The debate between Max Boot and Andrew Sullivan over America’s postwar relationship with Iraq really captures what the Times Online has asserted in a recent article: “the evidence is now overwhelming that on all fronts, despite inevitable losses from time to time, it is we who are advancing and the enemy who is in retreat. The current mood on both sides of the Atlantic, in fact, represents a kind of curious inversion of the great French soldier’s dictum: ‘Success against the Taleban. Enemy giving way in Iraq. Al-Qaeda on the run. Situation dire. Let’s retreat!’ ”
While not everyone is unreservedly optimistic, Max Boot rightly points out that the West has been in Middle East for a long time. The French and British in especial will remember that. But even the US has had a long military involvement in the region, much of it spurred by the 1990s requirement to “contain” Saddam Hussein. Time did not begin with Operation Iraq Freedom. Boot writes:
Sullivan thinks it’s impossible to imagine that we could have this sort of long-standing military presence in the Mideast without perpetual fighting. Perhaps he doesn’t realize that the U.S. already has a string of bases in Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and other Middle Eastern countries. Having visited many of these installations I haven’t noticed a lot of fighting there. In fact they are peaceful and relatively uncontroversial. Granted, the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia was more controversial: Osama bin Laden cited it as a justification for his campaign of terrorism. But we now know that was simply a pretext, since his calls for violence in his homeland have not ended even though we have withdrawn our troops.
One of the major reasons why it was always doubtful that America would withdraw entirely and relocate, as John Murtha once suggested in a moment of absentmindedness, to Okinawa, is that the region is a strategic focus of national and world interest. An Iraq in chaos or exporting subversion would pull America into the region, rather than permit a ramping down of overt military presence. Moreover, the eventual drawdown of US forces in Germany was made possible, not merely by the cultural differences between the Germans and the Arabs, but by the changes in the strategic situation in the region. The US didn’t stay in Germany until the Germans were pacified. They stayed until the Eastern Bloc collapsed. Perhaps one of the worst outcomes of the partisan over on Iraq has been to dissociate the campaign from its larger strategic aims.
The biggest potential gains of the campaign (in my view) have been to put the damper on the threat of WMD development in Iraq and Syria, create an alternative model of governance for the Shi’ite arc and effect the discredit of al Qaeda. These gains present a number of opportunities which should be exploited by future administrations. The entire debate over future US facilities in Iraq should revolve around how such facilities should be configured in order to develop these strategic gains and not around cultural comparisons between the Germans and Arabs. Yet even so, a commentator writing in 1946 and looking back at the century of horror and mayhem that convulsed Europe — an history which contained multiple genocides and ethnic cleansings (the Ukranian Famine, the Holocaust, Armenian genocide, the Scramble for Africa) and two of the most destructive wars in history — might have been forgiven for having doubts over whether the European was all that much better than the Arab. Now hardly a day goes by without some conservative commentator observing that “America is from Mars and Europe is from Venus”. Who would have said that in 1946? The fictional Harry Lime, closer to the events in memory than we are today, had much to say about Cuckoo Clocks. But he was wrong. Europe has shown that it is more than capable of peace. Maybe the Arabs are too.
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37 Comments
1. Buck Smith:Europe has shown that it is more than capable of peace. Maybe the Arabs are too.
The kind of observation we only get from The W.
Jun 27, 2008 - 5:30 pm 2. NahnCee:We had to go into Germany (and Japan) and individually kick or kill every single Nazi’s ass, and demolish many of their homes and places of business to get the point across to them how much nicer peace would be.
Do we get to do that to Saudi Arabia now, too, since they still don’t seem to want to be team players or to share with the other children?
Jun 27, 2008 - 5:44 pm 3. NahnCee:We had to go into Germany (and Japan) and individually kick or kill every single Nazi’s ass, and demolish many of their homes and places of business to get the point across to them how much nicer peace would be.
Do we get to do that to Saudi Arabia now, too, since they still don’t seem to want to be team players or to share with the other children?
I note that John Bolton agrees with me that whatever action we will be taking against Iran will happen after the election and before the inauguration. So that’ll be fun in a making-an-example-of sort of way very much like the bombing of Dresden was in Germany, and those two little exemplars we dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki taught Japan how wonderful peace can be. We will NOT, of course, be tasked with rebuilding Iran the way we’ve had to rebuild Iraq.
Jun 27, 2008 - 5:47 pm 4. Lilith:We had to go into Germany (and Japan) and individually kick or kill every single Nazi’s ass, and demolish many of their homes and places of business to get the point across to them how much nicer peace would be.
But in North Korea the cooling tower of the nuke plant at Yongbong has been demolished after Bush talked to them, and negotiated with them, exactly the “false comfort of appeasement” he slammed Obama for when Obama suggesting we should talk to Iran also.
Jun 27, 2008 - 7:07 pm 5. Richard Fernandez:after Bush talked to them, and negotiated with them, exactly the “false comfort of appeasement” he slammed Obama for when Obama suggesting we should talk to Iran also.
Negotiations always take place against the background of the “walkaway” or BATNA. Most management students will recall:
Setting the BATNA is an integral part of the negotiating process. In the case of North Korea, getting them to “Yes” and getting them to stop cheating wasn’t a merely function of talking to them, but more properly a function setting what happens to the North Korean if they don’t say “Yes”. We all know for example, that the effect of the words “hands up” depends not upon the utterance of the words but on whether a .45 caliber automatic or a waterpistol is leveled at you. What is needed to make a criminal give up is not a speech coach but something made by Mssrs Colt or Smith and Wesson.
The idea that negotiating is an alternative to confrontation makes a false distinction between the two. However, the more valid question is whether the Clinton Agreed Framework of 1994 was already a “Yes”. It’s proponents would say it was. Others will point out that the Agreed Framework never got this far nor did it address the alleged secret uranium enrichment program of Pyongyang. In a way it did, and declared any such enrichment a violation. In which case you have to say that Pyongyang broke the Agreed Framework.
Others will claim that the North Korean infringement of the Agreed Framework was minor, that the quantity of centrifuges would not permit any major breakout and therefore their violation was technical and not substantial. We’re still not at the end of the Six Party talks process. Clearly large parts of the North Korean nuclear establishment have been demolished. That means their production line is gone. Not just stopped, but really dismantled. There remains the fuel rods and fissile material that already exist, and of course, coming clean about that uranium enrichment allegation.
So the “negotiations” aren’t finished yet. But their outcome will depend not upon the mellifluousness or sophistication of the actual diplomats but on the BATNA. What North Korea can expect to happen to them if they don’t say “yes”. And it is in the construction of that BATNA that GWB may have an edge of Clinton and probably Barack Obama.
Jun 27, 2008 - 8:13 pm 6. JJJoseph:Wretchard, OT: your new address has a nice look and feel to it, but I can’t figure out how to bookmark it, nor figure out how to tell an outsider how to find it from the Pyjamas Media Home page? There doesn’t seem to be any obvious link, and the Search widget doesn’t find you.
Bookmarking only points to a particular date, not a Belmont Club home page.
How does the average citizen stumble in to your new digs if it’s so well-hidden?
Jun 27, 2008 - 8:25 pm 7. Richard Fernandez:JJJoseph,
Have you tried http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez?
Jun 27, 2008 - 8:27 pm 8. Wadeusaf:Please note, the BATNA of the six members also has to be considered in light of the framework, and in considering the jumble there, the result is near miraculous, IMO. Not bad work, not at all.
The alternative to AlQ and radical Islamic forms of theocracy is Iraq, the alternative to Sharia disabled government in Pakistan lies in Iraq, the eventual replacement of the ruling family in KSA ought rightly to be a Democracy along the lines of Iraq, or even a Jordanian blend. Who knows somewhere, someone might even model the Knesset.
Jun 27, 2008 - 9:26 pm 9. bobal:after Bush talked to them, and negotiated with them
Nay, the Chinamen talked to the Koreamen and rolled them over.
Bush may have talked to the Chinamen.
“Say listen now, you have to start behaving yourselves…” says the Chinaman to the Koreaman.
Jun 27, 2008 - 9:58 pm 10. Brian H:“Say listen now, here’s how you play the Americans next … ” says the Chinaman to the Koreaman.
Jun 28, 2008 - 12:50 am 11. bobal:Brian may be right. We both have the Chinese calling the shots.
Jun 28, 2008 - 2:20 am 12. bobal:Who Is Obama??
Jun 28, 2008 - 2:30 am 13. Sparks:Wow!
Richard, you really took me on a trip this time. That Cookoo Clock speech and that background music combined with the festering boil of Iraq finally being successfully lanced. All these things swirl together into my personal bleak, man as mud, memories of the early days of the Cold War and the whole thing slides into today’s economic uncertanties and form a heady brew. The French ambiguity is part of it too.
You might find a successful career as a film writer. Take a shot at it sometime.
Thanks for the trip. It was inspirational on the human condition. I’ll try to watch that movie again.
Jun 28, 2008 - 2:37 am 14. Richard Fernandez:Roger Simon is a good film writer. My range is probably limited to essays. Writing fiction is a whole lot harder than essays. At least it is different. First, fiction requires the construction of a backdrop; a fictional universe in which to set your tale. Tolkien spent decades creating Middle Earth before he set the told the first story set inside of it.
Then there is the tale itself. A story is a special construct, one in which all the virtues of the essay — clarity, directness, brevity — become vices. In a story the characters move through a universe without knowing what’s going to happen next. They hear sounds, smell things; see frightening and marvelous things. They change their minds.
In the essay you maintain a distance from the subject. But in a story your in the subject itself. Take the Third Man. We are repelled and fascinated by the immediate Post-War Europe; with its blackmarketers, freelancing spies, and occupation troops. It’s not only a world but it’s another world. Who would you be? Holly or Harry Lime?
Jun 28, 2008 - 3:51 am 15. hdgreene:Just after the Israelis bombed that site in Syria that contained Nork nuke machinery, I commented that it might be part of a deal between the US and the North Koreans. They sell the stuff to Syria. The Syrians pay up on delivery. The Norks tell us where it is. Then the Israelis bomb it. The Norks keep the money.
At first this might not make sense. But it would burn the Norks as a future source. It also raises the risks of involvement “as a customer” in the illicit trade — and sets a precedent for military action. You could pay billions and watch, not just the money, but years of effort and planning go up in smoke. And your entire clandestine apparatus is penetrated.
A nonproliferation international regime cannot be a nonaggression regime. On the contrary, aggression must always be a credible threat.
One of the side benefits of the Iraq war is that no one thinks they can hide behind the UN for long. When you need full rain gear you will find the UN is a warm-up jacket. Just ask Saddam. Oh, sorry, he was hung.
The Norks did not burn themselves as a supplier in a lucrative trade because we ask nice. They do it because their backs are against the wall. Who’s back will be against the wall next? If McCain wins…
Jun 28, 2008 - 4:32 am 16. hdgreene:If only peaceful Europe would stick to Cuckoo Clocks. My bumper sticker says “CERN: Crush Earth Right Now”. And you thought the new Super Duper Collider would just suck money into oblivion. We should be so lucky!
Jun 28, 2008 - 5:18 am 17. hdgreene:Wrong link. Sorry. Must take a computer course.
Jun 28, 2008 - 5:27 am 18. RWE:The Europeans may have done us a favor in their virulent screeching about Bush being a Cowboy.
That, and Iraq and Afghanistan and Gitmo and missile defense and all the rest may well have led the North Koreans to recall that, as the joke goes, we already have played Cowboys and North Koreans.
Meanwhile, the Iranians are still hoping for Jimmy Carter’s second term. Which brings us back to cuckoo clocks….
Jun 28, 2008 - 5:33 am 19. lc:Wretchard, what an excellent blog and excellent comments.
Round up the usual suspects.
Jun 28, 2008 - 5:39 am 20. Jay:That BATNA is a biz school corruption of game theory. When I started teaching statistics in 1963 in a major biz school the material we covered was of graduate school level even though the MBA’s complained. Now the material is about the same level as sociology or “political science”.
Jun 28, 2008 - 6:21 am 21. Andrew Sullivan, Max Boot and the American non-Empire [Karl]:What is this clock movie stuff about?
[...] Richard Fernandez notes the debate between Excitable Andy and Max Boot over America’s postwar relationship with [...]
Jun 28, 2008 - 7:00 am 22. Jamie Irons:W. wrote:
Who would you be? Holly or Harry Lime?
Neither. I’d be Major Calloway!
I love that movie!
Jamie Irons
Jun 28, 2008 - 9:39 am 23. whiskey:Jay, the cuckoo clock quote is from Orson Welles THE THIRD MAN.
“In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed — they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”
Note: most people would rather have lived in Switzerland than under the Borgias. More Aristo posturing.
Jun 28, 2008 - 2:36 pm 24. MaggieTheCat:Why the new format, Wretchard? Can you go back to the old?? Do you plan to stay with Pajamas Media??
Maggie
Jun 28, 2008 - 2:43 pm 25. Curtis:Richard, I am always enriched by reading your articles. Great insight and analysis.
Jun 28, 2008 - 4:52 pm 26. 3Case:I will say again: Sullivan is very bright. He’s just not very smart.
Jun 28, 2008 - 7:35 pm 27. lc:In one of Bernard Lewis’s books on middle eastern history, he discusses “innovation”, and how any thing new or innovative is suspect, and anything, if ever accepted, is done so only after a long time and much angst. One recent innovation of the Muslim world that comes to my mind has been the suicide vest.
Yet, there are places like Dubai, which has cornered the world market on construction cranes (by a huge percentage)…Dubai has been referred to by Wretchard in one of his entries discussing risk taking; it sounds like a booming place…or, there’s the portrait of Osama bin Laden’s father from “The Looming Tower.” Here was a man described as illiterate but with two outstanding qualities, a capacity for figures and numbers, and a love of work, who became an extremely wealthy man, yet he would lay bricks alongside his laborers. When no one would take on the difficult task of connecting Meccca and Medina via a highway through mountains, he did; he took apart excavators and bulldozers, packed them up the mountains on animals, reassembled them, and made the road.
Dar-al Islam is in a state of crisis. In some twisted sense (sorry), attacks on the west like Sept 11 are collateral damage (I don’t mean to diminish those events or our response to them). In one sense, they don’t have anything to do with us (although fundamentally, in a profoundly existential sense, they have everything to do with us).
cheers
Jun 28, 2008 - 7:47 pm 28. Charles:lensatic compass
decades ago I read a lot of fiction. Now, not so much. In fact, its been years since I read fiction–though maybe not a decade.
Jun 28, 2008 - 10:40 pm 29. Dave:lensatic compass: Reading the Bernard Lewis comments reminded me of when I read a lengthy article, replete with color photographs, about a very ornate single-shot, muzzle-loading pistol. It had been converted to caplock from its original condition, which was matchlock. It was part of a largish order some mideastern potentate had ordered for his personal bodyguards.
Naturally I assumed that the order took place
many, many centuries previously. Imagine my shock when I learned that this was from the 1850s. Everybody else in the world was out buying cap and ball revolvers and this guy spent a fortune on matchlocks????!!!!!!
As long as that kind of attitude shapes their culture, we will have trouble with their resultant envy. Hope Richard/Wretchard is right when he says that cultural transformation is taking place as a result of our presence in Iraq.
Jun 28, 2008 - 10:45 pm 30. JJJoseph:Richard:
Re: “JJJoseph, Have you tried http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez?”
Yes, I know that works, but there’s no trace of it from “http://pajamasmedia.com/”. There are other bloggers within pajamasmedia, but they’re also difficult to find. There’s no master list or index.
Jun 28, 2008 - 10:58 pm 31. Charles:Al-Qaeda’s Growing Online Offensive
Jun 28, 2008 - 11:32 pm 32. Sparks:Richard!
I, of course, of the two, would be Holly and I would like to think that I would never get into that cable car with Mr. Lime.
In that cable car the luke-warm religion of Holly comes face to face with the luker-warm religion of Mr. Lime. He is a believer? Right? He said so. He believes in mercy. Think about it. What do his words mean?
The left is so expert at cataloging the madness but at a total loss to address it.
Like a child I believe that God made Adam and Eve and the Ark held all those animals. I have something solid to stand on. The rest is easy.
Jun 29, 2008 - 1:18 am 33. NahnCee:JJJosph – has the thought occurred to you that if they’re too stupid to be able to find BC, we don’t need to hear from them any way?
Jun 29, 2008 - 9:13 am 34. JJJoseph:NahnCee: It’s not the _other_ stupid people I’m worried about. I’m the most important dimwit here today!
I’m still puzzled why it’s not possible to find BC with normal finding tools. Not even so much as a tiny gracious link from Pajamas HQ. My point is that BC will lose visibility with the Pajamas hosting system. If, for example, a user finds a BC item via Google, the user can’t back-track to BC’s homepage to view more items. Wretchard has been shunted into a media dead-end.
Jun 29, 2008 - 3:02 pm 35. Wadeusaf:JJJoseph,
“Here is what you need”, I think. It has links to old and new sites, as a cool bloggers map as well (if your into that sort of thing)
Jun 29, 2008 - 8:08 pm 36. Wadeusaf:http://www.wretchard.com/dnn/
Jun 29, 2008 - 8:10 pm 37. David M:The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the – Web Reconnaissance for 06/30/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.
Jun 30, 2008 - 11:07 amSorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.