Baker-Hamilton As Soft Power
Reading the recent posts by Juliette and Ivo I am prompted to think that however much the Baker-Hamilton Report (BHR) is embraced or derided here or abroad, it may be an important expression of soft power.
Most people around the world have understood for some time that America’s Iraq misadventures have been a disaster for America’s own national interests, not to mention the interests of many stakeholders in the region. Most foreigners were mystified when American voters re-elected George Bush in 2004. To continue the Global War on Terror and the ill-fated Iraq campaign as prosecuted by the incumbent administration seemed the height of folly.
Well, democracy-making (like sausage-making) is a messy and often inglorious process. Clumsy corrections to very bad policies are not elegant lessons in democracy. But sometimes that’s what you get. First, iconoclastic voices in the alternative media and angry demonstrations in the streets. Then, a turning-point mid-term election. Next, a bi-partisan commission imposed on one branch of government by another, consisting of highly respected members of both parties. Very official stamps of approval are provided to what had been insurgent democratic criticisms by outraged voices coming from beyond the mainstream.
One hopes the lessons are learned all around. Inside the Beltway, the president should recognize the voice of the people has spoken, and he should radically change direction. Outside the Beltway, he should recognize that government officials brought to power even in deeply flawed elections (i.e. in Baghdad) will try to act on behalf of the people who they believe elected them. It just might be that Maliki is better informed than the administration’s soothsayers; it’s not that Maliki is ignorant or stupid, it’s just that he has a different constituency than Dick Chaney and George Will.
Even beyond the Middle East, in India and China and Brazil, the BHR may just demonstrate that this is the way policy changes occur inside the last remaining superpower – it’s clumsy, halting and often contradictory. But it does happen, through democratic means. Whether the BHR and the mid-term elections are in fact able to push reform at the pace that is needed to keep our democracy strong, now rests on the shoulders of Republicans in Washington. If they do the right thing, it will be an important lesson for democrats around the world. Baker-Hamilton could become as powerful an instrument of American power as a battalion of solders and tanks.
In short you haven't read the report but still feel the need to pontificate.
December 6, 2006 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Dent-
How pointed and clever of you, and utterly devoid of content. Congratulations!
December 6, 2006 1:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Any rational analysis rests on two necessary assumptions:
a) The President will not tell a series of direct and outright lies to the American people to justify and continue a war of adventure.
b) The news media will actually follow the tenets of journalism instead of supporting the lie and covering up for the lie and relentlessly downplaying the significance of the lie.
Since both of these assumptions have been proven 100 percent false regarding Iraq, a rational analysis must assume within its design that this President is completely untrustworthy and that a large portion of what he says and the news media reports are total fabrications.
I would submit as a practical matter that under these conditions a rational analysis cannot be accomplished because the "facts" themselves have all the reliability of quicksand.
Withdraw troops now. Impeach now.
December 6, 2006 1:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Which is different how, exactly , from policy changes in any other system of government (never mind democratic ones)?
"Hey look, the americans are using the trick of using a commission to allow a government a facesaving retreat from a patently disastrous policy. " will be the response from most of the rest of the world.
The fact that democracies change their minds about policies will hardly come as an astounding
surprise to many people.
December 6, 2006 1:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is a statement that irritates me a lot.
I'm not sure why.
Maybe because it oozes of some kind of unbecoming incorrigible conceit or presumption.
/Tuomas
PS
Please accept my appologies in case this offends any reader. That's not my deliberate purpose - but a hope to feed back information about how democrats around the world may react.
December 6, 2006 2:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is difficult to imagine anything like the Hamilton-Baker circus show happening in most of the world's democracies simply because they are parliamentary. Possibly the "soft power" snake oil is actually good for something, taken internally, but it obviously is not the only way of getting around separation-of-powers gridlock.
As to the Republicans, it would be to their advantage to try to induce their Leader not to leave neo-Iraq in such deep doo-doo that his successor is bound to be a Democrat. That would be the case even if James Baker and Lee Hamilton and "soft power" never existed at all.
December 6, 2006 2:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Happy Independence Day to you, Tuomas!
I've again and again went through my memory trying to find a war initiated by a democracy, leading into the same kind of dead end and obvious need for radically changed policies, but I can't come up with many possible parallells to this situation. For instance none of Israel's wars fits.
One of the closest matches I can think of is Finland's Continuation War (1941-44). Leaving aside the controversial point who "initiated" that war, and whether Finland could have avoided it anyhow, for instance by being less prepared to defend herself, and thereby maybe being perceived as less provocative or threatening by Stalin and his government, I remember reading one of Max Jacobsen's books, where he recapitulates how his brother when introduced to a position in the military intelligence service a few months into the war was brusquely asked if he didn't understand that Germany, and Finland, had lost their wars - an understanding that it would take politicians several years yet to reach.
More than a year later, Linkomies was appointed new primeminister and commonly expected to pilot the country out of the war. But he didn't find the necessary preconditions, the army seemed too successful for the concessions the enemy demanded, and the war came to last yet one year and a half - until the enemy again had invaded a good chunk of Finland's heartland.
Maybe there is a parallell to the Baker-Hamilton report. Its receiver is still not prepared for the concessions needed. America's position may still look like it could be recovered.
December 6, 2006 6:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you!
Although I must agree that there really exist some parallells, the differences probably outshines them, which shows how much each and every war is unique.
Another point is that the occupation of Iraq hardly is a war, by any meaningful understanding of that word, that the U.S. is actively involved in. There is no party, no enemy, to conclude a peace treaty with.
Somehow, I hope the American debate will profitate from this understanding sooner rather than later.
/Tuomas
December 7, 2006 1:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
While better than nothing, the BHR does smack strongly of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The only other option apart from impeachment is invocation of Section 4 of the 25th Amendment:
About as likely to happen as impeachment, and with Cheney in the wings, doesn't seem to offer much relief. I'm guessing Cheney would nominate the Duke of Nuke as his veep, the ultimate deck chair rearrangement.
While it may be a moral imperative to keep banging Bush's head against the wall in hopes he might finally see the light, I think we have to prepare ourselves for the looming catastrophic military failure and the resultant sharp decline in U.S. world standing, perhaps even to the point of irrelevance. First sign, all the OPEC states start demanding payment in Euros.
http://samthornton.blogspot.com/
December 7, 2006 6:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
YES!!
All these blathering on and analysis of the ISG recommendations is senseless. The bottomline, to me, is what incentive does the 'decider' have to heed or implement any of it? I think Dubya is going to continue to do precisely what he hasbeen doing 'stay the course'. He is not going to change one iota in terms of what the military role is. The problem is that he has America by the proverbial balls...there is NOTHING the electorate or Congress can do about that. The unfortunate truth, is that 'the decider' knows that!!!!
December 8, 2006 7:16 AM | Reply | Permalink