A thought on neonconservativism

Ex-neocon Francis Fukuyama writes that neoconservatives have

a view that ambitious social engineering often leads to unexpected consequences and often undermines its own ends

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It occurs to me that this statement isn't an entirely accurate description of neoconservative ideology. There's one form of "ambitious social engineering" which neoconservatives do back completely: government-sponsored violence against foreign nations. War, in other words.

It's interesting to note that the neocons' "ambitious social engineering" in Iraq (aka invading it and overthrowing the government) has led to the (in the neoconservative view) unexpected consequences of an Iraqi civil war and a newly powerful Iran, which are undermining the ends of democracy promotion in the Middle East that the invasion was supposedly aimed at achieving.

Is Bush a neoconservative hawk on Iran?

I would like to believe that the Bush Administration isn't actually trying to start a war with Iran. Threaten it, sure, but actually start a war? Surely even Bush can see that America, for all its strength, can't actually invade Iran and succeed at anything except creating more chaos, especially when it's not even able to control the chaos in Iraq at this point.

Maybe there's enough acceptance of reality in the US government to understand that invasion of Iran is not an option. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the case for Bush's neoconservative backers, the ones who convinced so many people, including me I'm sorry to say, that a democratic Iraq was possible through military invasion.

Urgings for a military confrontation with Iran have been popping up in neoconservative online dens such as Real Clear Politics and National Review Online. All of the writers seem to take it as given that such a fight will be won by the US, so long as the US has the will to win. This bizarre belief that the US can do anything it wants to just so long as it wants to do it strongly enough has been dubbed Green Lantern theory of geopolitics by Matthew Yglesias. It's disturbing to think that there are people who want a confrontation with Iran on the basis of that theory.

But is Bush one of those people? He's still hanging out with the neocons at the American Enterprise Institute, the people who convinced Bush to basically wipe his ass with the Iraq Study Group report in favour of a "surge" strategy which is predicated on the assumption that "victory" is still an achievable goal in iraq, so it does seem like he'd be willing to buy an invasion of Iran if it's wrapped up in enough sweet-smelling bullshit.

And the bullshit coming out of the Corner and others smells especially sweet. Take this offering from Real Clear Politics: To Win in Baghdad, Strike at Iran.

Now there's a brilliant way to sidestep the festering issue of Iraq when talking about invading Iran: you don't have to worry about fixing Iraq before invading Iran because invading Iran is what will fix Iraq! Tally ho! Too bad it's such a tunnel-view of the situation. But that does seem to be a hallmark of neoconservative thought: complex reality gets ignored in favour of simple-sounding summations, in this case boiling down all the troubles in Iraq to Iranian interference.

Reading through, Mr Tracinski also has a clever way of saying why a declaration of war against Iran should not be viewed as a declaration of war against Iran: because we're already at war with Iran because of actions taken against US interests in the Middle East. Somehow I think that excuse will fly even less well at the UN than the excuse for the Iraq invasion did. Not that neoconservatives care about even token respect for international institutions of course.

Trackinski's article does seem to have an appeal if you believe that the world is engaged in a struggle between Good (the West and democracy) vs Evil ("islofascism" in all its forms). It also works if you believe that the US will decisively win an armed conflict with Iran. Bush believes the first. I don't know about the second. But given that he's still talking about "victory" in Iraq when the overwhelming majority of American citizens have given up on that being an achievable goal....well, it doesn't look good.

ISG report: the press conference version

My opinion: the content of the Baker-Hamilton report isn't as important in forming policy so much as the political interpretation of that report, particularly how the US-UK governments spin it to make it line up with their future Iraq policy.

I haven't read the report. My impressions - like that of the average Western citizen - currently come from media reporting of it. Here's a transcript of a press conference with Bush and Blair for analysis.

First item of note, Bush has committed to the existence of a Palestinian state, I believe the first US president ever to do so:"In the Palestinian territories, they are working to stop moderate leaders like President Abbas from making progress toward the vision of two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security." Blair echos later on, showing it wasn't a mis-statement: "You are the first president who committed yourself to the two- state solution." I wonder how the Israeli political establishment feels about that?

I've read elsewhere that one of the reasons Blair was so willing to chum it up with Bush was as a way of trying to exert pressure to get a better deal for the Palestinians in Israel/Palestine negotiations. I guess he's succeeded in that, even though it looks like his own political career is basically over now after going against too many of his own constituents on the Iraq war issue.

The vision of the Middle East that Bush/Blair are pushing is pretty blatant: it's evil terrorists and exremists vs good democracy-lovers and moderates. I wonder if those four concepts always line up on two polarised sides like that? Hamas was democratically elected in Palestine after all. And Hezbollah faired pretty well at the polls in the elections in Lebanon.

I get tired of sloganeering in place of actual policy. From reading the conference I get the impression that Bush/Blair's top priority in dealing with the US mid-term electoral smackdown was changing the slogan: "stay the course" and "win hearts and minds" are out, "find a way forward" is in. It is repeated ENDLESSLY! Bush even pushes the "way forward" slogan as a way of avoiding a question:

QUESTION: Why did it take others to say it[that the situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating] before you've been willing to acknowledge it to the world?

BUSH: You know, in all due respect, I've been saying it a lot[um...has he? I sure haven't heard it]. I understand how tough it is, and I've been telling the American people how tough it is. And they know how tough it is.

And the fundamental question is: Do we have a plan to achieve our objective? Are we willing to change as the enemy has changed?

And what the Baker-Hamilton study has done is it shows good ideas as to how to go forward. What our Pentagon is doing is figuring out ways to go forward -- all aiming to achieve our objective.

The "finding a way to go forward" slogan just doesn't seem to be getting into media headlines the way the "stay the course" slogan did, though.

Reading the tea leaves, and from previous efforts with slogans, I predict that in six month's time, maybe a year's time, we'll still be repeatedly being told that Bush is boldly and confidently "finding a way to go forward", and will continue to be "finding a way to go forward", until it becomes blatantly obvious that the war effort is not "going forward" and is never going to "go forward", because there is no way to "go forward". We'll see how long Bush/Blair's "we're all about finding a way to go forward" posturing can obscure that from the American public.

On negotiation with Syria and Iran, Bush and Blair seem to split. My impression is that Bush really doesn't want it, and is trying to find a way to lay the blame for not negotiating with Iran and Syria at the feet of Iran and Syria:

When people -- if people come to the table to discuss Iraq, they need to come understanding their responsibilities -- to not fund terrorists, to help this young democracy survive, to help with the economics of the country.

BUSH: And if people are not committed -- if Syria and Iran is not committed to that concept, then they shouldn't bother to show up.

I heard this particular excerpt spoken aloud on the radio while riding a taxi. Bush sounded really angry when he was saying this. I really don't know what's going on in his head here, but I'm pretty sure that the idea of negotiating with Evil on Earth isn't something he would ever be willing to do. Please God, let us never have another Evangelical Christian as President of the United States.

Blair's more open to the idea, and has a comment which to my mind sounds like someone who is good at diplomacy, unlike, President Cowboy:

And let me come directly to the Iran and Syria point. The issue, for me, is not a question of being unwilling to sit down with people or not, but the basis upon which we discuss Iraq has got to be clear and it's got to be a basis where we are all standing up for the right principles, which are now endorsed in the United Nations resolutions, in respect of Iraq.

At which point, he points the finger at Iran:

BLAIR: In other words, you support the democratic-elected government, you do not support sectarians, and you do not support, arm or finance terrorists.

Now, the very reason we have problems in parts of Iraq -- and we know this very well down in the south of Iraq -- is that Iran, for example, has been doing that. It's been basically arming, financing, supporting terrorism.

Hmmm. Maybe not that good at diplomacy...

Blair also mentions how "the old Middle East had, within it, the origins of all the problems we see." Are we still talking about magically solving all of that region's deepseated problems through the neoconservative pipedream of creating a "new Middle East" through military might, Mr Blair? Well, to be fair, the UK I think understands that military strength alone is not enough. But to have an echo of the neoconservative utopia-pretensions for the Middle East in Blair's commentary is deeply unsettling.

Last point before I finish off, this comment from Blair:

Its[Iraq's] people can either be presented with a choice between a secular or a religious dictatorship, which is not a choice that any free people would ever choose.

seems way off the mark, and indicates even further his embrace of the wrong-headed idealism of neoconservatism. "Free people" I believe are entirely willing - eager, even - to embrace dictatorship and oppression of people, so long as there's a pretty good chance that they are the ones who get to do the oppressing.

People will not choose to be an oppressee, but we are often all too willing to choose to be an oppressor. Perhaps we might justify it to ourselves with the usual moral equivocations - "they did it to us for so long", "it's not oppression if they deserve what they get", there are others I'm sure - but we would be freely choosing oppression nonetheless. That is a part of human nature that Bush and Blair's grand vision of a "new Middle East" doesn't take into account. That's why this vision simply cannot work.

The Iraqi blame game

Seems the remaining opinionaters who still think the Iraq war was a good idea even now have to find a scapegoat for the failure of Bush II to deliver on anything that was promised by the invasion. The targets of blame for the Bush Administration's own failures appears to have been narrowed down to two:
1. Blame the American people. Supposedly everything would be fine if the Bush Administration hadn't been hampered by skittish voters refusing to allow Bush to fight the war the way he wanted to fight it. The level of historical revisionism needed to make that one float is pretty impressive. But there are True Believers[tm] out there still who accept it, apparently.

2 Blame the Iraqi people. In this scenario, it wasn't a failure of Bush's "new Middle East" policy that has brought Iraq to ruin, but a failure of the Iraqi voting public to properly take advantage of the opportunity afforded to them. Do I detect a smidgeon of cultural chauvinism here? I think I do.

Text of Bush's Comments on N. Korea Nuclear Test

Hopeful signs: he is emphasising multilateralism. Negotiations and the UN Security council are the first port of call:

Once again North Korea has defied the will of the international community, and the international community will respond.

This was confirmed this morning in conversations I had with leaders of China and South Korea, Russia and Japan. We reaffirmed our commitment to a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. And all of us agreed that the proclaimed actions taken by North Korea are unacceptable and deserve an immediate response by the United Nations Security Council.

Worrying signs: neoconservative ideas that showed up in Iraq rhetoric also showed up when talkingabout North Korea. There's the "WMDs could be given to terrorists" meme:

The transfer of nuclear weapons or material by North Korea to states or nonstate entities would be considered a grave threat to the United States, and we would hold North Korea fully accountable the consequences of such action.

*sigh* Why does everything have to be about the US? Other countries are more directly in the line of fire right now. Shouldn't their interests be primary?

Disconcertingly, there was also the "ZOMG OPPRESSION" meme:

Today's claim by North Korea serves only to raise tensions, while depriving the North Korean people of the increased prosperity and better relations with the world offered by the implementation of the joint statement of the six-party talks.

The oppressed and impoverished people of North Korea deserve that brighter future.

I'm sure they do, but, uh, how? At least he's saying that it's diplomacy rather than regime change that would bring this increased prosperity and better relations about. Maybe I'm just jaded, but it was weird seeing the plight of the North Korean people brought up by El Presidente for what I think is the first time ever.

I get the impression that there was some give-and-take between neoconservatives and, um, not-neoconservative policymakers(what are they called?) in the drafting of that speech: emphasise the WMD-terrorist angle and the suffering of people under an Evil Dictator[tm], but also state a commitment to multilateral engagement and a willingness to use diplomacy rather than military action as a first resort.

My position on the Iraq war: um.

My views have changed over time. It's very likely that they're going to keep changing. I've gone from undecided, to dubiously supporting, to regretfully opposing, to hopeful, to despairing. The simple fact is that there's too much at issue for me to come down with a simple yes or no answer to the question of whether the Iraq invasion was, is, or will be, a good thing or not.

I started out not knowing. I didn't believe even then that this was a simple question of "US good, Saddam bad". I listened to the talking points of the day, but it took a while to reach a decision.

The first talking point I rejected was the claim that this invasion was all about securing access to oil. I found it hard to understand why people were getting up in arms about a mere natural resource when something much more important and much more valuable to its possessors was up for grabs: power. The neoconservatives in the US had plans to solidify US dominance over the world so as to shape into a form they found more acceptable - all for our own good of course.

The second claim I had a hard time swallowing was that this was about ridding the world of a dictator. At this time, there was no indication whatsoever as to what form, if any, the post-Saddam Iraq was going to take. In fact, it was fairly clear at the time that the US was focusing on the WMD argument, with the removal of Saddam described as nothing more than "a nice bonus" - and quite possibly an optional one at that. On a TV debate here in Australia, a Kurd asked the assembled panel what would happen if Saddam did in fact comply fully with Resolution 1441, allowing UN inspectors unfettered access to all of Iraq and accounting for all of the unaccounted-for WMDs allegedly still in his possession - would that mean that the US would leave Saddam in power, free to oppress the Kurdish population in Iraq? He never got an answer to his question.

The arguments about terrorism and national security I regarded as the weakest arguments for an Iraq invasion. The alleged links between Al-Qaida and Saddam were tenuous, the spectre of a terrorist attack using WMDs sounded like scare-mongering (particularly since the most abundant source of nuclear, chemical and biological arms remains the former Soviet bloc), and the level of threat to "world security" seemed a question for "the world", not the US, to answer. And yet, this was the centrepiece of the pro-war argument: Saddam has WMDs, he's disobeying the UN, and we have to stop him even if it means disobeying the UN.

But I did consider the possibility that overthrowing a dictator could be a good thing. It was a risk though. Could I trust the US to actually replace Saddam with a government that was democratic rather than simply install yet another dictator, except this time one who serves their interests? Even if I believed that was the goal of the US, could I trust them to succeed at that goal?

Such was the state of affairs when I attended my one and only anti-war rally. That rally was held internationally. It was huge - much, much bigger than even the organisers expected. Did it make any difference? I think it did: the day after that rally, as I was scouring for articles about the rally, I saw that the US government had officially announced that they would work towards building a democratic government in Iraq. I sincerely believe that this commitment to building a democracy in Iraq would not have come about if that international anti-war rally hadn't attracted such a large turn-out. As I recall, rallies after that announcement - which I didn't attend - were much, much smaller. I no longer attended, as my main objection to regime change had been dealt with.

So did I switch to a pro-war position once it became clear that the US wasn't going to replace a sadistic, ruthless, anti-American dictator with a sadistic, ruthless, pro-American dictator? I did for a time. But after the invasion, as the rebuilding effort dragged on, I wondered just how much of a commitment the US government had really made. I wondered if the American people really understood just how much time and effort it would take to rebuild a nation (one study I've read suggested that it'd be a minimum of 5 years before things even looked like approaching stability). I wondered if, instead of celebrating the short-term overthrow of a dictator, I should be worrying about what's going to happen to Iraq, and perhaps even the world, in the long run thanks to a poorly-planned, poorly-executed invasion of Iraq which has alienated the US from its longtime allies.

And yet, I can't support a withdrawal from Iraq. The mess must be cleaned up. Invading Iraq and then failing to clean up afterwards would be the worst of both worlds. I have no choice but to hope that the neocons succeed in their efforts to bring "freedom and democracy" to Iraq, even though I view their philosophy as an overall threat to world peace.

"Lebanon, and all of Lebanon, rejects any resolution that is outside" these demands, Berri said.

So sayeth the Parliamentary speaker of Lebanon, a Shiite Muslim. The full force of why "democracy promotion" in the Middle East was such a horrible idea is starting to hit me. And it doesn't make me feel better that it's a reflection of current trends in Western democracy.

It seems to me that a democracy can only function effectively when there is room for agreeing to disagree or "loyal opposition". An Opposition may oppose, a protestor may protest, but at some level there is a sense that though there are disagreements, there is sufficient common ground for them all to work within the framework of one democratic system. Lebanon doesn't yet have this, and consequently the ballot box becomes less about what's good for all and more about what's bad for those bastards that you were shooting at just 20 years ago.

Note what Berri said: all of Lebanon. I find it highly suspect that all Lebanese are opposed to the proposed UN resolution, but I can believe that he's trying to get Lebanese people to jump on the pro-Hizbolla bandwagon. But I find his motives suspect. Is he, as I strongly suspect, aiming to bring about a Shiite takeover of Lebanon at the ballot box?

In the 1980s there was civil war. In Condi Rice's "new Middle East", the democratic framework in Lebanon is ripe for takeover if Hizbollah can garner enough support from other factions within Lebanon to get voted into a full majority position of power. Once that happens then they can do what both the US government and the Australian government currently do, and claim to always represent the will of all of the country as if the people who don't vote for them simply don't exist. Or worse, they can do what the elected president of Zimbabwe has done, and start deliberately targeting their opposition for abuse. Of course, it isn't democracy that best guards against this government-sanctioned abuse of those who don't agree with the current government: it's liberalism.

Also shaping my opinions about this are this article, and comments left on it. It may seem strange that an article specifically claiming that Hizbollah is not motivated purely by Shiite ideology of restoring the Caliphate throughout the Middle East prompts me to think the opposite, but the comments jumping up and down to celebrate Hizbollah's pan-Arab appeal left me with the feeling that this was exactly the goal: Hizbollah's is actively pushing the impression that they fight for all of Islam, and all of the Arabic world, against the evil US/Western/Zionist pigs. Hizbollah I suspect wants wide-ranging appeal, but only for the purpose of seizing complete control of Lebanon through the democratic process, at which point they will seek to transform it into an Islamic Republic. The comment that solidified this belief in my mind was in response to a Lebanese who claimed to oppose Hizbollah, noting their goal of spreading Shia revolution:

Lebanese,

You are a Maronite. Are you not?

You guys belong with the French and the Crusaders. Please wake up and come back to your roots. You love the zionists and hate the Muslims of any colour.

Or, to put it another way: "you're either with us or with the enemy". Sound familiar?

So Lebanon is going to go down the crapper because of a Neoconservative promotion of democracy that gives no regard to the liberal safeguards on democracy needed to prevent the creation of a tyranny of the majority: a tyranny that Hizbollah is now I believe actively trying to create for the purpose of bringing about a Shia revolution.

"I have no interest in diplomacy for the sake of returning Lebanon and Israel to the status quo ante E Whatever we do, we have to be certain that we are pushing forward to the new Middle East, not going back to the old one." - Condoleezza Rice's latest soundbite.(One source here)

What in the name of the Sam Hill Peckett....? "New" middle east?

Don't tell me the neoconservative vision of transforming the Middle East into democracy through military action ("draining the swamp" as Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld have so diplomatically put it) still has currency in the Bush Administration? From this remark I can only conclude that the US wants the Israel push against Hezbollah to continue for the foreseeable future.

Yep, same old, same old: unilaterally declare that one country has the right and duty to enforce a UN resolution (Israel enforcing UN Resolution 1559 through military action in Lebanese territory whether the democratically-elected Lebanese government likes it or not in this case) any way it sees fit. I'm no fan of the UN Security Council - it's basically designed to be unable to respond to a situation like this where one side of the dispute isn't a nation-state - but I really don't see how giving Israel free rein advances peace and human rights. It seems more likely to topple the current Lebanese government and result in an even more Islamist-aligned one to me, either through a coup or a democratic vote.

That lack of consideration that extremists can get elected in a democracy is one of the fundamental problems I've had with neoconservative philosophy - the governmental system that keeps the First World from fighting amongst itself isn't "democracy" as they claim, but "liberal democracy". By leaving the "liberal" off, there is no conception of "illiberal democracy", a government system in which a dominant majority can (and often does) oppress a hated minority via the voting process. It's liberalim, not democracy, that promotes the concept of granting the same rights to others as you ask for yourself. Honestly, I've had discussions with people who seem about as able to conceive of the concept of "illiberal democracy" as one could conceive of the concept of a "square circle".

Besides which, you'd think that they'd have paused when the very terrorist organisations that "democracy" was supposed to supplant started getting elected to power by popular vote. But no, apparently the definitely-not-a-civil-war-because-they're-not-wearing-uniforms that's happening in Iraq, and that's causing as much death and carnage as a civil war does, and is being fought for the same reasons as a civil war is, along with Hamas getting elected to power in Palestine, along with this latest flare-up, is all just a few eggs getting broken to make the omelette of Everlasting Peace. The ends justifies the means, apparently: a philosophical tenet which I think is the cause of good people being led to embrace evil whenever they accept it as true.

Not happy.