Depressing piece by Scott McConnell on the failure of realism to reassert itself within the Bush administration. I count myself as one who failed to read the tea leaves. I supported the war for realist reasons, and I thought realist tactics would be employed eventually, with millenialist neocon rhetoric used as “window dressing.” No such luck. The guys at the helm really belive this Wilsonian nonsense.
Scott writes:
While Pinochet and Franco and for most of his reign Stalin kept within their own borders, Bush has ambitions of global scope. Of course they are idealistic ambitions, beautiful ambitions. The spread of democracy–especially if it springs up from a country’s indigenous institutions and populace–is a very good thing. But the Bushites now see democracy’s spread as necessary for America’s own survival. The world, particularly the Muslim world, must become democratic now, or we will perish. The neoconservatives in the administration believe that democracy will spread only if the president commits more and more troops to Iraq and topples the regimes in Tehran and Damascus. As alarming as the neoconservatism of Rumsfeld, Cheney, Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith, Danielle Pletka, and John Bolton is, more alarming is the spirit that has spread in its wake–a kind of neoconservativism without a graduate degree.
You see it on certain blogs and hear it in the rants of some of the most widely listened to right-wing talk-radio hosts. If the Arabs don’t want to be democratic, we should nuke them. We have no choice but to nuke them for our own safety. It’s a vulgarized neoconservatism–no one from the American Enterprise Institute speaks like this (in public). But this talk is around in the heartland and growing, and it is wind in the sails of the new administration.
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“…an aggressive, reckless, militarized foreign policy, viewed as lawless by much of the world – one whose almost inevitable outcome is nuclear war.”
This is a little hysterical, isn’t it? The inevitable outcome seems more along the lines of the Israeli model, viz., daily (or at least frequent) terrorist attacks on our cities.
I’ll agree that is a little reckless. I skipped over that line for some reason.
“The neoconservatives in the administration believe that democracy will spread only if the president commits more and more troops to Iraq and topples the regimes in Tehran and Damascus.” This is what might happen if the neocons were actually competent. Instead, we have bad foreign policy executed badly. It seems unlikely that the present administration will commit the necessary troops to Iraq. The neocons won’t make any regime change attempts for Iran and Syria that might actually succeed — at worst they’ll back stupid little coup attempts that accomplish nothing besides raising the level of hostility between America and these governments.
“If the Arabs don’t want to be democratic, we should nuke them. We have no choice but to nuke them for our own safety.”
Yeah, so what’s your(McConnell’s) point? Here’s mine; the only thing worse ,n bein’ a Nuker is being a Nukee.
If we’re gonna be Canada, maybe we should reduce our military budget to their levels. Then we can at least save a few bucks before we go up in radioactive waste. I for one hope the towel-heads realize most of us ain’t got no graduate degrees
Worst come to worse,we already have the recipe for falafels and schools for belly-dancing so nobody’s gonna miss the ME. I think the world WOULD miss us not that I give a rip about that either. If y’all fear the possibility of us using nukes I’m sayin’ I think your instincts are quite sound. Look on the bright side,such an event would bring peace and joy to Islam as everyone would be with Allah, and we might end up having to develop energy independence which should make the libs happy!
Those in Islam who disagree that now would be the right time to be with Allah need to realize that action on their part is no longer optional. Democracy is a good step and frankly I have little concern for their preferences or anyone else’s desire to appear sophisticated and worldly.
I prefer my culture survives, those in Islam need to find common ground with that sentiment.
The problem with the necons is that their notion of “freedom” and “our culture” is an aggressive attempt to transform every other culture on Earth. Instead of permitting peaceful coexistence, it makes universalist demands of conformance. It’s an unnecessarily antagonistic strategy when one of mutually beneficient coexistence is possible and more stable.
The advantage of Democracy, “forced” or otherwise is that it puts the decision to go to war in the hands of the “cannon fodder” for such a war. No country is going to attack us as long as the people we would retaliate against have anything to say about it. Implanting Democracy is the only acceptable “defensive” tactic. I could care less whether I transform another culture or not. They should have thought of that when they “messed with Texas”. If any of this sounds familiar Chris it’s because it’s similar to the tone you take with lawbreakers WITHIN our society.