Friday, March 04, 2005
The stability of the mass grave
Glenn Reynolds linked last night to this column by Gerard Baker in the Times of London, "What have the Americans ever done for us? Liberated 50 million people..." Baker's column remembers the famous "What have the Romans ever done for us?" scene in Monty Python's The Life of Brian, in which an angry anti-Roman is ultimately forced to modify his question:
The analogy is hilarious, and Baker's column will make you (or most of you) feel good.
But that's not why I linked to Baker's column. Baker finally wonders at the contortions of the anti-American left both in Europe and in the United States itself, and finds that much of it comes from the left's persistent yearning for stability:
Most of the foreign policy elites -- the academics who write for the journals and work in the think-tanks, the retired or even current diplomats and international corporate types who shape the received wisdom -- hate instability. Just this week, the Brookings Institution's Flynt Leverett told us not to "rush on the road to Damascus" on the op-ed page of The New York Times (enduring link here). Leverett warns that while the "turmoil unleashed in Lebanon... may indeed represent a strategic opening...," we should avoid "the risky maximalist course that some in the administration seem intent on pursuing." Leverett's concern is not without merit:
Leverett's working assumption, that "instability in the region" is inherently bad because "the United States can ill afford it" misses, I think, the central assumption of America's dynamic foreign policy in the region: that by sacrificing everything to stability -- stability in Palestine, stability in Sunni-Shiite struggle in the Gulf, stability in the price of oil -- we have created an intolerable status quo. By seeking stability as an end, we have permitted the Muslim world, and particularly the Arab Muslim world, to become an arc of oppression that threatens the West. Like it or not, it is the central strategy of the Bush administration to reject stability, in and of itself, as a strategic value.
Leverett continues with a prescription:
This is nothing but the tired old strategy of the last forty years. For most of that time we had a bigger concern -- rivalry with the Soviet Union -- that quite properly trumped our ambitions (if we had them at all) for the Arab people themselves. Stability in the region was important. We cared about our clients -- the governments of Israel, the Sunnis of Arabia and the Gulf principalities, Iran under the Shah and, after Sadat got a clue, Egypt -- and pretty much let them handle the locals. But now we are paying the price for valuing "stability" above all else. Al Qaeda germinated in that so-called stability, and its vile ambitions for assymetric warfare pose the most severe pending threat to the United States. Empowering Mr. Assad, as Leverett suggests, would be exactly the wrong thing to do. If the price is unrest in Lebanon, even violent unrest, so be it. There are worse things in the world than civil war, including, perhaps life under the boot heel of Syrian "stability." When dealing with the Assads, never forget that they play by Hama rules.
The stability fetishists also ignore the benefits of momentum. The people are in the streets now. Just as American soldiers could not sit forever in tents in Kuwait waiting for a process run by bureaucrats in plush offices in New York and Geneva and Vienna, the Cedar revolutionaries have lives to return to. If Syria does not go now, it isn't going to go. The Lebanese don't care about stability as much as they care about getting Syria out now. The world needs to respect that.
Fortunately, the world does. Leverett suggested on Wednesday morning this week that "with help from international partners and key Arab states, it should be possible to win the redeployment of the last Syrian troops in Lebanese cities either to Syria or to Lebanon's Bekaa Valley..." Since Thursday the Russians, Germans, Saudis, Egyptians and -- here's the kicker -- the editorial page of the New York Times (although this last requires that any withdrawal be "orderly") have all demanded nothing less than the immediate removal of all Syrian forces from Lebanon. Had Leverett been in charge, he would be offering Mr. Assad a chance "to negotiate a timetable for withdrawing all Syrian forces." Why should we negotiate with Assad? Leverett doesn't think that Assad will actually go to war over Lebanon. Oh no. Leverett thinks that we need to engage and empower Assad because to do otherwise might lead to "instability."
Any more instability like the instability of the last couple of years, and Arabs might actually be able to devote themselves to building their own societies instead of obsessing over how much they hate the Yankee/Zionist conspiracy.
Back to Gerard Baker:
Shaken, not stirred.
All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
The analogy is hilarious, and Baker's column will make you (or most of you) feel good.
But that's not why I linked to Baker's column. Baker finally wonders at the contortions of the anti-American left both in Europe and in the United States itself, and finds that much of it comes from the left's persistent yearning for stability:
America’s critics craved stability in the Middle East. Don’t rock the boat, they said. But to the US this stability was that of the mass grave; the calm was the eerie quiet that precedes the detonation of the suicide bomb. The boat was holed and listing viciously.
Most of the foreign policy elites -- the academics who write for the journals and work in the think-tanks, the retired or even current diplomats and international corporate types who shape the received wisdom -- hate instability. Just this week, the Brookings Institution's Flynt Leverett told us not to "rush on the road to Damascus" on the op-ed page of The New York Times (enduring link here). Leverett warns that while the "turmoil unleashed in Lebanon... may indeed represent a strategic opening...," we should avoid "the risky maximalist course that some in the administration seem intent on pursuing." Leverett's concern is not without merit:
For starters, any effort to engineer a pro-Western Lebanese government would be resisted by Hezbollah, the largest party in Lebanon's Parliament, which because of its record of fighting Israel is at least as legitimate in Lebanese eyes as the anti-Syrian opposition. In the face of such resistance, efforts to establish a pro-Western government would fail, creating more instability in the region when the United States can ill afford it.
Does the Bush administration understand that for the foreseeable future, any political order in Lebanon that reflects, as the White House put it, the "country's diversity," will include an important role for Hezbollah? Does the administration feel confident about containing Hezbollah without on-the-ground Syrian management and with the group's sole external guide an increasingly hard-line Iran? Even Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's national security adviser recently said that an overly precipitous Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon could pose a threat to Israel.
Leverett's working assumption, that "instability in the region" is inherently bad because "the United States can ill afford it" misses, I think, the central assumption of America's dynamic foreign policy in the region: that by sacrificing everything to stability -- stability in Palestine, stability in Sunni-Shiite struggle in the Gulf, stability in the price of oil -- we have created an intolerable status quo. By seeking stability as an end, we have permitted the Muslim world, and particularly the Arab Muslim world, to become an arc of oppression that threatens the West. Like it or not, it is the central strategy of the Bush administration to reject stability, in and of itself, as a strategic value.
Leverett continues with a prescription:
Moreover, the sudden end of the regime headed by Bashar al-Assad would not necessarily advance American interests. Syrian society is at least as fractious as Iraq's or Lebanon's. The most likely near-term consequence of Mr. Assad's departure would be chaos; the most likely political order to emerge from that chaos would be heavily Islamist. In the end, the most promising (if gradual) course for promoting reform in Syria is to engage and empower Mr. Assad, not to isolate and overthrow him.
This is nothing but the tired old strategy of the last forty years. For most of that time we had a bigger concern -- rivalry with the Soviet Union -- that quite properly trumped our ambitions (if we had them at all) for the Arab people themselves. Stability in the region was important. We cared about our clients -- the governments of Israel, the Sunnis of Arabia and the Gulf principalities, Iran under the Shah and, after Sadat got a clue, Egypt -- and pretty much let them handle the locals. But now we are paying the price for valuing "stability" above all else. Al Qaeda germinated in that so-called stability, and its vile ambitions for assymetric warfare pose the most severe pending threat to the United States. Empowering Mr. Assad, as Leverett suggests, would be exactly the wrong thing to do. If the price is unrest in Lebanon, even violent unrest, so be it. There are worse things in the world than civil war, including, perhaps life under the boot heel of Syrian "stability." When dealing with the Assads, never forget that they play by Hama rules.
The stability fetishists also ignore the benefits of momentum. The people are in the streets now. Just as American soldiers could not sit forever in tents in Kuwait waiting for a process run by bureaucrats in plush offices in New York and Geneva and Vienna, the Cedar revolutionaries have lives to return to. If Syria does not go now, it isn't going to go. The Lebanese don't care about stability as much as they care about getting Syria out now. The world needs to respect that.
Fortunately, the world does. Leverett suggested on Wednesday morning this week that "with help from international partners and key Arab states, it should be possible to win the redeployment of the last Syrian troops in Lebanese cities either to Syria or to Lebanon's Bekaa Valley..." Since Thursday the Russians, Germans, Saudis, Egyptians and -- here's the kicker -- the editorial page of the New York Times (although this last requires that any withdrawal be "orderly") have all demanded nothing less than the immediate removal of all Syrian forces from Lebanon. Had Leverett been in charge, he would be offering Mr. Assad a chance "to negotiate a timetable for withdrawing all Syrian forces." Why should we negotiate with Assad? Leverett doesn't think that Assad will actually go to war over Lebanon. Oh no. Leverett thinks that we need to engage and empower Assad because to do otherwise might lead to "instability."
Any more instability like the instability of the last couple of years, and Arabs might actually be able to devote themselves to building their own societies instead of obsessing over how much they hate the Yankee/Zionist conspiracy.
Back to Gerard Baker:
As a foreign policy thinker close to the Administration put it to me, in the weeks before the Iraq war two years ago: “Shake it and see. That’s what we are going to do.” The US couldn’t be certain of the outcome, but it could be sure that whatever happened would be better than the status quo.
And so America, the revolutionary power, plunged in and shook the region to its foundations. And it is already liking what it sees.
Shaken, not stirred.
2 Comments:
By 
Solomon, at
Fri Mar 04, 04:43:00 PM:
Yes.
Empower Assad in the hopes that he does what we want and maintains stability while affecting change...where have we heard this before? Time and time again. What a horrible and historically amnesiac prescription.
By 
, at
Sun Feb 12, 01:36:00 PM:
