Défaire un empereur que pour en faire un autre ?
Jane Arraf writes: "None of that is lost on Iraqis and other Arabs and Moslems who have seen the United States prop up pro-American dictatorships while trying to topple anti-American ones."
And Bob Dreyfus writes: "During the Cold War, the United States saw itself as defending the status quo. It was terrified about nationalists, socialists -- in fact, about anyone who wanted change. The United States consistently took the side of the reactionary forces: the monarchies, the wealthy elites."
It is hard to fault either Bob or Jane when they illuminate the ways in which America's inclination to invest in the status quo has produced outcomes which we have come, in the fullness of time, to regret.
Yet, as a card-carrying realist, pragmatist, Arabist, and policy practitioner, let me offer a qualified defense for the other side of the argument. A fellow realist, Brent Scowcroft, has often said that the status quo is not necessarily a good thing, but it might be better than what follows. "My kind of realism" says the good General "would look at what are the most likely consequences of pushing out a government. What will replace it?"
The status quo has recently gone out of fashion, as the realists in the American foreign policy establishment have been replaced with a special variant of idealists.
Now George Bush surprises us by saying:
"Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe-because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty. As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment, and violence ready for export. And with the spread of weapons that can bring catastrophic harm to our country and to our friends, it would be reckless to accept the status quo."
The truth is that sometimes it is, indeed, reckless to accept the status quo (American acquiescence to the Anschluss was probably not wise) and sometimes it may be very wise to accept (even an unpleasant) status quo.
A key step in deciding which option is preferable is to ask the Scowcroft questions: "what are the most likely consequences of pushing out a government? What will replace it?"
To answer these simple questions intelligently one must be both wise and knowledgeable. On balance, as Bob Dreyfuss' book documents very nicely, America has, more often than not, been neither wise nor knowledgeable in framing its interventions in the Middle East.
My lead for this post is offered in deference to our very nice host at TPM café, Kate Cambor. The irony of fighting wars to exchange one emperor for another (something with which the United States has much experience) comes from a very worldly19th century French poet writing just a little before the period of Kate's scholarly specialization, la fin de siècle.
Bêtise de la guerre
Ouvrière sans yeux, Pénélope imbécile,
Berceuse du chaos où le néant oscille,
Guerre, ô guerre occupée au choc des escadrons,
Toute pleine du bruit furieux des clairons,
Ô buveuse de sang, qui, farouche, flétrie,
Hideuse, entraîne l'homme en cette ivrognerie,
Nuée où le destin se déforme, où Dieu fuit,
Où flotte une clarté plus noire que la nuit,
Folle immense, de vent et de foudres armée,
A quoi sers-tu, géante, à quoi sers-tu, fumée,
Si tes écroulements reconstruisent le mal,
Si pour le bestial tu chasses l'animal,
Si tu ne sais, dans l'ombre où ton hasard se vautre,
Défaire un empereur que pour en faire un autre ?
Victor Hugo
Ok John, I'll be the one to ask. Translate please.
(High schol French, when I learned it was probably not good enough. Now with several intervening years I am not even close to comprehension.)
As to your point in English I appreciate the position between Wilson ideals w/ out regard for reality versus the reality of oil-consuming and communist fighting nations without regard for peoples. Wisdom and insight is required to occupy the middle space.
November 16, 2005 7:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
The gist, last 6 lines:
Immense folly, armed with wind and thunder,
Smoke-wreathed giantess: What are you good for,
If all your destruction only rebuilds evil,
If you chase out the animal to welcome the bestial,
If, in the shadows where your fortune smothers,
You topple one emperor, only to make another?
(own quick translation, sorry for clumsiness, trying to keep the rhymes)
November 16, 2005 8:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
You topple one emperor trans. brooksfoe
Why not "unmake"? Is there a human tendency when speaking of war -- arms and the man -- to heroicize the language? Priam's towers "toppling' rather than "falling down"?
November 16, 2005 9:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
'Realism' works great until it really, really doesn't work. Exhibit 1 would be our undying support for the Shah of Iran, with consequences that continue to haunt us 30 years later.
A more recent example would be the western world's support for the military regime in Algeria over the freely elected Islamists, which resulted in years of brutal civil war.
'Realism' often chooses expediency over the long view. The devil we know may not be better than the devil we don't
November 16, 2005 10:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
The superficial question - one that the Bush Administration seems to have chosen a different answer for - would be whether to act as an agent for the status quo, or to act as an agent for change.
Is there not a third option? It may seem ultimately removed from all but the most traditional conservative minds, but an option - to choose not to inject ourselves as an agent - might offer the best position in the natural evolution of advancing civilization in the Arab world.
The US has exacerbated the problem created through a long history of conquest and colonialism. US aid has helped to create al Qaeda, has empowered the Iraqi Ba'athist regime of SH, and, years before, overthrew a popular government in Iran to hand the Peacock Throne to the Pahlavis, leading ultimately to the ultra-fundi-conservative theocrats who now reign in Tehran.
Having handed Iraq to the Shia, is there much doubt that the US will now face decades of increased enmity in among Sunni Arab nations?
November 16, 2005 10:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Isn't there a place for idealism in even the most "realistic" approach to foreign policy? How can you demand other peoples to behave well when you aren't doing it yourself?
Along these lines, has the U.S. ever supported a socialist country or movement over a reactionary one? I can't think of an instance. Was it always the most "realistic" approach to choose reaction over socialism? Or has our foreign policy always been based on ideology?
November 16, 2005 10:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why not "unmake"? - Ellen
You're right. "Unmake" is better - preserves the parallelism.
November 16, 2005 10:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
"My kind of realism" says the good General "would look at what are the most likely consequences of pushing out a government. What will replace it?"
It is a complete dodge for the realists to say that they simply have a preference for the status quo. They have a preference for compliance, and they've shown that they're willing to overthrow governments—such as Mossadegh and Allende—that wouldn't play ball.
That's fine, I guess; they aren't called "realists" for nothing. But let's not pretend that realism is motivated primarily by any sort of preference for stability, or fear of the devil we don't know. The realists have pushed out governments without a second thought.
November 16, 2005 11:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
What role, if any, should we take in the modernization of Islam?
I think that role is not nothing, and it requires great circumspection, as well as a UN with real, timely teeth.
November 16, 2005 11:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
November 16, 2005 11:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
As my fellow-realist, the good Dr Kissinger is fond of saying, realists seek equilibrium; idealists strive for conversion. This is why, goes the realist creed, crusaders have caused more upheavals and suffering than statesmen.
The strongest strand of idealism in American foreign policy is, of course, the idea of American exceptionalism. The exceptionalists view our nation as a shining city on the hill, representing universal values beyond the traditional dictates of national interest
Realists emphasize the role of the nation-state and makes a broad assumption that all nation-states are motivated by national interests defined in terms of power. National power has an absolute meaning since it can be defined in terms of military, economic, political, diplomatic, or even cultural resources. But, for a realist, power is primarily a relative term: does a state have the ability to defend itself against the power of another state? Does a state have the ability to coerce another state to change that state's policies?
The realist school does not reject the importance of ideals or values. It does, however, insist on a careful, even unsentimental, weighing of the balance of material forces, together with an understanding of the history, culture and economics of the societies comprising the international system - above all, our own.
It is important to recognize that the division is not an ideological one.
Idealism transcends the left-right political spectrum. Idealists can include both Desmond Tutu and Human Rights campaigners on the left), and Paul Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and their associates on the Neocon right. Likewise there are realists of the left and realists of the right.
I spent four years serving in our war in Indochina which pitted idealists of the right (our side) against realists of the left (Uncle Ho's side). The outcome of that conflict is at least partly explained by the fact that our realist opponents were far better at assessing us than we (the idealists) were at assessing them.
November 16, 2005 11:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think we need to differentiate between defending the staus quo and defending the right-wing. Certainly our support of the Saudi royal family, for example, was at one time a defense of the right and a defense of the status quo. But most of the movements of 20th century Islamism were by no means representatives of the status quo. They were revolutionary movements.
If the US had supported the status quo in the second half of the 20th century, they would have supported several nationalist and socialist movements. At that time, Nasser was the status quo. Mossadegh was the the status quo as well. The same is true of much of Latin America. Castro has been the status quo for almost half a century.
The US did not undermine or reject these governments because of its cautiously pragmatic, realist interest in defending stability and the status quo. They followed an activist, right-wing policy of undoing the status quo so as to bring right-wing governments and movements to power. Much of US foreign policy during the Cold War was determined by agencies and individuals who were just as uncompromisingly ideological in their anti-communism as the most fanatical War on Terrorism neoconservatives of the present day.
November 16, 2005 11:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
I with the folks pointing out that realism does not have a good track record. Perhaps that's purely because it is so often a cover for expediency, but I think the problem also lies deeper. Realism can tell you how safe your next step is, but it has no sense of direction. There has to be an overall vision of what is right and wrong to inform the small realistic steps, otherwise we can wind up just going in circles, or backward, or right over the cliff.
November 16, 2005 12:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
spare me the french... i love the french and all things french but i don't appreciate the condescension from one of my own countrymen, unless, of course, you're intentionally only appealing to a certain class of readership - which may very well be the case...
November 16, 2005 3:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I found a pretty good translation of the poem using a search engine. One can read the poem and its translation while hearing it, at
http://homepage.mac.com/larrynickel/Betise%20de%20la%20Guerre.htm
l
Here it is:
Bêtise de la guerre (Requiem for peace). [Yeah, I know, guerre means "war," but taken literally it translates "Silly thing of war."]
Servant without eyes, childish Penelope,
Cradle where newborn Chaos rocks,
War, oh war, who busies herself with the clash of troops,
Filled with the furious blasts of trumpets,
Oh drinker of blood, who - fierce, shriveled,
hideous -drags man along in her drunkenness;
Hidden where fate is disfigured, where God flees
Or where reasoning hovers, darker than the night.
Gigantic folly, armed with wind and lightning,
What use are you, Monster? What use are you, Smoky One?
What if your destruction reconstructs evil,
What if in your blood lust, you seek the animal in us all
What if you don't know, within the shadows where your opportunity grovels,
How to bring down an emperor without creating another?
Pretty scary stuff ... and very clairvoyant on Hugo's part.
November 16, 2005 5:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, profmarcus. Without providing a translation for the poem [thanks BlastFurnace and brooksfoe], John comes across to me as haughty and condescending. Simply rendering the lead into English and providing a link to an English translation of the poem would have made all the difference.
November 19, 2005 11:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps I am condescending. Or perhaps it is generational.
I used a line in French composed almost entirely of common words of one syllable - words by a poet generally regarded as one of the easiest for beginning students (Victor Hugo's poems were part of the 9th grade French syllabus in my school).
Perhaps, on the other hand, some of the readership at TPM suffers from inadequate high school education.
As someone who uses six modern languages professionally and is reasonably competent in two ancient classical languages (one occidental, one oriental) I do tend to assume that most people for whom I write or with whom I have serious discussions will be able to understand 9th grade French.
If that qualifies as "haughty and condescending", then I am guilty as charged.
John Stuart Blackton
November 20, 2005 8:15 AM | Reply | Permalink