I once read that Condoleeze Rice made a career of being wrong to all the right people. That's a bit paraphrastic, but there was a ring of aphorism to the original as well. To be fair, there were many decades in this country where many a respectable politico-academic career was made through a concerted effort at overestimating the strength, durability, and danger of the Soviet Union. Condi was never even an exemplar of such. So far as I can tell, she mouthed Sovietology of the most mainstream sort--wrong, but not spectacularly so--and did so as a pretty, compliant black woman: precisely the sort of useful racial prop popular with both American political parties. Much has been made in both the mainstream press and the quasi-oppositional Democratic blog-media about Rice's (in)famous loyalty to the dauphin, but I defy anyone to say they can't imagine her performing precisely the same role of globe-trotting ring-kisser under a Bill Clinton or, hell, under an Al Gore. She seems to possess no political ideology of her own, and it seems fatuous in the extreme to believe that she would be any less capable of mouthing obsequiences in line with the nominal Democratic "policy" positions than those current. Of course, in the Israelo-Palestinian-Lebanese trifecta, all this is more or less irrelevant, since the United States government speaks, in the much-repeated and little-signifying phrase, "with one voice." And that is the voice of Israel.
In comments to my last post, commentor Moloch_Agonistes offers a critique:
Disagree. There are many things the U.S. could do to calm the various conflicts in which Israel is engaged. Most of them involve pulling one plug or another. I mean, honestly: do you really think there wouldn't be a permanent border on the West Bank, Gaza, and Lebanon in zero seconds flat if the principal patron insisted? That we haven't done it so far suggests that soi-disant "policy elites" don't see it as U.S. interest to calm these conflicts.True, as they say, in theory, although I think it overestimates the capacity of Israel's enemies to make peace or accept a drawn border; the US could certainly force Israel to withdraw to whatever borders it saw fit, but that is no guarantee of a permanent boder. But one need only listen to Hillary Clinton snarling into the microphone at the latest pro-Israel rally to see that itjustain'tgonnahappen.
M_A calls that sort of thinking quiescent, and perhaps it is. I don't deny despairing over the most recent debacle. Still, I think we must recognize that the "defense" of Israel has metastasized into a total organizational imperative for the United States governing classes. So imperative, so internalized that our own emissaries sit dumbly by as the carnage continues, at great cost to our ongoing project in the region. Not a month ago, it was hard to imagine our cause or reputation could sink much lower in Iraq or our influence wane more in Iran, and yet here we are, standing by while Israel bombs the hell out of Lebanon. As I once wrote: If you don't wish to be called a crusader Zionist state, it's best not to act like one. It's naive to believe that our government is unaware of the terrible position our fifty-first state has forced on us: all across the Middle East, all across the world, the American-made and -funded Israeli military is televised wreaking havoc across Lebanon and Gaza. No matter what excuses belch from the White House, no matter what strutting nonsense the president sputters about letting Israel soften up Hezbollah, or whatever the hell, the scent of panic is in the air.
One part panic, one part paralysis. "It is time for a new Middle East," she said. "It is time to say to those that don't want a different kind of Middle East that we will prevail. They will not." That's a press-conference slogan usually delivered by the likes of a Tony Snow to the truly quiescent Washington press corps. Even at a meet-and-greet staged for media, it's not the sort of thing the Secretary of State is supposed to say while standing next to a supposedly junior partner in the middle of a war. Watching these buffoons is remeniscent of nothing so much as one of those old Isaac Asimov robot stories, wherein the imperative of this or that "Law of Robotics" comes into insoluble conflict with another, and the damned machine goes crazy, or else just shuts down. The solution, insofar as one exists, is not to try to convince the malfunctioning creature that one or other law or order is more important; that only drives it more haywire. The solution is to give it some other option: a way out. As regards our so-called foreign policy(ies) , I just can't see any reconciliation of our schizophrenic, always-at-odds-with-themselves attitudes and our self-imposed obligations. This is why I believe in advocacy for withdrawal as much as possible. It will be bitter and imperfect. It will leave a great deal of carnage and bloodshed in its wake. It will harm the standing of the United States, if you're into that sort of thing. It will diminish us as a global power--thankfully, in my view. It is the only way out, and, though I can't be optimistic, I will say this much: It won't damn anyone we haven't already damned.
9 comments:
I miss the good old days, when the non-terrorist IRA was runnin guns to the non-terorist Irgun (Stern Gang).
I'm sensing in your post a familiar kind of oscillation between disgust and despair. Can't take issue with the impulse that drives them. These acts--by Hamas, Hezbollah, Israel, and the U.S., in increasing order of power and agency--are disgusting. And empirically, it may be true what you say that even if Israel were at long last hobbled Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinians would not legitimize a border (though that seems to me a dubious proposition at this point). I certainly agree that the United States will not be politically ready to exert that kind of pressure for a decade or more. So despair makes sense.
That's not really the point though, is it? I wasn't arguing that something *would* be done about the situation in the Middle East. I was saying that something *could* be done and *should* be done. That in fact, as with any important matter of public debate there are better and worse courses of action.
I have a soft spot in my heart (and maybe my head!) for Wendell Berry, and there's an essay of his that I often return to at moments like these. "Protest that endures," he writes, "is moved by a hope far more modest than public success: namely, the hope of preserving qualities in one's own heart and spirit that would be destroyed by acquiescence. A protest poem... had better confront not only the impossibility of restoring what has already been destroyed, but also the likelihood that it will be unable to prevent further destruction. This is simply one of the practicalities of political dissent and protest."
I don't totally agree with this attitude. I'd like a more collective orientation rather than his inward looking one. But I think it is in the proper spirit and reflects an appropriate level modesty. People who wish better for the human race than biological determinism are little more sensible than members of a messianic cult. And yet--it's an honorable hope, I firmly believe, and something to build around.
So in those terms, I'm not trying to make a new middle east when I say that some policies (or 'national behaviors' if you will) would be better than others. And I don't want a "new homo sapiens," either. I do hope that the same old species can learn how to adjust to living arrangements which are still quite new to us in evolutionary terms--I'd like us to make better decisions. And even if I don't delude myself that my contribution will have much more effect in the end than to "preserve qualities in my own heart and spirit that would be destroyed by acquiescence,"
I think it's important for people who have benefited from public education and social standing to do everything they can to advocate for what they think is right.
Summing up, I don't disagree with your diagnosis of the present geopolitical situation. It's bad, and worthy of despair. But to me, your proposed response doesn't have any upside.
I'm admittedly confused by your reply, M_A. Since there won't be (I'd say "can't," but I'll defer on that one) any positive result of American presence, and since there is, at least, popular support for withdrawal and isolation relative to the current interventionism, it seems clear to me that it's better to leave conflicts without our attendence as the killer referee than to remain and further catalyze warfare. The proposed response is to absent ourselves, since we prove nothing but an irritant at very best.
Well, there seems to me a basic contradiction in your approach. America, you say, is incapable of playing a constructive role *given its current political alignment*, so you advocate a policy that would never be conceivable in that aligment anyway. It's as if William Burroughs had an opium dream that he was an accountant-- pragmatism in fantasyland. Why not advocate the course of action that you really think would be the best one--morally, politically, socially?
Maybe that describes your isolationism, but then we have a more fundamental disagreement. And if you think isolationism is a morally appropriate course, then I don't want to hear any more moaning about the suffering of the Lebanese people and the cupidity of the Israelis. Principled isolationists forfeit the right to complain about the behavior of people in other places.
So that's one half of my argument. The other half is that even in a bad situation where options have been severely constricted by previous stupidity there are always better or worse things to do. Even if we "withdraw" per your schema, there will still be the American knickknack manufacturers. I'm saying that if they trade with Iran and are not protected by permanent bases in Iraq it would be better for all concerned at this point.
The basic problem to my way of thinking is that isolationism is not a policy. Isolationism is an attitude--disengagement. And I'm sensing, rightly or wrongly, that you're not really disengaged, just deeply frustrated. I empathize, but don't agree with the conclusions you draw.
Isolationism is an attitude--disengagement.
I think that's deeply untrue. What was Washington's farewell address if not, in part, a plea for a kind of isolationism. At no time in American history, including its pre- and inter-world-war period of isolationism, was the United States truly isolated from the world; it was just a lot less involved in the military and governmental affairs of others.
And that's what I advocate, because I do believe it to be "morally, politically, socially" preferable. I don't think that we should abrogate every treaty and trading agreement and retreat into an intraoceanic shell. I do think that we should largely disengage from the business of telling other countries what wars to fight or not to fight, what weapons to possess or not possess, what style of government to have or not to have, what liberties to prize or not to prize, and on and on.
You write very blithely that "principled isolationists forfeit the right to complain about the behavior of people in other places." That's an absurdity. It's our right to complain about the behavior of Israel and the suffering of the Lebanese because we are a cause. Absent an American-made and an American-funded military, such destruction and suffering would not be possible. In Iraq even more so.
But you don't hear me wailing about human rights in China, abortion policies in Latin America, or the New Authoritarianism in Russia for precisely the reasons of principle that you misattribute to international items in which the US, because of its current policy, is intertwined.
Let me try to explain why the U.S. cannot and will not disengage to the extent you advocate, which I recognize is not nearly the same as complete isolation. A withdrawn U.S. cannot and will come to pass unless and until the United States loses its superpower status. The World Wars of the 20th century conclusively proved the folly of any U.S. isolation. We can isolate ourselves only so long as the wars and conflicts do not blowback in our direction. But the blowback is inevitable. Thus, for example, when Germany threatened to conquer Great Britain and thereby to control the Atlantic sea lanes, the U.S. was dragged into war. In U.S. Foreign Policy: Shield of the Republic, Walter Lippman explained this very point quite clearly and even noted that the U.S. and Russia should be natural allies due to their common geographical interests. After WWII, the Soviet Union under Stalin set its sights both politically and militarily on Eastern Europe, thereby threatening Western Europe and by extension the United States. Having learned from its prior mistakes, the U.S. decided to lead the free world to stand up to the Soviet Union in the hope of avoiding another world war. (I suspect the development of nuclear weapons by the Soviets also contributed to the avoidance of another world war.)
Today we face a much more complicated world, but we share with the entire industrialized world a common vital interest in the Middle East, viz. oil. For that reason, the U.S. cannot simply retreat until the situation blows up. The United States must take a leadership role in the Middle East because any possibility of Western Civilization losing access to the oil supplies would be wholly unacceptable. Imagine civilization today if say 50% of the world’s daily oil supplies were halted. Now I will not expound further on what I think should be done by the U.S. at this time since I do not have any ready answers and since the Bush administration has botched things up and lost credibility with its allies or potential allies (other than Israel, Great Britain, and a few less powers) such that I doubt anything can be done until a new administration takes power in 2009.
Finally, the suggestion by Moloch_Agonistes that Israel’s borders could be set by U.S. fiat is flatly wrong. President Clinton tried that approach in 2000. He persuaded Israel to make the PLO an offer that no sane person would refuse, and Arafat refused it. Enough said about that.
Okay! I wasn't really trying to score points, let alone to convert you or anything (it's your nickel after all). But your position is interesting to me--a divergent prescription from a similar situation analysis--and I wanted to clarify the degree of agreement/disagreement.
Two points. Actually, one point in two different settings. A) Invoking Washington's Farewell Address seems to me either a rhetorical maneuver or misplaced. His America is not our America, and while one could argue that the Constitution, say, was intended to be timeless I don't think the pronouncements of our first president reach that level of foresight. B) It still seems to me that in arguing for your brand of isolationism-light you are exploiting a conflation of fact and value--the "real" America and the "ideal" America. That's to say, you argue that we must withdraw from day to day entanglement in the Middle East because given who we are at this point, anything we do will fuck everything up worse. But it is only the *ideal* America that could possibly withdraw, even to that extent. The *real* America is doomed to... well, stick around and fuck everything up worse. So why can't the ideal America (my ideal America, say) just not fuck everything up? I challenge you to demonstrate that it must by necessity.
To say the same thing is slightly different terms, I'm a bit confused by your objection to the 'principled isolationism' bit (it *was* glib, but not I would say blithe). The fact that the U.S. is a cause of suffering in many places would presumably be as irrelevant to a principled isolationist as the suffering which might ensue from declining to engage more constructively in the future. Otherwise, they would be in the position of a man walking down the street eating a piece of pie who refuses it to a starveling -- on the grounds that it isn't good for him.
As I understand your position it's not in the same ballpark. Rather, you seem to be saying that *so long as the U.S. is morally compromised* it can't be allowed to engage. Maybe your premise is that the compromised morality, hence the suffering (at which you are movingly outraged) results from *American engagement itself* rather than the specific nature of the engagement. But this seems to me a rather bold claim.
We agree of course that "democracy" should not be a matter for evangelism. And not only because the Bush clique couldn't find democracy with both hands and a coon dog. But if that's all you're talking about then it seems to me mostly atmospherics. The real issue is whether or not we're going to keep toppling some governments and pulling the strings of others. And that's been our national pastime since the late 19th century, with little relation to the prevailing rhetoric on "isolationism" (e.g. joining World War I)
So if isolationism to you just means no more coups and clients, then I guess we agree. But if it means no more "foreign policy initiatives" at all, then I think you'll have to do a somewhat more thorough job of convincing me that an ethical foreign policy is constitutively impossible for any large and vigorous state.
My attitude is, there's a reason states exist. Like other human institutions, they can accomplish stuff on a larger scale than individuals acting discretely. I don't see any more reason to object *in itself* to a foreign policy which aims, for example, to resolve border disputes than I object to mutual insurance companies.
Thanks for a stimulating exchange.
Addendum. With respect to the "Camp David Accords"--I'm not interested in debating this, except to say 1) that it was not an example of the U.S. "dictating" borders, to Israel or anyone else; and 2) that the above characterization of the negotiations and negotiators conflicts with accounts from participants (e.g. in the New York Review). The idea that this episode proves America's ability to resolve the territorial dispute "flatly wrong" seems to me tendentious.
To Publiustoo: I differ in that I see a rapid decline in oil supply as an inevitable geological fact, irrespective of whether we are or are not engaged. There will be a fuel/energy shock in this nation, and every other, whether we pacify our current suppliers or not. It's a matter of timing, and I think the differential is on the order of perhaps a decade, which is a small buffer indeed. On a related note: yes, I think it should be policy to engage in war if, for instance, the Atlantic shipping lanes are threatened by a major foreign power, or if a major trading ally is threatened with conquest by a powerful expansionist regime. Self-defense is legitimate. I don't see how the example of the Second World War currently applies, however. It seems that's just tethering our current, largely self-created catastrophe to an imaged past of moral clarity. (That said, thanks for commenting! It's a good critique.)
M_A: Yes, I'm making the bold statement that intervention itself compromises morality, even under the clearest standard of necessity, which needless to say don't obtain in present circumstances. I'm going to elaborate on that point in a future post, and I'll probably haul out some of your comments here. I will note that Arthur Silber is an excellent spokesman for this position.
Post a Comment