Ralph Peters said something rather amazing in a column:
If the Baker commission is the K-Mart version of the Congress of Vienna, its influence may prove no less pernicious. Baker is the dean emeritus of a reactionary school of diplomats–inaccurately labeled “realists”–whose support of the shah of Iran, the Saudi royal family, Anwar Sadat, then Hosni Mubarak, and, not least, Saddam Hussein delivered short-term stability that proved illusory in the long run. It was the “realist” elevation of stability above all other strategic factors–echoing Prince Metternich–that gave us not only the radical regime in Iran, but, ultimately, al Qaeda and 9/11.
The leading modern practitioner of this profoundly reactionary approach to international relations was, of course, Henry Kissinger, whose doctoral thesis championed the diplomats and heads of state who redivided Europe into reform-school states after Napoleon’s defeat. A classic revisionist, Kissinger ignored the wisdom of 19th century observers who recognized that the oppression sponsored by the Congress of Vienna created only a mockery of peace. The century of Biedermeier sensibilities and Victorian manners was, in fact, punctuated by
a long series of failed–and often grisly–revolutions that radicalized those who found the status quo unbearable. The Staats ordnung of the day created the cult of political assassinations that haunts us still. Metternich and his peers induced the social forced labor that gave birth to Marx and all the utopian extremists who came afterward. From the lesser figures, such as Kropotkin or Bakunin, down to Lenin and Hitler, the political distortions of the “orderly” 19th century led to the unprecedented bloodbaths of the 20th century.
What the devil is he talking about? Oppression?!? Was 100 years of European peace and the dampening of the fanatical nationalist impulses unleashed by the French Revolution and Napoleon not enough for him? Was the supposedly more realistic facilitation of ethnic rivalries dressed up as nationalism 100 years later at Versailles–a product of Woodrow Wilson’s well known “Idealism”–less oppressive?
I mean, seriously, war is a bad thing. Realists are concerned with managing power relations to prevent it. The supposed oppression of living under the Austo-Hungarian Empire was pretty minor compared to the blood-letting of WWI or the “idealist” and nationalist forces unleashed in Germany and Russia in the wake of the same.
I’m shocked that Peters is maing such an ignorant point, as he often has something interesting to say on Iraq, particularly now that he has recognized that we are in big trouble. Unfortunately most readers won’t have enough historical facts at their own disposal to question this ignorant mischaracterization of the Congress of Vienna as a means of criticizing today’s realists. What is needed is a real realism, if you will. The Iraq Study Group’s mushy and overly optimistic recommendations are not that. But at least some of its major players, including Jim Baker, are looking at the world through the right lens.
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