My biggest difference with neoconservatives concerns attempts to create democracies by military force. I do not believe that it is impossible to do this: we did it in Germany and Japan after World War II. But in that case, we had a really good reason both to occupy Germany and Japan: namely, the fact that they had attacked us, and they had lost. Similarly, we had a decent reason for trying to recast their political institutions: those institutions were partially responsible for the fact that they had just started a world war.She goes on to discuss Iran and Iraq as poignant examples.
Creating a democracy requires the active participation of a lot of people in the country in which you are trying to create it, and you are unlikely to get this participation if those people regard your presence not just as undesirable, but as illegitimate. People tend not to regard our occupation of a country as illegitimate when they attack us, and they lose. But they do tend to regard it as illegitimate when we invade simply because we think they should have a different form of government, even if they themselves do not much like the government they have. For this reason, I think that even if we had the right to invade a country for the express purpose of creating a democracy, that invasion would be virtually certain to fail.
Thursday, June 18
The importance of local legitimacy
Hilzoy on neoconservatism:
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Pretty weak article. She doesn't appear to even know what a neoconservative is. As usual on the left, it means "someone I disagree with on foreign policy -- mainly Iraq." She basically admits to holding essential neocon principles, as do many liberals -- they just disagree about how to implement them.
ReplyDeleteHer argument about spreading democracy by force is also weak -- and I can see that even though I'm opposed to that type of policy approach. Not only did it work in Germany & Japan, but it has also worked to an extent in Iraq. It may not be an American-style democracy, but it's still more of a democratic state than elsewhere in the Middle East (other than Israel). Whether it holds up when we finally leave is difficult to say -- but it's there now.
The reference to the Iranian coup is really meaningless for the point she's try to make, given that it happened back in 1953 when U.S. policies were far different, and had nothing to do with neoconservatism. If Iranians want to base their views of U.S. policy on something that happened 56 years ago, there's not much we can do about that.
"Her argument about spreading democracy by force is also weak" That happens to be a core tenet of modern neoconservatism.
ReplyDeleteFrom Sully: "But if [the Iran uprising] succeeds, it will be everything the neocons had hoped to achieve in Iraq - and also a demonstration of neoconservatism's core fallacy, which is that freedom can be forced on anyone; or somehow force-fed into maturity. It thus vindicates and refutes neoconservatism at the same time." http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/06/the-vindication-and-refutation-of-neoconservatism.html#more
ReplyDeleteAnother great quote, from the Hilzoy article: "[N]eoconservatives were not just insufficiently patient [during the run-up to Iraq]; they were reckless beyond belief, willing to bring down unspeakable costs on other people without bothering to weigh the possibility that their simplistic and unrealistic views of the world might be wrong. If Mr. Finkelstein wants to change his ways and become more "patient", power to him. To my mind, though, this column, with its equally simplistic (and insulting) view of his opponents, shows that he has not changed nearly enough."
ReplyDelete"That happens to be a core tenet of modern neoconservatism."
ReplyDeleteNot really. No one identifying themselves as a neocon would agree with that characterization. But anyway, that's not the weakness of her examples. It's that she's giving examples of how spreading democracy as a result of war actually worked.
The Sullivan quote makes no sense. What constitutes success? If the regime merely bends and reverses the election, but there are no other major changes -- how will that be everything the neocons hoped for in Iraq? If it succeeds in actually bringing down the clerical regime, we have no idea what will replace it. Sullivan is jumping to wild conclusions.