide, but they cannot inspire men to live, and hope, and add to the progress of their country. The terrorists' only influence is violence, and their only agenda is death.
Our agenda, in contrast, is freedom and independence, security and prosperity for the Iraqi people. And by removing a source of terrorist violence and instability in the Middle East, we also make our own country more secure.
Our coalition has a clear goal, understood by all -- to see the Iraqi people in charge of Iraq for the first time in generations. America's task in Iraq is not only to defeat an enemy, it is to give strength to a friend - a free, representative government that serves its people and fights on their behalf. And the sooner this goal is achieved, the sooner our job will be done.
There are five steps in our plan to help Iraq achieve democracy and freedom. We will hand over authority to a sovereign Iraqi government, help establish security, continue rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure, encourage more international support, and move toward a national election that will bring forward new leaders empowered by the Iraqi people.
The first of these steps will occur next month, when our coalition will transfer full sovereignty to a government of Iraqi citizens who will prepare the way for national elections. On June 30th, the Coalition Provisional Authority will cease to exist, and will not be replaced. The occupation will end, and Iraqis will govern their own affairs. America's ambassador to Iraq, John Negroponte, will present his credentials to the new president of Iraq. Our embassy in Baghdad will have the same purpose as any other American embassy, to assure good relations with a sovereign nation. America and other countries will continue to provide technical experts to help Iraq's ministries of government, but these ministries will report to Iraq's new prime minister.
The United Nations Special Envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, is now consulting with a broad spectrum of Iraqis to determine the composition of this interim government. The special envoy intends to put forward the names of interim government officials this week. In addition to a president, two vice presidents, and a prime minister, 26 Iraqi ministers will oversee government departments, from health to justice to defense. This new government will be advised by a national council, which will be chosen in July by Iraqis representing their country's diversity. This interim government will exercise full sovereignty until national elections are held. America fully supports Mr. Brahimi's efforts, and I have instructed the Coalition Provisional Authority to assist him in every way possible.
In preparation for sovereignty, many functions of government have already been transferred. Twelve government ministries are currently under the direct control of Iraqis. The Ministry of Education, for example, is out of the propaganda business, and is now concerned with educating Iraqi children. Under the direction of Dr. Ala'din al-Alwan, the Ministry has trained more than 30,000 teachers and supervisors for the schools of a new Iraq.
All along, some have questioned whether the Iraqi people are ready for self-government, or even want it. And all along, the Iraqi people have given their answer. In settings where Iraqis have met to discuss their country's future, they have endorsed representative government. And they are practicing representative government. Many of Iraq's cities and towns now have elected town councils or city governments - and beyond the violence, a civil society is emerging.
The June 30th transfer of sovereignty is an essential commitment of our strategy. Iraqis are proud people who resent foreign control of their affairs, just as we would. After decades under the tyrant, they are also reluctant to trust authority. By keeping our promise on June 30th, the coalition will demonstrate that we have no interest in occupation. And full sovereignty will give Iraqis a direct interest in the success of their own government. Iraqis will know that when they build a school or repair a bridge, they're not working for the Coalition Provisional Authority, they are working for themselves. And when they patrol the streets of Baghdad, or engage radical militias, they will be fighting for their own country.
The second step in the plan for Iraqi democracy is to help establish the stability and security that democracy requires. Coalition forces and the Iraqi people have the same enemies -- the terrorists, illegal militia, and Saddam loyalists who stand between the Iraqi people and their future as a free nation. Working as allies, we will defend Iraq and defeat these enemies.
America will provide forces and support necessary for achieving these goals. Our commanders had estimated that a troop level below 115,000 would be sufficient at this point in the conflict. Given the recent increase in violence, we'll maintain our troop level at the current 138,000 as long as necessary. This has required extended duty for the 1st Armored Division and the 2nd Light Cavalry Regiment -- 20,000 men and women who were scheduled to leave Iraq in April. Our nation appreciates their hard work and sacrifice, and they can know that they will be heading home soon. General Abizaid and other commanders in Iraq are constantly assessing the level of troops they need to fulfill the mission. If they need more troops, I will send them. The mission of our forces in Iraq is demanding and dangerous. Our troops are showing exceptional skill and courage. I thank them for their sacrifices and their duty. (Applause.)
In the city of Fallujah, there's been considerable violence by Saddam loyalists and foreign fighters, including the murder of four American contractors. American soldiers and Marines could have used overwhelming force. Our commanders, however, consulted with Iraq's Governing Council and local officials, and determined that massive strikes against the enemy would alienate the local population, and increase support for the insurgency. So we have pursued a different approach. We're making security a shared responsibility in Fallujah. Coalition commanders have worked with local leaders to create an all-Iraqi security force, which is now patrolling the city. Our soldiers and Marines will continue to disrupt enemy attacks on our supply routes, conduct joint patrols with Iraqis to destroy bomb factories and safe houses, and kill or capture any enemy.
We want Iraqi forces to gain experience and confidence in dealing with their country's enemies. We want the Iraqi people to know that we trust their growing capabilities, even as we help build them. At the same time, Fallujah must cease to be a sanctuary for the enemy, and those responsible for terrorism will be held to account.
In the cities of Najaf and Karbala and Kufa, most of the violence has been incited by a young, radical cleric who commands an illegal militia. These enemies have been hiding behind an innocent civilian population, storing arms and ammunition in mosques, and launching attacks from holy shrines. Our soldiers have treated religious sites with respect, while systematically dismantling the illegal militia. We're also seeing Iraqis, themselves, take more responsibility for restoring order. In recent weeks, Iraqi forces have ejected elements of this militia from the governor's office in Najaf. Yesterday, an elite Iraqi unit cleared out a weapons cache from a large mosque in Kufa. Respected Shia leaders have called on the militia to withdraw from these towns. Ordinary Iraqis have marched in protest against the militants.
As challenges arise in Fallujah, Najaf, and elsewhere, the tactics of our military will be flexible. Commanders on the ground will pay close attention to local conditions. And we will do all that is necessary -- by measured force or overwhelming force -- to achieve a stable Iraq.
Iraq's military, police, and border forces have begun to take on broader responsibilities. Eventually, they must be the primary defenders of Iraqi security, as American and coalition forces are withdrawn. And we're helping them to prepare for this role. In some cases, the early performance of Iraqi forces fell short. Some refused orders to engage the enemy. We've learned from these failures, and we've taken steps to correct them. Successful fighting units need a sense of cohesion, so we've lengthened and intensified their training. Successful units need to know they are fighting for the future of their own country, not for any occupying power, so we are ensuring that Iraqi forces serve under an Iraqi chain of command. Successful fighting units need the best possible leadership, so we improved the vetting and training of Iraqi officers and senior enlisted men.
At my direction, and with the support of Iraqi authorities, we are accelerating our program to help train Iraqis to defend their country. A new team of senior military officers is now assessing every unit in Iraq's security forces. I've asked this team to oversee the training of a force of 260,000 Iraqi soldiers, police, and other security personnel. Five Iraqi army battalions are in the field now, with another eight battalions to join them by July the 1st. The eventual goal is an Iraqi army of 35,000 soldiers in 27 battalions, fully prepared to defend their country.
After June 30th, American and other forces will still have important duties. American military forces in Iraq will operate under American command as a part of a multinational force authorized by the United Nations. Iraq's new sovereign government will still face enormous security challenges, and our forces will be there to help.
The third step in the plan for Iraqi democracy is to continue rebuilding that nation's infrastructure, so that a free Iraq can quickly gain economic independence and a better quality of life. Our coalition has already helped Iraqis to rebuild schools and refurbish hospitals and health clinics, repair bridges, upgrade the electrical grid, and modernize the communications system. And now a growing private economy is taking shape. A new currency has been introduced. Iraq's Governing Council approved a new law that opens the country to foreign investment for the first time in decades. Iraq has liberalized its trade policy, and today an Iraqi observer attends meetings of the World Trade Organization. Iraqi oil production has reached more than two million barrels per day, bringing revenues of nearly $6 billion so far this year, which is being used to help the people of Iraq. And thanks in part to our efforts -- to the efforts of former Secretary of State James Baker, many of Iraq's largest creditors have pledged to forgive or substantially reduce Iraqi debt incurred by the former regime.
We're making progress. Yet there still is much work to do. Over the decades of Saddam's rule, Iraq's infrastructure was allowed to crumble, while money was diverted to palaces, and to wars, and to weapons programs. We're urging other nations to contribute to Iraqi reconstruction -- and 37 countries and the IMF and the World Bank have so far pledged $13.5 billion in aid. America has dedicated more than $20 billion to reconstruction and development projects in Iraq. To ensure our money is spent wisely and effectively, our new embassy in Iraq will have regional offices in several key cities. These offices will work closely with Iraqis at all levels of government to help make sure projects are completed on time and on budget.
A new Iraq will also need a humane, well-supervised prison system. Under the dictator, prisons like Abu Ghraib were symbols of death and torture. That same prison became a symbol of disgraceful conduct by a few American troops who dishonored our country and disregarded our values. America will fund the construction of a modern, maximum security prison. When that prison is completed, detainees at Abu Ghraib will be relocated. Then, with the approval of the Iraqi government, we will demolish the Abu Ghraib prison, as a fitting symbol of Iraq's new beginning. (Applause.)
The fourth step in our plan is to enlist additional international support for Iraq's transition. At every stage, the United States has gone to the United Nations -- to confront Saddam Hussein, to promise serious consequences for his actions, and to begin Iraqi reconstruction. Today, the United States and Great Britain presented a new resolution in the Security Council to help move Iraq toward self-government. I've directed Secretary Powell to work with fellow members of the Council to endorse the timetable the Iraqis have adopted, to express international support for Iraq's interim government, to reaffirm the world's security commitment to the Iraqi people, and to encourage other U.N. members to join in the effort. Despite past disagreements, most nations have indicated strong support for the success of a free Iraq. And I'm confident they will share in the responsibility of assuring that success.
Next month, at the NATO summit in Istanbul, I will thank our 15 NATO allies who together have more than 17,000 troops on the ground in Iraq. Great Britain and Poland are each leading a multinational division that is securing important parts of the country. And NATO, itself, is giving helpful intelligence, communications, and logistical support to the Polish-led division. At the summit, we will discuss NATO's role in helping Iraq build and secure its democracy.
The fifth and most important step is free, national elections, to be held no later than next January. A United Nations team, headed by Carina Perelli, is now in Iraq, helping form an independent election commission that will oversee an orderly, accurate national election. In that election, the Iraqi people will choose a transitional national assembly, the first freely-elected, truly representative national governing body in Iraq's history. This assembly will serve as Iraq's legislature, and it will choose a transitional government with executive powers. The transitional national assembly will also draft a new constitution, which will be presented to the Iraqi people in a referendum scheduled for the fall of 2005. Under this new constitution, Iraq will elect a permanent government by the end of next year.
In this time of war and liberation and rebuilding, American soldiers and civilians on the ground have come to know and respect the citizens of Iraq. They're a proud people who hold strong and diverse opinions. Yet Iraqis are united in a broad and deep conviction: They're determined never again to live at the mercy of a dictator. And they believe that a national election will put that dark time behind them. A representative government that protects basic rights, elected by Iraqis, is the best defense against the return of tyranny -- and that election is coming. (Applause.)
Completing the five steps to Iraqi elected self-government will not be easy. There's likely to be more violence before the transfer of sovereignty, and after the transfer of sovereignty. The terrorists and Saddam loyalists would rather see many Iraqis die than have any live in freedom. But terrorists will not determine the future of Iraq. (Applause.)
That nation is moving every week toward free elections and a permanent place among free nations. Like every nation that has made the journey to democracy, Iraqis will raise up a government that reflects their own culture and values. I sent American troops to Iraq to defend our security, not to stay as an occupying power. I sent American troops to Iraq to make its people free, not to make them American. Iraqis will write their own history, and find their own way. As they do, Iraqis can be certain, a free Iraq will always have a friend in the United States of America. (Applause.)
In the last 32 months, history has placed great demands on our country, and events have come quickly. Americans have seen the flames of September the 11th, followed battles in the mountains of Afghanistan, and learned new terms like "orange alert" and "ricin" and "dirty bomb." We've seen killers at work on trains in Madrid, in a bank in Istanbul, at a synagogue in Tunis, and at a nightclub in Bali. And now the families of our soldiers and civilian workers pray for their sons and daughters in Mosul and Karbala and Baghdad.
We did not seek this war on terror, but this is the world as we find it. We must keep our focus. We must do our duty. History is moving, and it will tend toward hope, or tend toward tragedy. Our terrorist enemies have a vision that guides and explains all their varied acts of murder. They seek to impose Taliban-like rule, country by country, across the greater Middle East. They seek the total control of every person, and mind, and soul, a harsh society in which women are voiceless and brutalized. They seek bases of operation to train more killers and export more violence. They commit dramatic acts of murder to shock, frighten and demoralize civilized nations, hoping we will retreat from the world and give them free rein. They seek weapons of mass destruction, to impose their will through blackmail and catastrophic attacks. None of this is the expression of a religion. It is a totalitarian political ideology, pursued with consuming zeal, and without conscience.
Our actions, too, are guided by a vision. We believe that freedom can advance and change lives in the greater Middle East, as it has advanced and changed lives in Asia, and Latin America, and Eastern Europe, and Africa. We believe it is a tragedy of history that in the Middle East -- which gave the world great gifts of law and science and faith -- so many have been held back by lawless tyranny and fanaticism. We believe that when all Middle Eastern peoples are finally allowed to live and think and work and worship as free men and women, they will reclaim the greatness of their own heritage. And when that day comes, the bitterness and burning hatreds that feed terrorism will fade and die away. America and all the world will be safer when hope has returned to the Middle East.
These two visions -- one of tyranny and murder, the other of liberty and life -- clashed in Afghanistan. And thanks to brave U.S. and coalition forces and to Afghan patriots, the nightmare of the Taliban is over, and that nation is coming to life again. These two visions have now met in Iraq, and are contending for the future of that country. The failure of freedom would only mark the beginning of peril and violence. But, my fellow Americans, we will not fail. We will persevere, and defeat this enemy, and hold this hard-won ground for the realm of liberty.
May God bless our country. (Applause.)
Remarks by the President on Iraq and the War on Terror
United States Army War College
Carlisle, Pennsylvania
8:00 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all. Thank you and good evening. I'm honored to visit the Army War College. Generations of officers have come here to study the strategies and history of warfare. I've come here tonight to report to all Americans, and to the Iraqi people, on the strategy our nation is pursuing in Iraq, and the specific steps were taking to achieve our goals.
The actions of our enemies over the last few weeks have been brutal, calculating, and instructive. We've seen a car bombing take the life of a 61-year-old Iraqi named Izzedin Saleem, who was serving as President of the Governing Council. This crime shows our enemy's intention to prevent Iraqi self-government, even if that means killing a lifelong Iraqi patriot and a faithful Muslim. Mr. Saleem was assassinated by terrorists seeking the return of tyranny and the death of democracy.
We've also seen images of a young American facing decapitation. This vile display shows a contempt for all the rules of warfare, and all the bounds of civilized behavior. It reveals a fanaticism that was not caused by any action of ours, and would not be appeased by any concession. We suspect that the man with the knife was an al Qaeda associate named Zarqawi. He and other terrorists know that Iraq is now the central front in the war on terror. And we must understand that, as well. The return of tyranny to Iraq would be an unprecedented terrorist victory, and a cause for killers to rejoice. It would also embolden the terrorists, leading to more bombings, more beheadings, and more murders of the innocent around the world.
The rise of a free and self-governing Iraq will deny terrorists a base of operation, discredit their narrow ideology, and give momentum to reformers across the region. This will be a decisive blow to terrorism at the heart of its power, and a victory for the security of America and the civilized world.
Our work in Iraq has been hard. Our coalition has faced changing conditions of war, and that has required perseverance, sacrifice, and an ability to adapt. The swift removal of Saddam Hussein's regime last spring had an unintended effect: Instead of being killed or captured on the battlefield, some of Saddam's elite guards shed their uniforms and melted into the civilian population. These elements of Saddam's repressive regime and secret police have reorganized, rearmed, and adopted sophisticated terrorist tactics. They've linked up with foreign fighters and terrorists. In a few cities, extremists have tried to sow chaos and seize regional power for themselves. These groups and individuals have conflicting ambitions, but they share a goal: They hope to wear out the patience of Americans, our coalition, and Iraqis before the arrival of effective self-government, and before Iraqis have the capability to defend their freedom.
Iraq now faces a critical moment. As the Iraqi people move closer to governing themselves, the terrorists are likely to become more active and more brutal. There are difficult days ahead, and the way forward may sometimes appear chaotic. Yet our coalition is strong, our efforts are focused and unrelenting, and no power of the enemy will stop Iraq's progress. (Applause.)
Helping construct a stable democracy after decades of dictatorship is a massive undertaking. Yet we have a great advantage. Whenever people are given a choice in the matter, they prefer lives of freedom to lives of fear. Our enemies in Iraq are good at filling hospitals, but they do not build any. They can incite men to murder and suicide, but they cannot inspire men to live, and hope, and add to the progress of their country. The terrorists' only influence is violence, and their only agenda is death.
Our agenda, in contrast, is freedom and independence, security and prosperity for the Iraqi people. And by removing a source of terrorist violence and instability in the Middle East, we also make our own country more secure.
Our coalition has a clear goal, understood by all -- to see the Iraqi people in charge of Iraq for the first time in generations. America's task in Iraq is not only to defeat an enemy, it is to give strength to a friend - a free, representative government that serves its people and fights on their behalf. And the sooner this goal is achieved, the sooner our job will be done.
There are five steps in our plan to help Iraq achieve democracy and freedom. We will hand over authority to a sovereign Iraqi government, help establish security, continue rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure, encourage more international support, and move toward a national election that will bring forward new leaders empowered by the Iraqi people.
The first of these steps will occur next month, when our coalition will transfer full sovereignty to a government of Iraqi citizens who will prepare the way for national elections. On June 30th, the Coalition Provisional Authority will cease to exist, and will not be replaced. The occupation will end, and Iraqis will govern their own affairs. America's ambassador to Iraq, John Negroponte, will present his credentials to the new president of Iraq. Our embassy in Baghdad will have the same purpose as any other American embassy, to assure good relations with a sovereign nation. America and other countries will continue to provide technical experts to help Iraq's ministries of government, but these ministries will report to Iraq's new prime minister.
The United Nations Special Envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, is now consulting with a broad spectrum of Iraqis to determine the composition of this interim government. The special envoy intends to put forward the names of interim government officials this week. In addition to a president, two vice presidents, and a prime minister, 26 Iraqi ministers will oversee government departments, from health to justice to defense. This new government will be advised by a national council, which will be chosen in July by Iraqis representing their country's diversity. This interim government will exercise full sovereignty until national elections are held. America fully supports Mr. Brahimi's efforts, and I have instructed the Coalition Provisional Authority to assist him in every way possible.
In preparation for sovereignty, many functions of government have already been transferred. Twelve government ministries are currently under the direct control of Iraqis. The Ministry of Education, for example, is out of the propaganda business, and is now concerned with educating Iraqi children. Under the direction of Dr. Ala'din al-Alwan, the Ministry has trained more than 30,000 teachers and supervisors for the schools of a new Iraq.
All along, some have questioned whether the Iraqi people are ready for self-government, or even want it. And all along, the Iraqi people have given their answer. In settings where Iraqis have met to discuss their country's future, they have endorsed representative government. And they are practicing representative government. Many of Iraq's cities and towns now have elected town councils or city governments - and beyond the violence, a civil society is emerging.
The June 30th transfer of sovereignty is an essential commitment of our strategy. Iraqis are proud people who resent foreign control of their affairs, just as we would. After decades under the tyrant, they are also reluctant to trust authority. By keeping our promise on June 30th, the coalition will demonstrate that we have no interest in occupation. And full sovereignty will give Iraqis a direct interest in the success of their own government. Iraqis will know that when they build a school or repair a bridge, they're not working for the Coalition Provisional Authority, they are working for themselves. And when they patrol the streets of Baghdad, or engage radical militias, they will be fighting for their own country.
The second step in the plan for Iraqi democracy is to help establish the stability and security that democracy requires. Coalition forces and the Iraqi people have the same enemies -- the terrorists, illegal militia, and Saddam loyalists who stand between the Iraqi people and their future as a free nation. Working as allies, we will defend Iraq and defeat these enemies.
America will provide forces and support necessary for achieving these goals. Our commanders had estimated that a troop level below 115,000 would be sufficient at this point in the conflict. Given the recent increase in violence, we'll maintain our troop level at the current 138,000 as long as necessary. This has required extended duty for the 1st Armored Division and the 2nd Light Cavalry Regiment -- 20,000 men and women who were scheduled to leave Iraq in April. Our nation appreciates their hard work and sacrifice, and they can know that they will be heading home soon. General Abizaid and other commanders in Iraq are constantly assessing the level of troops they need to fulfill the mission. If they need more troops, I will send them. The mission of our forces in Iraq is demanding and dangerous. Our troops are showing exceptional skill and courage. I thank them for their sacrifices and their duty. (Applause.)
In the city of Fallujah, there's been considerable violence by Saddam loyalists and foreign fighters, including the murder of four American contractors. American soldiers and Marines could have used overwhelming force. Our commanders, however, consulted with Iraq's Governing Council and local officials, and determined that massive strikes against the enemy would alienate the local population, and increase support for the insurgency. So we have pursued a different approach. We're making security a shared responsibility in Fallujah. Coalition commanders have worked with local leaders to create an all-Iraqi security force, which is now patrolling the city. Our soldiers and Marines will continue to disrupt enemy attacks on our supply routes, conduct joint patrols with Iraqis to destroy bomb factories and safe houses, and kill or capture any enemy.
We want Iraqi forces to gain experience and confidence in dealing with their country's enemies. We want the Iraqi people to know that we trust their growing capabilities, even as we help build them. At the same time, Fallujah must cease to be a sanctuary for the enemy, and those responsible for terrorism will be held to account.
In the cities of Najaf and Karbala and Kufa, most of the violence has been incited by a young, radical cleric who commands an illegal militia. These enemies have been hiding behind an innocent civilian population, storing arms and ammunition in mosques, and launching attacks from holy shrines. Our soldiers have treated religious sites with respect, while systematically dismantling the illegal militia. We're also seeing Iraqis, themselves, take more responsibility for restoring order. In recent weeks, Iraqi forces have ejected elements of this militia from the governor's office in Najaf. Yesterday, an elite Iraqi unit cleared out a weapons cache from a large mosque in Kufa. Respected Shia leaders have called on the militia to withdraw from these towns. Ordinary Iraqis have marched in protest against the militants.
As challenges arise in Fallujah, Najaf, and elsewhere, the tactics of our military will be flexible. Commanders on the ground will pay close attention to local conditions. And we will do all that is necessary -- by measured force or overwhelming force -- to achieve a stable Iraq.
Iraq's military, police, and border forces have begun to take on broader responsibilities. Eventually, they must be the primary defenders of Iraqi security, as American and coalition forces are withdrawn. And we're helping them to prepare for this role. In some cases, the early performance of Iraqi forces fell short. Some refused orders to engage the enemy. We've learned from these failures, and we've taken steps to correct them. Successful fighting units need a sense of cohesion, so we've lengthened and intensified their training. Successful units need to know they are fighting for the future of their own country, not for any occupying power, so we are ensuring that Iraqi forces serve under an Iraqi chain of command. Successful fighting units need the best possible leadership, so we improved the vetting and training of Iraqi officers and senior enlisted men.
At my direction, and with the support of Iraqi authorities, we are accelerating our program to help train Iraqis to defend their country. A new team of senior military officers is now assessing every unit in Iraq's security forces. I've asked this team to oversee the training of a force of 260,000 Iraqi soldiers, police, and other security personnel. Five Iraqi army battalions are in the field now, with another eight battalions to join them by July the 1st. The eventual goal is an Iraqi army of 35,000 soldiers in 27 battalions, fully prepared to defend their country.
After June 30th, American and other forces will still have important duties. American military forces in Iraq will operate under American command as a part of a multinational force authorized by the United Nations. Iraq's new sovereign government will still face enormous security challenges, and our forces will be there to help.
The third step in the plan for Iraqi democracy is to continue rebuilding that nation's infrastructure, so that a free Iraq can quickly gain economic independence and a better quality of life. Our coalition has already helped Iraqis to rebuild schools and refurbish hospitals and health clinics, repair bridges, upgrade the electrical grid, and modernize the communications system. And now a growing private economy is taking shape. A new currency has been introduced. Iraq's Governing Council approved a new law that opens the country to foreign investment for the first time in decades. Iraq has liberalized its trade policy, and today an Iraqi observer attends meetings of the World Trade Organization. Iraqi oil production has reached more than two million barrels per day, bringing revenues of nearly $6 billion so far this year, which is being used to help the people of Iraq. And thanks in part to our efforts -- to the efforts of former Secretary of State James Baker, many of Iraq's largest creditors have pledged to forgive or substantially reduce Iraqi debt incurred by the former regime.
We're making progress. Yet there still is much work to do. Over the decades of Saddam's rule, Iraq's infrastructure was allowed to crumble, while money was diverted to palaces, and to wars, and to weapons programs. We're urging other nations to contribute to Iraqi reconstruction -- and 37 countries and the IMF and the World Bank have so far pledged $13.5 billion in aid. America has dedicated more than $20 billion to reconstruction and development projects in Iraq. To ensure our money is spent wisely and effectively, our new embassy in Iraq will have regional offices in several key cities. These offices will work closely with Iraqis at all levels of government to help make sure projects are completed on time and on budget.
A new Iraq will also need a humane, well-supervised prison system. Under the dictator, prisons like Abu Ghraib were symbols of death and torture. That same prison became a symbol of disgraceful conduct by a few American troops who dishonored our country and disregarded our values. America will fund the construction of a modern, maximum security prison. When that prison is completed, detainees at Abu Ghraib will be relocated. Then, with the approval of the Iraqi government, we will demolish the Abu Ghraib prison, as a fitting symbol of Iraq's new beginning. (Applause.)
The fourth step in our plan is to enlist additional international support for Iraq's transition. At every stage, the United States has gone to the United Nations -- to confront Saddam Hussein, to promise serious consequences for his actions, and to begin Iraqi reconstruction. Today, the United States and Great Britain presented a new resolution in the Security Council to help move Iraq toward self-government. I've directed Secretary Powell to work with fellow members of the Council to endorse the timetable the Iraqis have adopted, to express international support for Iraq's interim government, to reaffirm the world's security commitment to the Iraqi people, and to encourage other U.N. members to join in the effort. Despite past disagreements, most nations have indicated strong support for the success of a free Iraq. And I'm confident they will share in the responsibility of assuring that success.
Next month, at the NATO summit in Istanbul, I will thank our 15 NATO allies who together have more than 17,000 troops on the ground in Iraq. Great Britain and Poland are each leading a multinational division that is securing important parts of the country. And NATO, itself, is giving helpful intelligence, communications, and logistical support to the Polish-led division. At the summit, we will discuss NATO's role in helping Iraq build and secure its democracy.
The fifth and most important step is free, national elections, to be held no later than next January. A United Nations team, headed by Carina Perelli, is now in Iraq, helping form an independent election commission that will oversee an orderly, accurate national election. In that election, the Iraqi people will choose a transitional national assembly, the first freely-elected, truly representative national governing body in Iraq's history. This assembly will serve as Iraq's legislature, and it will choose a transitional government with executive powers. The transitional national assembly will also draft a new constitution, which will be presented to the Iraqi people in a referendum scheduled for the fall of 2005. Under this new constitution, Iraq will elect a permanent government by the end of next year.
In this time of war and liberation and rebuilding, American soldiers and civilians on the ground have come to know and respect the citizens of Iraq. They're a proud people who hold strong and diverse opinions. Yet Iraqis are united in a broad and deep conviction: They're determined never again to live at the mercy of a dictator. And they believe that a national election will put that dark time behind them. A representative government that protects basic rights, elected by Iraqis, is the best defense against the return of tyranny -- and that election is coming. (Applause.)
Completing the five steps to Iraqi elected self-government will not be easy. There's likely to be more violence before the transfer of sovereignty, and after the transfer of sovereignty. The terrorists and Saddam loyalists would rather see many Iraqis die than have any live in freedom. But terrorists will not determine the future of Iraq. (Applause.)
That nation is moving every week toward free elections and a permanent place among free nations. Like every nation that has made the journey to democracy, Iraqis will raise up a government that reflects their own culture and values. I sent American troops to Iraq to defend our security, not to stay as an occupying power. I sent American troops to Iraq to make its people free, not to make them American. Iraqis will write their own history, and find their own way. As they do, Iraqis can be certain, a free Iraq will always have a friend in the United States of America. (Applause.)
In the last 32 months, history has placed great demands on our country, and events have come quickly. Americans have seen the flames of September the 11th, followed battles in the mountains of Afghanistan, and learned new terms like "orange alert" and "ricin" and "dirty bomb." We've seen killers at work on trains in Madrid, in a bank in Istanbul, at a synagogue in Tunis, and at a nightclub in Bali. And now the families of our soldiers and civilian workers pray for their sons and daughters in Mosul and Karbala and Baghdad.
We did not seek this war on terror, but this is the world as we find it. We must keep our focus. We must do our duty. History is moving, and it will tend toward hope, or tend toward tragedy. Our terrorist enemies have a vision that guides and explains all their varied acts of murder. They seek to impose Taliban-like rule, country by country, across the greater Middle East. They seek the total control of every person, and mind, and soul, a harsh society in which women are voiceless and brutalized. They seek bases of operation to train more killers and export more violence. They commit dramatic acts of murder to shock, frighten and demoralize civilized nations, hoping we will retreat from the world and give them free rein. They seek weapons of mass destruction, to impose their will through blackmail and catastrophic attacks. None of this is the expression of a religion. It is a totalitarian political ideology, pursued with consuming zeal, and without conscience.
Our actions, too, are guided by a vision. We believe that freedom can advance and change lives in the greater Middle East, as it has advanced and changed lives in Asia, and Latin America, and Eastern Europe, and Africa. We believe it is a tragedy of history that in the Middle East -- which gave the world great gifts of law and science and faith -- so many have been held back by lawless tyranny and fanaticism. We believe that when all Middle Eastern peoples are finally allowed to live and think and work and worship as free men and women, they will reclaim the greatness of their own heritage. And when that day comes, the bitterness and burning hatreds that feed terrorism will fade and die away. America and all the world will be safer when hope has returned to the Middle East.
These two visions -- one of tyranny and murder, the other of liberty and life -- clashed in Afghanistan. And thanks to brave U.S. and coalition forces and to Afghan patriots, the nightmare of the Taliban is over, and that nation is coming to life again. These two visions have now met in Iraq, and are contending for the future of that country. The failure of freedom would only mark the beginning of peril and violence. But, my fellow Americans, we will not fail. We will persevere, and defeat this enemy, and hold this hard-won ground for the realm of liberty.
May God bless our country. (Applause.)
Monday, May 24, 2004
Split Decision
by Reihan Salam
Only at TNR Online
Post date: 05.20.04
Long before all hell broke loose, when regime change in Baghdad was just an idle think-tanker's dream, there were already cleavages among conservatives over Iraq. And as the going gets tough, the cleavages have deepened, from waif-like to zaftig-like. In an April 19 story in The New York Times, David Kirkpatrick (he of the "conservative beat") noted "growing skepticism" concerning the Iraqi occupation. Kirkpatrick cited the usual suspects, who had always been skeptical. First there was notorious isolationist Patrick Buchanan, who established The American Conservative as part of a long-term struggle against his sinister neocon foes, and the movement libertarians at the Cato Institute, with the mantra "war is the health of the state" always implicit. Then he mentioned, interestingly, that National Review had started to raise hackles over "Wilsonianism," which had long been a conservative bete noire--since before the cold war and the intellectual ascendancy of the neoconservatives. (Since Wilson, some might say.) Today, with Iraq seemingly plunged into chaos, despair has seeped into the conservative mainstream.
One way of looking at the split is through the Bush I vs. Bush II lens, with the Scowcrofts and James Bakers standing with George H.W. in the "wouldn't be prudent" camp (their get-with-the-program public statements notwithstanding). But this overlooks the fact that Cheney and Wolfowitz, widely considered the architects of the administration's Iraq policy, both loyally served Bush the Elder. Could it be traditional conservatives v. "neoconservatives," or national-greatness conservatives? That misses many, many shades of opinion. To clear up the confusion, TNR Online presents its Guide to the Right on Iraq Gone Wrong.
The Neo-Paleos: We Shoulda Known
George Will and Tucker Carlson are the telegenic and even more telegenic faces, respectively, of old school, unreconstructed right-wing crankiness. The argument from democratization never had much appeal for the old fogies, both of whom were on record against stopping the bloodletting in Rwanda and the Balkans--the greatest hits of humanitarian calamities of the past quarter century--as long as American interests, narrowly conceived, weren't at stake. That was "foreign policy as social work," to use Michael Mandelbaum's tough-minded phrase, and it was a fool's errand. Before the war, both Will and Carlson, who share more than a penchant for bow ties and undergraduate degrees from Trinity College, found the threat of real, smoking gun WMDs to be the compelling reason to invade, not dreams of democracy among the Arabs.
Will argued that the burden of proof rested on those who didn't think Saddam had them in light of his duplicitous path, but he hadn't abandoned his distaste for frou-frous adventurism. He took what looked to be the tough-minded stance in light of Colin Powell's revelations in February 2003:
In estimating the impact of Colin Powell's U.N. presentation on persons who believe that there is no justification for a military response to Iraq's behavior, remember the human capacity for willful suspension of disbelief. Remember this: People determined to believe that a vast conspiracy assassinated President Kennedy believe that the absence of evidence of the conspiracy proves the vastness and cleverness of the conspiracy.
In retrospect, of course, the "absence of evidence" turned out to be on Will's side of the argument. Understandably, he feels burned, and he's more recently been taking it out on the Bush administration. After dissecting President Bush's claim that those who doubt Iraq's prospects for self-government are racist, he laid into Bush and the "neoconservatives":
This administration cannot be trusted to govern if it cannot be counted on to think and, having thought, to have second thoughts. Thinking is not the reiteration of bromides about how "all people yearn to live in freedom" (McClellan). And about how it is "cultural condescension" to doubt that some cultures have the requisite aptitudes for democracy (Bush). And about how it is a "myth" that "our attachment to freedom is a product of our culture" because "ours are not Western values; they are the universal values of the human spirit" (Tony Blair).
Speaking of culture, as neoconservative nation-builders would be well-advised to avoid doing, Pat Moynihan said: "The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself." Here we reach the real issue about Iraq, as distinct from unpleasant musings about who believes what about skin color.
The issue is the second half of Moynihan's formulation--our ability to wield political power to produce the requisite cultural change in a place such as Iraq. Time was, this question would have separated conservatives from liberals. Nowadays it separates conservatives from neoconservatives.
The gauntlet has been thrown down. George Will's second thoughts are all about affirming his stance as an quagmire-shy conservative traditionalist, the type who doesn't believe that we should go abroad "in search of monsters to destroy." It's as though he feels vaguely embarrassed of having drank the regime change Kool-Aid.
The always affable Tucker Carlson has been more straightforward in his postwar reaction. In last week's New York Observer, Carlson told TV columnist Joe Hagan that he'd had a change of heart:
"I think it's a total nightmare and disaster, and I'm ashamed that I went against my own instincts in supporting it," he said. "It's something I'll never do again. Never. I got convinced by a friend of mine who's smarter than I am, and I shouldn't have done that. No. I want things to work out, but I'm enraged by it, actually."
Carlson then proceeded, worryingly, to defend Pat Buchanan. Could it be that Tucker Carlson, with his floppy hair and boyish looks, will become the acceptable face of paleoconservatism? Only time will tell.
The 'Neoconservatives': Wha Happen?
Back to the Kirkpatrick piece. The article was framed as a rejection of the neoconservative approach, one that had become closely identified with the Bush administration ("Mr. Bush appears to be sticking to the neoconservative view," wrote Kirkpatrick). What was the neoconservative view? To topple and conquer every government in the Middle East? In August 2001, card-carrying neoconservatives Jeffrey Gedmin and Gary Schmitt, both affiliated with the Project for the New American Century, the alleged neocon Politburo, wrote a Times' op-ed which argued that Bush was undermining the Atlantic alliance, and that we ought to keep it in good repair.
The Project's 2000 report on "Rebuilding America's Defenses," seen by many dovish conspiracy-mongers as the Bush administration's secret post-9/11 blueprint, called for such Council on Foreign Relations-ish proposals as a permanent constabulary force oriented exclusively towards post-conflict stabilization and reconstruction, a far cry from George Bush's election year pooh-poohing of nation-building. This idea of spending more and doing more militarily, to beef up (and acknowledge) America's role as the globocop, was as much a neocon idea as was invading Iraq. Somehow, an invasion on the cheap--without adequate troop strength, without substantial international burden-sharing, and without the postwar planning necessary to restore order--was the only thing left standing when the decision was made to invade.
The Neo-Neocons: Operation Chalabihorse
This is not to say that an invasion on the cheap wasn't a neocon approach--it most certainly was, but it wasn't the neoconservative approach. That said, it was the particular neocon approach embraced by the administration. Champions of this approach included, Michael Ledeen, Richard Perle, David Frum, and others who had made a point of attacking the State Department and the CIA at every turn.
Since the war, they've engaged in non-stop Bremer-bashing and Chalabi-boosting, as if Bremer were responsible for the paucity of troops on the ground and Chalabi, who now seems to have waged a campaign of deception against the U.S. government for years, has demonstrated his trustworthiness and ought to be rewarded the mantle of leadership. David Frum has been among the most forceful advocates of this view. On May 6, he wrote in National Review Online:
Those who rage at Chalabi seem to believe that he somehow lured the United States into a war that it would otherwise not have had to fight. But that's just silly. Chalabi became important in the mid-1990s precisely because so many people in both American parties had come to accept that Saddam's rule represented an intolerable threat to the peace and security of the Middle East and the world - and were looking for an alternative that was not theocratic, not dictatorial, and would not require direct support from the United States.
Isn't it also clear that Chalabi was a crucial source of the intelligence that so alarmed people in both American parties? Frum then goes on to argue both that Chalabi was a beacon of hope for Iraqi democracy, and that "one rather gets the impression that they," Chalabi's detractors, "are offended that the hope was ever entertained at all."
And certainly as I listen to the list of Chalabi's supposed offenses-- corruption, authoritarianism, double-dealing with the Iranians - I find myself wondering what those detractors imagine they are going to get from the ex-Baathist Sunni generals now jockeying to replace him. Will they be uncorrupt, unauthoritarian, and sternly anti-Iranian? Or will those issues cease to matter once a regime acceptable to the State Department and Saudi Arabia has taken control? I fear that the second outcome is much the more likely.
So it's Chalabi or the Baathists? Frum made a similar move on May 4, in a diary entry titled "The Chalabi Smear":
ITEM: Up until now we were supposed to believe that the INC produced no useful intelligence--that it dealt only in fantasies and lies. Now suddenly the INC is accused of being in possession of accurate and valuable sensitive information. How did Chalabi go from know-nothing to valuable intelligence asset overnight?
Isn't it possible that Chalabi dealt in fantasies and lies until the United States defeated the Baathist regime, at which point the U.S. acquired valuable information that they could then pass on to Chalabi, who could then, arguendo, hand it over to the Iranians? It would certainly be easier for his men to gather information, as well it should be. Overall, the Panglossian view of Chalabi seems bizarre.
Michael Rubin, an expert on the Middle East at the American Enterprise Institute and a TNR contributor, has provided much of the intellectual firepower for this view. In a May 3 piece on National Review Online, he argued that the State Department sabotaged Pentagon efforts to plan for the postwar period, which is how he describes efforts to hand over sovereignty to a government comprised of exiles and "internals" backed by a Free Iraqi Force, also drawn from the exile community. Rubin argues that this would have facilitated stabilization as the FIF could have helped co-opt the regular Iraqi Army. Whether or not this is true, it's not clear that it would have been an adequate substitute for a larger coalition invasion force.
The Standard Neocons: Dude, Where's My Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy? William Kristol and Robert Kagan of The Weekly Standard, despite longstanding ill will towards Colin Powell and impatience with the CIA's assessment of the Iraq threat, advocated a different approach. From early on, they fretted over troop levels, first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq. Their criticism was searing only in stretches, and usually confined to caveats. The thinking behind their reticence, one can only assume, was that full-blown harangues would end up marginalizing the Standard, while constructive engagement could move the Bushies in their direction. Suffice to say, constructive engagement has worked about as well in this case as it has with Red China.
They framed their arguments in such a way as to suggest that President Bush, if only he followed his true instincts, would agree with them on the central importance of doing the job right. More recently, as the crisis in Iraq has escalated, they've grown more insistent. Both Kristol and Kagan continue to believe, as the title of one lead editorial had it, that the Iraq war was "The Right War for the Right Reasons," and they make a compelling case. They have since argued, again, that there are "Too Few Troops," and more recently that the timetable for elections must be moved up.
In short, Kristol and Kagan seem to have recognized that the crap has hit the fan, and that the time for pulling out all the stops has long since arrived. In this respect, they have something in common with pragmatic Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden who've staked out a more hawkish stance. Whether their McCainite leanings will pull them even further away from the Bush administration remains to be seen.
Kagan has gone farther in this regard. In his May 2 Washington Post column, Kagan wrote that, "All but the most blindly devoted Bush supporters"--a category from which he necessarily excludes himself--"can see that Bush administration officials have no clue about what to do in Iraq tomorrow, much less a month from now." Worse yet, Kagan fears that the Bush administration is losing its will to fight:
The administration is increasingly reluctant to fight the people it defines as the bad guys in Iraq. This reluctance is perfectly understandable. No one wants more American casualties. And no one doubts that more violence in Iraq may alienate more of the Iraqi population. But this reluctance can also appear both to Iraqis and to the American public as a sign of declining will.
When observers call for stability, they fail to reckon with the facts:
[T]he alternatives are no easier to carry out and no less costly in money and lives than the present attempt to create some form of democracy in Iraq. The real alternative to the present course is not stability at all but to abandon Iraq to whatever horrible fate awaits it: chaos, civil war, brutal tyranny, terrorism or more likely a combination of all of these--with all that entails for Iraqis, the Middle East and American interests.
Which is why the Bush policy is a mystery for Kagan. Bush seems sincerely committed to staying the course and doing the right thing, but "he continues to tolerate policymakers, military advisers and a dysfunctional policymaking apparatus that are making the achievement of his goals less and less likely." Where the path will end is unclear to Kagan, and the rest of us.
The Neo-Imperialist: Bush Gets the Boot from Boot
Max Boot (my former boss) is perhaps best known for his full-throated defense of liberal imperialism. In The Savage Wars of Peace, he persuasively argued that the United States had a long history of using its armed forces to undertake what would today be called peacekeeping and nation-building missions with great success, and that fighting lawlessness and terrorism on a global scale remains essential to American national security. Inevitably, critics focused on his unapologetic embrace of the "e" word--"empire"--to dismiss his expensive and unpopular calls for a more expensive military oriented towards such unglamorous tasks as providing viable governance in the Kosovos and Sierra Leones of the world.
Boot was also a staunch advocate of overthrowing Saddam Hussein. In a December 2002 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Boot had this to say about neoconservatives, among whom he counted himself, and Iraq:
If we are to avoid another 9/11, they argue, we need to liberalize the Middle East--a massive undertaking, to be sure, but better than the unspeakable alternative. And if this requires occupying Iraq for an extended period, so be it; we did it with Germany, Japan and Italy, and we can do it again.
It was a widely held view among liberal hawks and conservatives alike. In the immediate aftermath of the Baathist defeat, Boot argued in the May 5, 2003 Weekly Standard that the United States "will have to commit sufficient force to make this a reality. This probably will not require the 200,000 troops suggested by Army chief of staff Eric Shinseki, but it will require a long-term commitment of at least 60,000 to 75,000 soldiers, the number estimated by Joint Staff planners."
In hindsight, this looks like a very optimistic assessment indeed. Fortunately, Boot's assessment soon changed. As the postwar situation in Iraq grew parlous, Boot embraced any number of heresies, at one point advocating a leading role by the United Nations. By late April, he called upon John Kerry to outhawk Bush by calling for a steep increase in the regular Army's troop strength in the Los Angeles Times. Though normally a down-the-line conservative, Boot had harsh words for the administration:
After stubbornly denying that more troops are needed, Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, implicitly conceded the point by allowing the army temporarily to add 30,000 personnel over the next few years, mainly by delaying the discharge of existing soldiers. He is also trying to move soldiers from desk jobs to frontline units. But these are sticking--plaster solutions for the serious wounds Mr Bush's policies have inflicted on the armed forces.
More recently, Boot has joined the small handful of conservatives to call for Rumsfeld's head on a pike (not in so many words) in a May 13 Los AngelesTimes op-ed:
Rumsfeld has done many laudable things, but he has also miscalculated badly about many aspects of the Iraq occupation, and he has alienated much of the military. It is farfetched to claim that the war on terrorism would falter without him.
Will Max Boot, former member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board who had been known (unfairly) as the one-man extremist wing of the neocons, become a key member of Kerry's kitchen cabinet? It's pretty unlikely--Boot is a committed conservative, his disappointment with the Bush administration notwithstanding--but stranger things have happened.
The Cheerleaders: Denial Ain't Just A River in Egypt
Where to begin? Not all conservatives are hemming and hawing, or engaging in searching self-examination. There are those, believe it or not, who really think that things in Iraq are going just fine, and that the media is to blame. Just as Rush Limbaugh saw the abuses at Abu Ghraib as little more than frat boy antics, and the nation's shock and horror at the images of abuse as so much hysterics, the Bush administration, and Donald Rumsfeld--as much a lightning rod for critical hawks as for doves at this point--still have a cheering section, one that, as you might imagine, is increasingly out of touch with reality. (Even the Neo-Neocons think something went wrong, namely that we let Foggy Bottom run roughshod over the peerless masterminds in Douglas Feith's office, or something like that.)
The always thought-provoking Wall Street Journal editorial page has, unfortunately, taken a maximalist turn in the cheerleading direction. When a leaked Red Cross report revealed the extent of prison abuse in Iraq, the WSJ didn't blame the Pentagon. It blamed, in classic contrarian fashion, the Red Cross. For being overly political. When calls for Rumsfeld's resignation reached a fever pitch, the Journal noted that most voters considered prisoner abuse "no big deal," and that only a small minority wanted Rumsfeld to resign. When it comes to open markets and open borders, the Journal usually doesn't let poll numbers do the arguing, but the May 12 "Review & Outlook" left it at pretty much at that. They did, however, add the following:
The war's domestic opponents are too obviously eager to expand the misdeeds of a few into a general repudiation of the war and all involved in it. For example, we are now reading that Geneva Convention status should be accorded to illegal combatants such as those at Guantanamo. We suspect the U.S. public understands that terrorists such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who wear no uniforms so as to more easily murder innocent civilians, do not deserve the same status accorded legitimate prisoners of war.
In doing so, they impugned the motives of hawks enraged by incompetence in Iraq and managed to change the subject from prisoner abuse in Iraq, where the prisoners in question are not KSM and his cronies, to a quite separate, broader question.
But the folks at the Journal are positively Quisling-esque when compared with that lion of the Iraq war, Tony Blankley of The Washington Times. Blankley spent his most recent column, on May 19, explaining that he predicted everything that's happened in Iraq with deadly accuracy in a column that ran in August of 2002. Marvel at the prescience for yourselves:
I addressed this reality in a column I published on Aug. 14, 2002--a full half year before the war started--which I titled "A period of 'measureless peril' could be in the offing." Its central analysis bears repeating today: "On Monday of this week [August 12, 2002], Henry Kissinger endorsed the president's pre-emptive war strategy In perhaps his most incisive assertion, he justifies 'bringing matters to a head with Iraq' for what he calls a generally unstated reason--While long-range American strategy must try to overcome legitimate causes of Islamic resentments, immediate policy must demonstrate that a terrorist challenge produces catastrophic consequences for the perpetrators, as well as their supporters, tacit or explicit.' In other words, we must break the will and pride of all those in the Islamic world who would dare to terrorize us and the international system."
One can only wonder why Blankley has not been named Undersecretary of Defense for Advanced Premonitory Wargaming. Of course Blankley declined to reprint such dazzling predictions as this, from April, 2003:
But, it seems as if the rolling start to the war will be mirrored by a rolling end the birth of a new government emerging , blade by blade, from the decaying corpse of the old. I suspect there may be genius in this plan. The absence of apparent historic discontinuities minimizes the psychological opportunities for resistance. Iraqis just keep going to bed and getting up as, seamlessly, democracy emerges.
He goes on to argue "even the president's opponents are not our greatest peril at the moment." Blankley is presumably referring to Bush's domestic political opponents, and conservatives with the temerity to question the continuing drift of Bush's Iraq policy. No, " the greatest immediate potential danger is a slackening of presidential resolve." Whether Blankley is mistaking stubbornness, indecision, and panic as "presidential resolve" is an open question. If so, he can rest assured that there's been no slackening in sight.
by Reihan Salam
Only at TNR Online
Post date: 05.20.04
Long before all hell broke loose, when regime change in Baghdad was just an idle think-tanker's dream, there were already cleavages among conservatives over Iraq. And as the going gets tough, the cleavages have deepened, from waif-like to zaftig-like. In an April 19 story in The New York Times, David Kirkpatrick (he of the "conservative beat") noted "growing skepticism" concerning the Iraqi occupation. Kirkpatrick cited the usual suspects, who had always been skeptical. First there was notorious isolationist Patrick Buchanan, who established The American Conservative as part of a long-term struggle against his sinister neocon foes, and the movement libertarians at the Cato Institute, with the mantra "war is the health of the state" always implicit. Then he mentioned, interestingly, that National Review had started to raise hackles over "Wilsonianism," which had long been a conservative bete noire--since before the cold war and the intellectual ascendancy of the neoconservatives. (Since Wilson, some might say.) Today, with Iraq seemingly plunged into chaos, despair has seeped into the conservative mainstream.
One way of looking at the split is through the Bush I vs. Bush II lens, with the Scowcrofts and James Bakers standing with George H.W. in the "wouldn't be prudent" camp (their get-with-the-program public statements notwithstanding). But this overlooks the fact that Cheney and Wolfowitz, widely considered the architects of the administration's Iraq policy, both loyally served Bush the Elder. Could it be traditional conservatives v. "neoconservatives," or national-greatness conservatives? That misses many, many shades of opinion. To clear up the confusion, TNR Online presents its Guide to the Right on Iraq Gone Wrong.
The Neo-Paleos: We Shoulda Known
George Will and Tucker Carlson are the telegenic and even more telegenic faces, respectively, of old school, unreconstructed right-wing crankiness. The argument from democratization never had much appeal for the old fogies, both of whom were on record against stopping the bloodletting in Rwanda and the Balkans--the greatest hits of humanitarian calamities of the past quarter century--as long as American interests, narrowly conceived, weren't at stake. That was "foreign policy as social work," to use Michael Mandelbaum's tough-minded phrase, and it was a fool's errand. Before the war, both Will and Carlson, who share more than a penchant for bow ties and undergraduate degrees from Trinity College, found the threat of real, smoking gun WMDs to be the compelling reason to invade, not dreams of democracy among the Arabs.
Will argued that the burden of proof rested on those who didn't think Saddam had them in light of his duplicitous path, but he hadn't abandoned his distaste for frou-frous adventurism. He took what looked to be the tough-minded stance in light of Colin Powell's revelations in February 2003:
In estimating the impact of Colin Powell's U.N. presentation on persons who believe that there is no justification for a military response to Iraq's behavior, remember the human capacity for willful suspension of disbelief. Remember this: People determined to believe that a vast conspiracy assassinated President Kennedy believe that the absence of evidence of the conspiracy proves the vastness and cleverness of the conspiracy.
In retrospect, of course, the "absence of evidence" turned out to be on Will's side of the argument. Understandably, he feels burned, and he's more recently been taking it out on the Bush administration. After dissecting President Bush's claim that those who doubt Iraq's prospects for self-government are racist, he laid into Bush and the "neoconservatives":
This administration cannot be trusted to govern if it cannot be counted on to think and, having thought, to have second thoughts. Thinking is not the reiteration of bromides about how "all people yearn to live in freedom" (McClellan). And about how it is "cultural condescension" to doubt that some cultures have the requisite aptitudes for democracy (Bush). And about how it is a "myth" that "our attachment to freedom is a product of our culture" because "ours are not Western values; they are the universal values of the human spirit" (Tony Blair).
Speaking of culture, as neoconservative nation-builders would be well-advised to avoid doing, Pat Moynihan said: "The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself." Here we reach the real issue about Iraq, as distinct from unpleasant musings about who believes what about skin color.
The issue is the second half of Moynihan's formulation--our ability to wield political power to produce the requisite cultural change in a place such as Iraq. Time was, this question would have separated conservatives from liberals. Nowadays it separates conservatives from neoconservatives.
The gauntlet has been thrown down. George Will's second thoughts are all about affirming his stance as an quagmire-shy conservative traditionalist, the type who doesn't believe that we should go abroad "in search of monsters to destroy." It's as though he feels vaguely embarrassed of having drank the regime change Kool-Aid.
The always affable Tucker Carlson has been more straightforward in his postwar reaction. In last week's New York Observer, Carlson told TV columnist Joe Hagan that he'd had a change of heart:
"I think it's a total nightmare and disaster, and I'm ashamed that I went against my own instincts in supporting it," he said. "It's something I'll never do again. Never. I got convinced by a friend of mine who's smarter than I am, and I shouldn't have done that. No. I want things to work out, but I'm enraged by it, actually."
Carlson then proceeded, worryingly, to defend Pat Buchanan. Could it be that Tucker Carlson, with his floppy hair and boyish looks, will become the acceptable face of paleoconservatism? Only time will tell.
The 'Neoconservatives': Wha Happen?
Back to the Kirkpatrick piece. The article was framed as a rejection of the neoconservative approach, one that had become closely identified with the Bush administration ("Mr. Bush appears to be sticking to the neoconservative view," wrote Kirkpatrick). What was the neoconservative view? To topple and conquer every government in the Middle East? In August 2001, card-carrying neoconservatives Jeffrey Gedmin and Gary Schmitt, both affiliated with the Project for the New American Century, the alleged neocon Politburo, wrote a Times' op-ed which argued that Bush was undermining the Atlantic alliance, and that we ought to keep it in good repair.
The Project's 2000 report on "Rebuilding America's Defenses," seen by many dovish conspiracy-mongers as the Bush administration's secret post-9/11 blueprint, called for such Council on Foreign Relations-ish proposals as a permanent constabulary force oriented exclusively towards post-conflict stabilization and reconstruction, a far cry from George Bush's election year pooh-poohing of nation-building. This idea of spending more and doing more militarily, to beef up (and acknowledge) America's role as the globocop, was as much a neocon idea as was invading Iraq. Somehow, an invasion on the cheap--without adequate troop strength, without substantial international burden-sharing, and without the postwar planning necessary to restore order--was the only thing left standing when the decision was made to invade.
The Neo-Neocons: Operation Chalabihorse
This is not to say that an invasion on the cheap wasn't a neocon approach--it most certainly was, but it wasn't the neoconservative approach. That said, it was the particular neocon approach embraced by the administration. Champions of this approach included, Michael Ledeen, Richard Perle, David Frum, and others who had made a point of attacking the State Department and the CIA at every turn.
Since the war, they've engaged in non-stop Bremer-bashing and Chalabi-boosting, as if Bremer were responsible for the paucity of troops on the ground and Chalabi, who now seems to have waged a campaign of deception against the U.S. government for years, has demonstrated his trustworthiness and ought to be rewarded the mantle of leadership. David Frum has been among the most forceful advocates of this view. On May 6, he wrote in National Review Online:
Those who rage at Chalabi seem to believe that he somehow lured the United States into a war that it would otherwise not have had to fight. But that's just silly. Chalabi became important in the mid-1990s precisely because so many people in both American parties had come to accept that Saddam's rule represented an intolerable threat to the peace and security of the Middle East and the world - and were looking for an alternative that was not theocratic, not dictatorial, and would not require direct support from the United States.
Isn't it also clear that Chalabi was a crucial source of the intelligence that so alarmed people in both American parties? Frum then goes on to argue both that Chalabi was a beacon of hope for Iraqi democracy, and that "one rather gets the impression that they," Chalabi's detractors, "are offended that the hope was ever entertained at all."
And certainly as I listen to the list of Chalabi's supposed offenses-- corruption, authoritarianism, double-dealing with the Iranians - I find myself wondering what those detractors imagine they are going to get from the ex-Baathist Sunni generals now jockeying to replace him. Will they be uncorrupt, unauthoritarian, and sternly anti-Iranian? Or will those issues cease to matter once a regime acceptable to the State Department and Saudi Arabia has taken control? I fear that the second outcome is much the more likely.
So it's Chalabi or the Baathists? Frum made a similar move on May 4, in a diary entry titled "The Chalabi Smear":
ITEM: Up until now we were supposed to believe that the INC produced no useful intelligence--that it dealt only in fantasies and lies. Now suddenly the INC is accused of being in possession of accurate and valuable sensitive information. How did Chalabi go from know-nothing to valuable intelligence asset overnight?
Isn't it possible that Chalabi dealt in fantasies and lies until the United States defeated the Baathist regime, at which point the U.S. acquired valuable information that they could then pass on to Chalabi, who could then, arguendo, hand it over to the Iranians? It would certainly be easier for his men to gather information, as well it should be. Overall, the Panglossian view of Chalabi seems bizarre.
Michael Rubin, an expert on the Middle East at the American Enterprise Institute and a TNR contributor, has provided much of the intellectual firepower for this view. In a May 3 piece on National Review Online, he argued that the State Department sabotaged Pentagon efforts to plan for the postwar period, which is how he describes efforts to hand over sovereignty to a government comprised of exiles and "internals" backed by a Free Iraqi Force, also drawn from the exile community. Rubin argues that this would have facilitated stabilization as the FIF could have helped co-opt the regular Iraqi Army. Whether or not this is true, it's not clear that it would have been an adequate substitute for a larger coalition invasion force.
The Standard Neocons: Dude, Where's My Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy? William Kristol and Robert Kagan of The Weekly Standard, despite longstanding ill will towards Colin Powell and impatience with the CIA's assessment of the Iraq threat, advocated a different approach. From early on, they fretted over troop levels, first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq. Their criticism was searing only in stretches, and usually confined to caveats. The thinking behind their reticence, one can only assume, was that full-blown harangues would end up marginalizing the Standard, while constructive engagement could move the Bushies in their direction. Suffice to say, constructive engagement has worked about as well in this case as it has with Red China.
They framed their arguments in such a way as to suggest that President Bush, if only he followed his true instincts, would agree with them on the central importance of doing the job right. More recently, as the crisis in Iraq has escalated, they've grown more insistent. Both Kristol and Kagan continue to believe, as the title of one lead editorial had it, that the Iraq war was "The Right War for the Right Reasons," and they make a compelling case. They have since argued, again, that there are "Too Few Troops," and more recently that the timetable for elections must be moved up.
In short, Kristol and Kagan seem to have recognized that the crap has hit the fan, and that the time for pulling out all the stops has long since arrived. In this respect, they have something in common with pragmatic Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden who've staked out a more hawkish stance. Whether their McCainite leanings will pull them even further away from the Bush administration remains to be seen.
Kagan has gone farther in this regard. In his May 2 Washington Post column, Kagan wrote that, "All but the most blindly devoted Bush supporters"--a category from which he necessarily excludes himself--"can see that Bush administration officials have no clue about what to do in Iraq tomorrow, much less a month from now." Worse yet, Kagan fears that the Bush administration is losing its will to fight:
The administration is increasingly reluctant to fight the people it defines as the bad guys in Iraq. This reluctance is perfectly understandable. No one wants more American casualties. And no one doubts that more violence in Iraq may alienate more of the Iraqi population. But this reluctance can also appear both to Iraqis and to the American public as a sign of declining will.
When observers call for stability, they fail to reckon with the facts:
[T]he alternatives are no easier to carry out and no less costly in money and lives than the present attempt to create some form of democracy in Iraq. The real alternative to the present course is not stability at all but to abandon Iraq to whatever horrible fate awaits it: chaos, civil war, brutal tyranny, terrorism or more likely a combination of all of these--with all that entails for Iraqis, the Middle East and American interests.
Which is why the Bush policy is a mystery for Kagan. Bush seems sincerely committed to staying the course and doing the right thing, but "he continues to tolerate policymakers, military advisers and a dysfunctional policymaking apparatus that are making the achievement of his goals less and less likely." Where the path will end is unclear to Kagan, and the rest of us.
The Neo-Imperialist: Bush Gets the Boot from Boot
Max Boot (my former boss) is perhaps best known for his full-throated defense of liberal imperialism. In The Savage Wars of Peace, he persuasively argued that the United States had a long history of using its armed forces to undertake what would today be called peacekeeping and nation-building missions with great success, and that fighting lawlessness and terrorism on a global scale remains essential to American national security. Inevitably, critics focused on his unapologetic embrace of the "e" word--"empire"--to dismiss his expensive and unpopular calls for a more expensive military oriented towards such unglamorous tasks as providing viable governance in the Kosovos and Sierra Leones of the world.
Boot was also a staunch advocate of overthrowing Saddam Hussein. In a December 2002 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Boot had this to say about neoconservatives, among whom he counted himself, and Iraq:
If we are to avoid another 9/11, they argue, we need to liberalize the Middle East--a massive undertaking, to be sure, but better than the unspeakable alternative. And if this requires occupying Iraq for an extended period, so be it; we did it with Germany, Japan and Italy, and we can do it again.
It was a widely held view among liberal hawks and conservatives alike. In the immediate aftermath of the Baathist defeat, Boot argued in the May 5, 2003 Weekly Standard that the United States "will have to commit sufficient force to make this a reality. This probably will not require the 200,000 troops suggested by Army chief of staff Eric Shinseki, but it will require a long-term commitment of at least 60,000 to 75,000 soldiers, the number estimated by Joint Staff planners."
In hindsight, this looks like a very optimistic assessment indeed. Fortunately, Boot's assessment soon changed. As the postwar situation in Iraq grew parlous, Boot embraced any number of heresies, at one point advocating a leading role by the United Nations. By late April, he called upon John Kerry to outhawk Bush by calling for a steep increase in the regular Army's troop strength in the Los Angeles Times. Though normally a down-the-line conservative, Boot had harsh words for the administration:
After stubbornly denying that more troops are needed, Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, implicitly conceded the point by allowing the army temporarily to add 30,000 personnel over the next few years, mainly by delaying the discharge of existing soldiers. He is also trying to move soldiers from desk jobs to frontline units. But these are sticking--plaster solutions for the serious wounds Mr Bush's policies have inflicted on the armed forces.
More recently, Boot has joined the small handful of conservatives to call for Rumsfeld's head on a pike (not in so many words) in a May 13 Los AngelesTimes op-ed:
Rumsfeld has done many laudable things, but he has also miscalculated badly about many aspects of the Iraq occupation, and he has alienated much of the military. It is farfetched to claim that the war on terrorism would falter without him.
Will Max Boot, former member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board who had been known (unfairly) as the one-man extremist wing of the neocons, become a key member of Kerry's kitchen cabinet? It's pretty unlikely--Boot is a committed conservative, his disappointment with the Bush administration notwithstanding--but stranger things have happened.
The Cheerleaders: Denial Ain't Just A River in Egypt
Where to begin? Not all conservatives are hemming and hawing, or engaging in searching self-examination. There are those, believe it or not, who really think that things in Iraq are going just fine, and that the media is to blame. Just as Rush Limbaugh saw the abuses at Abu Ghraib as little more than frat boy antics, and the nation's shock and horror at the images of abuse as so much hysterics, the Bush administration, and Donald Rumsfeld--as much a lightning rod for critical hawks as for doves at this point--still have a cheering section, one that, as you might imagine, is increasingly out of touch with reality. (Even the Neo-Neocons think something went wrong, namely that we let Foggy Bottom run roughshod over the peerless masterminds in Douglas Feith's office, or something like that.)
The always thought-provoking Wall Street Journal editorial page has, unfortunately, taken a maximalist turn in the cheerleading direction. When a leaked Red Cross report revealed the extent of prison abuse in Iraq, the WSJ didn't blame the Pentagon. It blamed, in classic contrarian fashion, the Red Cross. For being overly political. When calls for Rumsfeld's resignation reached a fever pitch, the Journal noted that most voters considered prisoner abuse "no big deal," and that only a small minority wanted Rumsfeld to resign. When it comes to open markets and open borders, the Journal usually doesn't let poll numbers do the arguing, but the May 12 "Review & Outlook" left it at pretty much at that. They did, however, add the following:
The war's domestic opponents are too obviously eager to expand the misdeeds of a few into a general repudiation of the war and all involved in it. For example, we are now reading that Geneva Convention status should be accorded to illegal combatants such as those at Guantanamo. We suspect the U.S. public understands that terrorists such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who wear no uniforms so as to more easily murder innocent civilians, do not deserve the same status accorded legitimate prisoners of war.
In doing so, they impugned the motives of hawks enraged by incompetence in Iraq and managed to change the subject from prisoner abuse in Iraq, where the prisoners in question are not KSM and his cronies, to a quite separate, broader question.
But the folks at the Journal are positively Quisling-esque when compared with that lion of the Iraq war, Tony Blankley of The Washington Times. Blankley spent his most recent column, on May 19, explaining that he predicted everything that's happened in Iraq with deadly accuracy in a column that ran in August of 2002. Marvel at the prescience for yourselves:
I addressed this reality in a column I published on Aug. 14, 2002--a full half year before the war started--which I titled "A period of 'measureless peril' could be in the offing." Its central analysis bears repeating today: "On Monday of this week [August 12, 2002], Henry Kissinger endorsed the president's pre-emptive war strategy In perhaps his most incisive assertion, he justifies 'bringing matters to a head with Iraq' for what he calls a generally unstated reason--While long-range American strategy must try to overcome legitimate causes of Islamic resentments, immediate policy must demonstrate that a terrorist challenge produces catastrophic consequences for the perpetrators, as well as their supporters, tacit or explicit.' In other words, we must break the will and pride of all those in the Islamic world who would dare to terrorize us and the international system."
One can only wonder why Blankley has not been named Undersecretary of Defense for Advanced Premonitory Wargaming. Of course Blankley declined to reprint such dazzling predictions as this, from April, 2003:
But, it seems as if the rolling start to the war will be mirrored by a rolling end the birth of a new government emerging , blade by blade, from the decaying corpse of the old. I suspect there may be genius in this plan. The absence of apparent historic discontinuities minimizes the psychological opportunities for resistance. Iraqis just keep going to bed and getting up as, seamlessly, democracy emerges.
He goes on to argue "even the president's opponents are not our greatest peril at the moment." Blankley is presumably referring to Bush's domestic political opponents, and conservatives with the temerity to question the continuing drift of Bush's Iraq policy. No, " the greatest immediate potential danger is a slackening of presidential resolve." Whether Blankley is mistaking stubbornness, indecision, and panic as "presidential resolve" is an open question. If so, he can rest assured that there's been no slackening in sight.
