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| The Denial of the Obvious By Reference to the Irrelevant: Center-Left Foreign Policy |
| 2007-12-02 |
| An except. For the full article + context go to "Mere Rhetoric" ... this isn't about Democratic foreign policy experts being traitors. Coulterism aside, the vast majority of Democrats really do think that the policies they recommend are more likely to make the world safe than the other side's policies. Center-left foreign policy experts aren't evil, they're just wrong. They're creatures of bureaucratic and educational institutions that are invested in interpreting rather straightforward events in specialist terms that aren't at all appropriate for the context of the Middle East. So Ahmadinejad's speeches that Israel should be wiped off the map are understood in these foreign policy circles as power grabs by domestic Iranian hardliners rather than as declarations that Ahmadinejad will nuke Israel just as soon as he can. Now of course, many experts will concede that it's both - but then they go right on suggesting policy on the basis of this 'sophisticated' insight rather than on the obvious understanding that anyone can take away from the speech (because if you based policy on what everyone can see, why would we need experts?) |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #6 Thanks for posting, grom. I really should go read the whole thing, as it squarely hits a very very long-time theme of mine, namely the over-intellectualization of foreign policy. There are two components here - the over-intellectualization in general, and separately the particular cluelessness exhibited by what I'd call the Beltway elites (this includes their academic and quasi-academic fellows outside the DC area). But there is, I think, a crucial additional problem afflicting primarily the Dem/lefty foreign policy types, and more importantly their political leaders: cowardice. This term is tossed around far too lightly any more, but by this I mean that aside from the faulty and naive intellectual frameworks described by others above, these sorts typically simply lack the resolve or the tolerance for risk to take anything other than the most tepid or moderate steps in reaction to any international developments. As a corollary, they seem to focus on things that are either (1) not amenable to human resolution, or at least not to govt.-led remedies, like climate change, or (2) huge, amorphous, difficult but non-urgent problems like AIDS, where "taking action" is essentially risk-free and more importantly a form of the morally preening social work that really feel comfortable with. The Clinton crew's ineffectual response to AQ in the 90s had nothing to do with a false intellectual framework, everything to do with aversion to risk, messiness, and of course the use of force. Knowing a great number of the likely Dem foreign policy players as I have for years, I try to explain to suitable acquaintances that the risks of a Dem White House extend far beyond the individual qualities of the president her/himself. The bulk or entirety of a Dem president's supporting entourage will be of the mindset described above. So you'll have the intertia of what appear to be a very action- and change-averse State and CIA supplemented by a similar mindset among the politicals. Scary. |
| Posted by: Verlaine 2007-12-02 23:12 |
| #5 I found this particular quote very compelling: "The consequence is that [center-left foreign policy experts] end up recommending policies that address triangulation by encouraging Israeli concessions, hoping thereby to get to Hamas's refusal. But Hamas's hatred of Israel is ideological not tactical, and so Israel's concessions are pocketed and ignored – to the confusion of insightful experts." The time has long passed for everyone, center-left foreign policy experts included, to recognize this obvious reality. When we look back in 40-50+ years, it will be so clear to us, to everyone. Many have accused the current foreign policy of our country of being myopic and misguided, if not unscrupulous and even malignant. I disagree. Our myopism has cost us plenty already and the nature of emerging threats meant we had to abandon the status quo or risk the unspeakable. (Accepting this scenario requires the belief that a nuclear terrorist attack on the United States was, ultmately, a matter of capability and not will.) Anything else is, in fact, myopic and misguided because it fails to realize that this has become or always was an ideological conflict. A well-meaning belief that the next concession or the next compromise will yield positive results rests its hopes in the short-term while ignoring the potential long-term consequences. While certainly many factors have influence-- politics, economics, and culture, to name a few-- they will end up as nothing more than background noise when all is said and done. |
| Posted by: eltoroverde 2007-12-02 19:09 |
| #4 Democrat ineffectualness and incompetence in foreign policy has long passed the point where it endangers national security. In past, I've even suggested that it would be worth it for Republicans to *pay* Democrat up-and-comers to attend classes both in history and foreign policy, taught by top experts who are not befuddled, ivory tower Marxists. That is, who actually teach their subject instead of endlessly opine on the relative merits of socialism as a thought problem. The problem is that nobody has ever told many of them *why* having all world leaders hold hands and sing Kumbaya while Bono plays his guitar is a futile and worse than useless gesture. The vast majority think that foreign policy is like a 50 minute TV comedy-drama that begins with somebody running into the Oval Office with a piece of paper and shouting, "Mr. President! We have a problem!", and then the President has 45 minutes left to solve the problem. With, of course, everything being back to normal the next week. So our nation and the world get whip-sawed by having a brilliant foreign policy alternating with one conceptualized by horny drunken monkeys and a dart board. It is intolerable. And while they're at it, a course in non-Marxian basic economics would help as well. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-12-02 14:39 |
| #3 No, your best starting point is to carry a pistol, and use it, AKA Beria. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2007-12-02 13:41 |
| #2 Memo to the 'reasonable center-left foreign policy Democratic experts': when a totalitarian thug tells the world what he wants to do, your best starting point is to believe that he's serious. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2007-12-02 13:11 |
| #1 So Ahmadinejad's speeches that Israel should be wiped off the map are understood in these foreign policy circles as power grabs by domestic Iranian hardliners rather than as declarations that Ahmadinejad will nuke Israel just as soon as he can. The intellectual descendents of those who dismissed Mein Kampf. |
| Posted by: DoDo 2007-12-02 12:36 |