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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Why Not Here? |
| 2005-02-27 |
| This is the most powerful question in the world today: Why not here? People in Eastern Europe looked at people in Western Europe and asked, Why not here? People in Ukraine looked at people in Georgia and asked, Why not here? People around the Arab world look at voters in Iraq and ask, Why not here? Thomas Kuhn famously argued that science advances not gradually but in jolts, through a series of raw and jagged paradigm shifts. Somebody sees a problem differently, and suddenly everybody's vantage point changes. "Why not here?" is a Kuhnian question, and as you open the newspaper these days, you see it flitting around the world like a thought contagion. Wherever it is asked, people seem to feel that the rules have changed. New possibilities have opened up. The question is being asked now in Lebanon. Walid Jumblatt made his much circulated observation to David Ignatius of The Washington Post: "It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq. I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, eight million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world." So now we have mass demonstrations on the streets of Beirut. A tent city is rising up near the crater where Rafik Hariri was killed, and the inhabitants are refusing to leave until Syria withdraws. The crowds grow in the evenings; bathroom facilities are provided by a nearby Dunkin' Donuts and a Virgin Megastore. The head of the Syrian Press Syndicate told The Times on Thursday: "There's a new world out there and a new reality. You can no longer have business as usual." Meanwhile in Palestine, after days of intense pressure, many of the old Arafat cronies are out of the interim Palestinian cabinet. Fresh, more competent administrators have been put in. "What you witnessed is the real democracy of the Palestinian people," Saeb Erakat said to Alan Cowell of The Times. As Danny Rubinstein observed in the pages of Ha'aretz, the rules of the game have changed. Then in Iraq, there is actual politics going on. The leaders of different factions are jostling. The tone of the coverage ebbs and flows as more or less secular leaders emerge and fall back, but the amazing thing is the politics itself. If we had any brains, we'd take up Reuel Marc Gerecht's suggestion and build an Iraqi C-Span so the whole Arab world could follow this process like a long political soap opera. It's amazing in retrospect to think of how much psychological resistance there is to asking this breakthrough question: Why not here? We are all stuck in our traditions and have trouble imagining the world beyond. As Claus Christian Malzahn reminded us in Der Spiegel online this week, German politicians ridiculed Ronald Reagan's "tear down this wall" speech in 1987. They "couldn't imagine that there might be an alternative to a divided Germany." But if there is one soft-power gift America does possess, it is this tendency to imagine new worlds. As Malzahn goes on to note, "In a country of immigrants like the United States, one actually pushes for change. ... We Europeans always want to have the world from yesterday, whereas the Americans strive for the world of tomorrow." Stephen Sestanovich of the Council on Foreign Relations wrote an important essay for this page a few weeks ago, arguing that American diplomacy is often most effective when it pursues not an incrementalist but a "maximalist" agenda, leaping over allies and making the crude, bold, vantage-shifting proposal - like pushing for the reunification of Germany when most everyone else was trying to preserve the so-called stability of the Warsaw Pact. As Sestanovich notes, and as we've seen in spades over the past two years in Iraq, this rashness - this tendency to leap before we look - has its downside. Things don't come out wonderfully just because some fine person asks, Why not here? But this is clearly the question the United States is destined to provoke. For the final thing that we've learned from the papers this week is how thoroughly the Bush agenda is dominating the globe. When Bush meets with Putin, democratization is the center of discussion. When politicians gather in Ramallah, democratization is a central theme. When there's an atrocity in Beirut, the possibility of freedom leaps to people's minds. Not all weeks will be as happy as this one. Despite the suicide bombings in Israel and Iraq, the thought contagion is spreading. Why not here? |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #12 Great rant, .com! What is really happening is that people like Hillary and some at the NYT are seeing the trend because they can play "follow the dots" and they have enough brains to see the trend curve. So they jump aboard the bandwagon that the rest of us have been powering with blood, sweat, and tears and think that they will get a free ride. They still consider that the public are a bunch of idiots. They still have the same agenda, but they realize that the Far Left is committing political suicide. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2005-02-27 11:47:17 PM |
| #11 I say, good show, wot? *golf clap* |
| Posted by: BH 2005-02-27 10:36:15 PM |
| #10 .com, that is the best smackdown I've read in some time. Truly inspired. |
| Posted by: Remoteman 2005-02-27 5:54:27 PM |
| #9 Things must be going very well indeed. Even Hillary is talking about about the success in Iraq. Success has many fathers while failure is a orphan. We will continue to see rational liberals 'walking it back'. Unfortunately, the moonbats will never see the truth. |
| Posted by: SR-71 2005-02-27 9:47:53 AM |
| #8 I deem .com to be abu PageCommander Zero aka abu TrollSlicer. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-02-27 9:11:06 AM |
| #7 Incidentally, why here? What's with the 'Page 0' business? And how come every popup page claims to be from 'Page 1'? |
| Posted by: someone 2005-02-27 2:44:01 AM |
| #6 that was inspired! That is the truth. The best source of inspiration. |
| Posted by: Sobiesky 2005-02-27 2:13:41 AM |
| #5 .com, that was inspired! |
| Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) 2005-02-27 2:08:12 AM |
| #4 Yeah, I know. David works for the enemy. He should put on his life vest or jump. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-02-27 1:57:21 AM |
| #3 Er, .com: this is David Brooks, not some liberal-come-lately. |
| Posted by: someone 2005-02-27 1:55:02 AM |
| #2 ".com: putting the 'rant' back into Rantburg" |
| Posted by: Classical_Liberal 2005-02-27 1:54:59 AM |
| #1 I would consider congratulating the NYT for this glimmer of insight, but... The hypocrisy turns it into a tasteless joke. Without the Bush Doctrine, and Bush behind it doing when others have only talked, there would not be this moment, there would be no uplifting "question" nor soft power to bestow -- there would be no story. Fuck off, NYT, you're about 3 years late getting it, and you've only grasped one aspect. You've fought this President from Day One, using your once considerable reputation to bear to undermine him at every turn - and been proven vacuous and disingenuous. Justly, your influence declines in tandem with your credibility. You have no place in this story - even reporting it is above your station - for everything good in this situation occurred in spite of you. You have no right to trumpet the numerous positives that will result from any of the Bush Administration's achievements, and they will be many - seeds have been planted that will bear fruit for decades. You deserve no association with their successes. You deserve derision for partisanship, your anti-American poison, your deranged owner and editorial staff's terminal fascination with sociofascist multiculturalism, and your highly successful effort to permanently subvert and bring shame to journalism. That is your primary success - and will be your epitaph. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-02-27 1:49:42 AM |