Catastrophic Consensus: A Dissent from
Spengler and Mead
Posted By Michael Ledeen On May 21,
2013 @ 8:09 am In PJMedia
Spengler [1] (aka
David Goldman) is one of my close friends and a long-time guru. William
Russell Mead is just a guru, but I’m an avid fan. So when I find myself
disagreeing with both of them, I start by telling myself that I’m probably
wrong.
They tell us that the Democrats and the neoconservatives
have largely and wrongly agreed on the tumultuous events in the Middle East,
starting with the invasion of Iraq, continuing through the fall of Hosni
Mubarak in Egypt and into the “Arab Spring” across North Africa and deep into
the Persian Gulf. Spengler quotes the enthusiasts, from the Obama
administration to leading Republican pundits, hailing the onset of Arab
Revolution.
Here’s
Spengler [2]:
The
Obama Administration saw its actions as proof that soft power in pursuit of
humanitarian goals offered a new paradigm for foreign-policy success. And the
Republican establishment saw a vindication of the Bush freedom agenda.
…both
are based on the flawed and distinctly American expectation of a happy ending.
A little prudence would have done the neocons a world of good in Iraq, and a
bit more of this underrated virtue would have helped both parties during the
Libya fiasco and larger Arab Spring.
We
can all agree that neither of them looks very smart today, which is the way of
the world. Most of the time we blunder, in keeping with my conviction
that the Almighty created man for entertainment value. And boy, have we
blundered. We can agree with Mead and Spengler that hurling ourselves
into the Syrian “civil war” might very well make things even worse. But
we shouldn't agree that, once we decided to embrace the cause of revolution in
the Middle East, this unhappy outcome was foreordained.
It wasn’t. There were plenty of decision forks
along the highway, and for the most part we adopted the witty advice (was
it Yogi Berra’s?),”when you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
I was not part of that consensus (when I see
near-unanimity, I run). I argued that we should stand by Mubarak, and if
he fell, we should go all the way down with him. I thought it was a
mistake to make Iraq the centerpiece of our war on terror, since Iran was the
driving force of international terrorism. And I wrote monotonously that
Iraq would never have decent security so long as the ayatollahs ruled in
Tehran. So I’m not apologizing for myself when I say that I think Mead
and Spengler have misdiagnosed the problem. They seem to think that it
was wrong to support democratic revolution in the Middle East, because it was
never likely to succeed. I think the problem is that we sometimes gave
emotional support to the revolutionaries, but did not fight–fight politically,
for the most part, and only very rarely militarily–alongside them. That’s
why there were so many banners saying “America, where are you?”
I also think that Spengler’s description of Obama’s
policy, “soft power in pursuit of humanitarian goals,” is off the mark.
The doctrine of protecting civilians from their own tyrants was invoked in
Libya, and was used to justify the use of military power, not soft power.
The other cases–from the very active and aggressive support of the Muslim
Brotherhood in Egypt, to the insistence that we can make a deal with the
Iranian regime–are not examples of supporting humanitarian goals, but rather
supporting radical Islamic movements and regimes.
Obama has talked a lot of talk, but took only a few
very short walks, when he walked at all. Worse still, at crucial forks in
the road, he didn't take it. For the most part, he dithered. When
the Iranian people rose up against the mullahcracy in 2003 and again in 2009,
we either opted out (2003, Colin Powell’s “we don’t want to be part of this
family squabble”) or reassured the tyrants (Obama sent reassuring messages to
Khamenei in 2009).
I think revolution in Iran was possible and that
vigorous support from us would have greatly increased the odds for success
(indeed, I think we could and should do it now). If that had happened,
the whole world would have changed dramatically. Terrorists, from al Qaeda to Hezbollah–Sunnis and Shiites would have been gravely, perhaps
fatally, weakened. The appeal of radical Islam would have diminished, and
therefore the Muslim Brotherhood would have been less likely to topple Mubarak.
I also think that the anti-radical forces in Egypt,
Tunisia, Libya and elsewhere could have been more effective with American
political, economic and technological support. Condoleezza Rice gave a
couple of excellent speeches along these lines, but action was pathetic.
Hillary also gave a few speeches, often pretending that we really were supporting
pro-democracy groups (but she couldn’t talk about it, you know).
There was no there there.
So nothing was set in stone. We could have
acted, but we didn't and when we did, our actions were either misguided
or inadequate. Syria is a fine case in point. It may well be that,
had we acted promptly to support the defectors from Assad’s army–the breakaway
“Free Syrian Army”–along with the Syrian and Iraqi Kurds, the Baathist regime
would have fallen, and we would have been in a strong position in Damascus.
Instead, Obama dithered, permitting the jihadis to organize themselves,
infiltrate the FSA, and strengthen the iron fists of Iran and Russia.
Could we not have done better? Maybe not, but
we didn't try, not because of misguided romanticism about Arabs, and not only
because of a refusal to see Islamic radicalism as the terrible force it
is. It’s much worse than that, in fact. In Syria, as elsewhere, a
large war is being waged, and the United States is the ultimate target.
It’s not just the jihadis, Russians and ayatollahs. It includes the
Chinese, the Venezuelans, the Qataris, a large chunk of the Saudis, along
with Bolivians, Ecuadorians and Nicaraguans. Most of our pundits and
policy makers never acknowledge this global conflict, and the Obama
administration is slashing our military and paramilitary capabilities instead
of designing and conducting a winning strategy. [One
might notice that many of these are the countries that would give asylum to
Snowdon. All though in his case do not attribute to malice what can be
explained by stupidity (Robert Heinlein).]
There is no escape from this war. Our enemies
believe they are winning, and will not back off. As Mead rightly insists,
we should try to learn from history, and we’d do well to start by acknowledging
that there are real enemies out there, that we have to protect ourselves, and
that support for democratic revolution is one very effective weapon against
them.
Faster, please.
Article printed from Faster, Please!: http://pjmedia.com/michaelledeen
URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/michaelledeen/2013/05/21/catastrophic-consensus-a-dissent-from-spengler-and-mead/
URLs in this post:
[1] Spengler: http://pjmedia.com/spengler/
[2] Here’s Spengler: http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/132459/dumb-and-dumber?all=1
[3] here’s Mead: http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/05/20/middle-east-mess-when-dems-and-gopers-agree-be-afraid/
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