Friday, May 05, 2006
Rubble and trouble
After September 11, there were only seven sovereign countries in the Middle East that posed a real danger to the policies and, in some cases, the security of the United States—Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. Ignoring the hysteria about the Sunni Triangle in Iraq, if we look at these states empirically, have they become more or less a threat in the last five years?
Victor Davis Hanson shows us, country by country, how we have improved our strategic position in the years since September 11. In every case the situation is both messier, and better for the United States, than it was before. In this, he articulates the key difference between the Bush administration's strategy and the status quo ante: the latter put "stability" at its center, which fetish required support for governments that alienated most of the Arab and Muslim world. Bush's insight was to recognize that the price of making stability -- in governments and the price of gasoline -- the end of American strategy was too damned high. But Hanson worries, as do I, that the consensus for the hard work of democratization may be breaking down:
Where do we go from here? The United States has its own paradoxes. These positive developments—themselves the result of a radical departure from the old appeasement that either used the cruise missile as an impotent gesture of retaliation or accepted realpolitik as a means of playing odious dictators against each other—have proved as controversial as they are costly.
A new strain of what we might call punitive isolationism is back (“more rubble, less trouble”), in which we should simply unleash bombers when evidence is produced of complicity in attacks against Americans, but under no circumstance put a single soldier on the ground to “help” such people who are “incapable” of liberal civilized society.
The hard Right is candid in its pessimistic dismissal of American idealism and worries that a new muscular Wilsonianism will lose the ascendant Republican majority and betray conservative values.
The Left buys into the neo-isolationism since it means less of an “imperial” footprint abroad and more funds released for entitlements at home—as well as a way of tarring George Bush and regaining Congress.
What is lacking has been a consistently spirited defense, both unapologetic and humble at the same time, of our efforts since September 11.
Hanson provides that defense. It is our great misfortune that we have a president who has been unwilling or unable to be spirited, unapologetic in the sense that Hanson means it, and humble, all at the same time. He's still better than the Democrats who want his job, because with rare exceptions they clearly prefer to return to the post-war policy of support for governments that will reliably pump the oil and keep the lid on, "offshore balancing" to prevent one regional power from dominating the others, and a blind eye to the oppression of the Arab kings and tinpot fascists. But it is depressing to have to choose between the two.
3 Comments:
By 
cakreiz, at
Fri May 05, 12:39:00 PM:
TH: I concur with your last paragraph. The risk-averse Dems will jump at any chance to return us to a complacent foreign policy. On the other hand, the President's once-promising boldness has lapsed into indifference. In my opinion, it's because he sees his 03 decision to remove Saddam as a be-all, end-all in the WOT. In his mind, that pretty much wrapped everything else up. Huh?
The political reality is that the US has little desire to be engage in the WOT. The 06 election results will reflect this, barring another big terrorist move. Our enemies recognize our lack of staying power and will tout victory as we leave Iraq.
By Lanky_Bastard, at
Fri May 05, 06:27:00 PM:
Bush is a visionary, but he flew the neocon agenda way too close to the sun. The next president will be picking up feathers, not building wings.
By Dawnfire82, at
Sat May 06, 02:33:00 PM:
I suspect that he meant consensus in the upper levels of government, not for the public. I don't think that the public will ever have a consensus on anything.
