What About the Right Peace?
Amitai Etzioni serves us a succinct reality check. There are limits to what the U.S. can do in Afghanistan and Iraq and there are limits to what we can expect from the war. One troubling question is how the U.S. has found itself trapped in this situation. A second question is what it should do now. All this is even more important now as the American elections are approaching. However, I am sure that some of the other participants will take those questions head on, especially the second one. I wish to raise another issue that seems to me important. It seems that the neoconservative heritage will leave another victim in its wake: that of democracy promotion as an ideal, as a vision to aspire for.
Etzioni's post--as well as his book Security First--is an excellent exposition of the difficulties and prospects of the United States' foreign policies. However, evident in his writings is the major scaling down of our expectations following the neoconservative agenda and its execution. Waiving the flag of democracy promotion, the neoconservatives marched the United States' military into bogged down adventurism: First Kabul, then Baghdad, and then full stop. Rather than prosperous democracies in the Middle East we have two failed states on the verge of civil wars (or over the verge), and a sovereignty vacuum that pulls in terrorist networks. Thousands of people are being killed and millions are being ruled in authoritarian semi-regimes. It is yet another case of a wonderful ideal being discredited and de-legitimized by its execution. There is no way around it and Etzioni's analysis and prescriptions might be a step in the right direction.
My fears, though, are that we abandoned democracy promotion not only as an actual policy but also as an ideal. Facing the disastrous results of the neoconservatives' democracy promotion we are tempted to accept the undemocratic realities of the Middle East (and elsewhere) as an almost natural fait accompli that deserves no further reflection: that the people of the Middle East are destined to live and die by the dictates of their dictators. That needs not be the case. In addition to asking our elected leaders about the Right War we should also ask ourselves about the Right Peace. What visions for the future we should hold.
That does not mean that we need to force democracy at gun point, or that democracy promotion is a task for the United States. For a lack of better concepts let us call it a vision and a mission for the international community. By international community I mean the democratic states around the world, but more so civil societies, transnational social movements, and the people of Middle East themselves. Rather then satisfying ourselves with the very important question of what the next American president can and should do, we should--additionally--ask ourselves how can we help to secure a more democratic world; a world in which people live in security, in peace, but also in dignity, enjoying human and political rights, and free to participate in their own governments.
Etzioni offers us a good road map to navigate in this harsh world, but the destiny should be sought elsewhere: in a democratic ideal reclaimed from neoconservatism.
In order to achieve a satisfactory agreement in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States has to reach a regional settlement with the Iranians. The neoconservative strategy of isolating Iran has only been counter-productive and has destablized the region. If McCain becomes elected president these two conflicts are likely to explode with a potential war with Iran. American interests are likely to strengthened with Obama, who is willing to talk with the Iranians.
September 22, 2008 7:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
My favorite bumper sticker at the moment is one that says "What if Republicans had to raise taxes to pay for war?". McCain has promised he will raise no one's taxes. The $1,000,000,000,000 bailout of the financials is being financed out of thin air. The $1,000,000,000,000 Iraq war is being financed out of thin air.
Face reality!!! We've got enormous needs at home. We're in no position to promote grandiose visions abroad. We're not exactly the shining city on the hill these days. More like the city sliding down the hill in a mud slide.
September 22, 2008 7:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bluebell, you're absolutely right!
We can't afford the empire building wars that the current administration has started. Some here believe that the problem is that we are not fighting "the right" wars.
The fact is that the current financial crisis — which will deprive us of the ability to fight any wars — is directly tied to the financial and economic mismanagement of this administration that tried to pay for a Trillion dollar war "off the books."
"Funny money" has been the common thread running through the great scandals of the past decade or so, from Enron to unregulated financial instruments, to the Iraq war, to the economic collapse we are now facing.
All orchestrated by people who were certain they were the smartest guys in the room.
The notion expressed by some of the smartest people in this room — that a bankrupt United States can still choose to wage wars in the far flung corners of the world — is detached from reality.
Delusions of empire die hard.
September 22, 2008 8:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks and to those idealists who still believe the US is a champion of democracy this is what the rule of law has been reduced to in the United States today:
"Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency."
Democracy? Kleptocracy! We've become a Putinist state.
September 22, 2008 8:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you want to reclaim the democratic ideal from the machinations of the neoconservatives, the first item on the agenda is to look at how the sovereignty of nations is understood in the international community of nations.
The National Security Strategy promulgated by the Bush administration to provide the justification for ending the Iraqi state was already in effect when the state of Afghanistan was dissolved for not delivering the heads of Al-Qaeda upon a salver.
The Security Strategy claims that the U.S. has a special role to play in the preservation of the world order because it played a major role in how it works now and has the values and power to decide what is best for the world at large.
The character of the U.N., as a democracy of nations, is depicted in the Strategy as too weak to be able to act effectively when the need arises. So, with much humility, the U.S. finds that it must assume the role of the Executive Branch of the Globe.
Unless the above narrative is discredited, there will be no change in foreign policy. The only way to promote international laws and protocols is too be a nation that works by and through those laws.
It is not an easy path but that is the only way to promote democracy in another way than presented by PNAC.
September 22, 2008 7:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
the problem with this premise, moat, is you have "soverign leaders" who are breaking every int'l human rights law on the books, but because they bullied their way to the top of running their nation, they are immune from any int'l justice. North Korea may be the most horrifying regime that has ever existed on this planet.
China and Russia will NEVER support going after lawless and abusive leaders, which is the essential weakness of the Security Council.
September 23, 2008 9:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Facing the disastrous results of the neoconservatives' democracy promotion we are tempted to accept the undemocratic realities of the Middle East (and elsewhere) as an almost natural fait accompli that deserves no further reflection: that the people of the Middle East are destined to live and die by the dictates of their dictators.
Oh, don't be so melodramatic. Nobody is "destined" to do anything. Your underlying sentiment here is the source of the problem: it's the idea that the people of the Middle East are a bunch of filthy, ignorant animals who are incapable of improving their lives and escaping their unclean bestial destinies unless we do it for them or to them, and wash and purify them in our "ideals".
The Middle East now looks very different than it did in 1975; and it looked very different in 1975 than it did in 1945; and it looked very different in 1945 than it did in 1915. The people who live their have their own cultures, their own religions and their own preferences. Let them figure out how to run their own lives. Stop meddling and leave them alone.
As for a "vision of the global community", I have one of my own. But it's not as morally totalitarian as the vision of a lot of liberal interventionists, who seek to prescribe the details of the internal as well as the external relations of people in all the far-flung countries of the world. My somewhat hopeful vision is that people manage to get through another 50 years, despite their very different ways of life and political norms, without completely blowing each other up, without destroying most of what's left of the living things and natural beauty in this world, without turning the globe into an overpopulated environmental shit hole, and without killing more hundreds of millions of people such as those who were slaughtered in the gloriously idealistic 20th century.
I'm so sick of the "ideals" of the idealistic party of foreign policy thinkers. They never seem to rest content with the simple ideals of not killing people and not dominating people, whether politically, economically. militarily or morally. There is no limit to the amount of power they seek, although they are always trying to sanctify their lust for power and self-gratifying moral superiority with idealistic invocations of the moral deities.
September 22, 2008 9:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hear! Hear!
Leave these people alone! We should be learning from them--not bossing them around. The Iraqis are the descendents of one of the oldest civilizations on Earth. We've been around for what 232 years? We know a little bit about technology, but our cultural knowledge is very thin, indeed. American Idol is not much of a culture.
September 23, 2008 9:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
I have to go on one of my periodic rants here.
The Middle East is not our problem. We have plenty of problems at home in the United States serving the needs of the American people. Our security and democracy are threatened at home. The Middle East is a distraction from our problems at home. To the extent that we devote time and resources in the Middle East we have fewer resources at home. Until we solve our problems at home, we are no good to anyone abroad.
September 22, 2008 10:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Both you and Etzioni are wrong about what the neocons wanted -- they used the notion of "democracy promotion" to sell the country on a war that they had wanted to wage for more than a decade. They weren't trying to promote democracy, it was just a marketing ploy.
Now, should we be trying to promote democracy as either policy or an ideal? Yes. First, at home. Let's repeal the post 9/11 assaults on our civil liberties, lets make it easier to vote, easier for third parties to run and lets towards some form of more direct democracy before we even think about telling other countries what to do.
Yeah, democracy promotion should be an ideal. Let's get on it right here at home.
September 22, 2008 10:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
"the people of the Middle East are destined to live and die by the dictates of their dictators."
The worst of the worst in the ME just happen to be OUR guys aka "moderate Arab states" aka our "allies" . Yeah, let's practice us some democracy , starting with the KSA.
No can do, kemosabe.
The targeted consumers don't like our brand.
Our fight for democracy starts at home. As it does for you Israelis.
September 23, 2008 3:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
One of the great American delusions is that we've got all the answers and know better than anybody else what their own self interests are.
If somebody wants to live in a mud hut without electricity and plow with a water buffalo--who are we to tell them they need shopping malls, Wheaties, and Jimmie Dean Pork Sausage?
I mean, whatever happened to the prinicple of self determinism?
This is a disease we inherited from the Europeans. Europeans, like the British, would land someplace like Australia, and just because the people that they found there didn't have guns or wheels--they simply ASSUMED the Aborigenes were 'primitive', worthless, sub human. In reality, the Aborigenes had one of the most sophisticated spiritual cultures the world had ever seen, with a highly evolved ecological realtionship to the Australian Continent. Europeans could have learned SO MUCH from them if they were not so paradigm bound arrogant and stupid. They were hunted like dogs for a bounty.
Look what the Conquistadores did to the Aztecs? To the Inca? Every last Caribe tribesman was decimated. We're talking about millions of people.
Then there is the well known treatment of the indigenous people of North America. Shameful. A disgrace. And don't get me started on Slavery.
There are these so called Christian missionaries who go into traditional societies and try to tell them that all their cultural knowledge and wisdom is so much shit, and try to make them follow European mores, put on shoes, practice abstinance, teach them this bizarre Christian mythology. This is all arrogant, pig-headed blindness almost beyond belief.
When will we stop this ridiculous interference with the self determination of other people? We DO NOT have all the answers. We are wrecking the joint, and destroying ourselves. Democracy is not the BEST form of government. It is merely a FORM of government. We need to quit focusing on the speck of sawdust on other countries eyes and start focusing on the great plank in our own. Let us order our own house. And let other people order their own.
September 23, 2008 8:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
we are not baking bread here. building a participatory democracy is extremely difficult. Even in Eastern Europe it took over a decade for those countries to really start to hit their stride. Given the realities in the Islamic world -- Afghanistan and Iraq could take much longer. Let's not forget Mexico has been a democracy for decades, and they are also teetering on the brink of being a narco state. You can't blame neocons for that.
The problem as i see it is to confuse voting with democracy. This is Bush's greatest failure. Saddam Hussein held elections. They meant nothing. You have to have the institutions of demcracy for a real democratic state to emerge. Mexico has never had a strong, independent judicial branch of government, and they have suffered for it. This is the same essential problem in Iraq and Afghanistan. You have to have the rule of law, but it has to be applied equally to everyone. Without this, you are a corrupt bannana republic and your country will be ruled by cliques of powerful leaders who live above the rules.
September 23, 2008 9:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Poppycock and horsepucky.The US has promoted not democracy but repression throughout its history from the Philippines to Greece and all through Latin America, and all for a buck.
In the real world money rules, and while it might seem to some that "the U.S. has found itself trapped in this [Afghanistan] situation" in the real world tremendous profits are being realized from endless war. Does anyone think that Dick Cheney doesn't enjoy living in his new $2.9m home bought with Halliburton dividends and the considerable blood of innocents?
In the real world, money talks and BS about democracy promotion walks.
Smedley Butler: "War is a racket . . .the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and ther losses ih lives."
September 23, 2008 9:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well... no. Democracy promotion was down the list of reasons given by neoconservatives in the Administration and media to launch military campaigns in the Mideast and South Asia. This cover story was activated when original justifications failed or were disproved. America went to war in Afghanistan to capture Osama bin Ladin and destroy al Qaeda - and did not. We went to war in Iraq because we were told, in the rattled aftermath of 9/11, that Saddam had weapsons of mass destruction and was planning to incinerate or infect American cities with them - and he did not. Neither was he implicated in any way in the attacks of 9/11.
In short, America was lied into the wars for reasons still unresolved and, largely, undiscussed. The debunked rationale was written off as the product of "bad intelligence." We now have a sampler of explanations for our endless conflicts in addition to the specious democracy crusade - including the need to remove dictators and dangerous regimes, and the odd "flypaper" strategy of attracting militants to faraway battlegrounds so we don't have to fight them in shopping centers and dildo shops at home.
What goes unsaid, at least publicly, is that we apparently are committed to guaranteeing our access to the world's oil production centers in the region, as well as underwriting the present and future security of Israel. These commitments were the priorities - from the beginning - of the neoconservatives. Everything else they said was and is fable.
September 23, 2008 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
The cultural differences are the root of the problem in both countries. Both Iraq and Afghanistan were failed states even before the US entered there. For the last seven years, the US is merely fighting wars and obviously wars don’t turn countries around. I am from Pakistan and have first hand knowledge of the area and based on that I feel that the cultural differences plus a very limited understanding of the History of that area contributes to major policy and strategic false moves by the US.
Afghanistan geographically may appear to be a unit but it has never been a unit ethnically and politically. Historically, the kings or the other leaders just kept a minimal control of the urban population centers and did not interfere too much in the tribal or the rural areas. This has been the pattern for centuries.
The British too learned their lessons. Every time they tried to intrude in the tribal areas they met with the resistance and finally settled for a less formal control of the areas they separated from Afghanistan now known as the FATA or the Pakistani tribal areas. The Pakistani province Balochistan too was separated by the British from Afghanistan. The British followed the same policy in Balochistan. After the independence in 1947, Pakistan did not change this pattern. However, Pakistan did try to manage the Baloch tribes in Balochistan and that has resulted in many insurgencies since 1947. The Pakistan army still operates in Baloch tribal areas without much success.
In Afghanistan, the Communists tried to break this pattern by introducing Land Reforms in the late 70s. That was the first major intrusion from a government in Kabul in the rural areas in centuries. I believe those attempted Land Reforms were the beginning of the trouble for the Communist regime there. When the Pak-US supported insurgency escalated, the communist regime tried to hold on to the few urban areas but soon the Soviet Union had to enter. The Soviets first made the same error that the US is making now. They tried to capture and clean up the rural areas. Within a short period they retreated to the urban centers and relied on aerial war--later scaled down after the US delivered Stinger missiles to the Mujahidins. The truth is that the US supported fighters never had the ability to dislodge the Soviets from the urban areas.
Now U.S. is involved in a similar war. The US controls the urban centers but they meet with stiff resistance in the rural areas. If the US aim is to continue the occupation for an indefinite period, they should restrict themselves to controlling the urban centers. Since there is no one out there to deliver stinger type missiles to the Taliban, the US will not be defeated in Afghanistan. They should just leave the rural areas alone and let the afghan warlords or the tribal elders resolve problems with the Taliban.
Some in the current US administration want to WIN the war in Afghanistan. This possibly is due to the fiasco in Iraq and frankly, they don’t want to accept the reality in Iraq and want to switch people’s attention to a “good war” which they believe they can win.
They have pinned hopes on cutting off the Taliban reinforcements from FATA for victory. That’s why there is huge amount of pressure on Pakistan to take action in FATA. This is not realistic. Pakistan is divided on this issue and there are deep divisions in the Pakistan army on this issue too. The Pakistan army can bring temporary relief in the situation but we cannot exclude the possibility that the Pakistan army may break in attempting to fight in FATA. That will exacerbate problems in the area for the US.
Imo, the right approach would be to hold on to the urban areas, occasionally use the air power to deter the Taliban from entering the urban centers. Encourage the warlords and the tribal elders to develop some kind of working relationship with the Taliban. Where possible, start developmental projects and provide security around those areas.
The US will never win ‘hearts and minds’ in Afghanistan; neither will it succeed in turning Afghanistan in to a fully functional democracy. The afghans/Pathans are too suspicious of Caucasians to work with them harmoniously. They also don’t look kindly to an all powerful central government in the cities. You have to give them their space and slowly bring in the changes.
The US policy is to get the results now; this impetuousness failed in Iraq and would fail in Afghanistan too.
September 23, 2008 4:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
The talk about fighting wars to introduce 'democracy' is just a diversion from the truth. The very last thing the neocons want is a democratic Middle East! Had all of Israel's neighbours been democracies, none of them would have accepted its existence on Palestinian lands. The truth is that all recent wars waged by the US in the region are at Israel's behest. Had the public been told the true reason for the wars, there would have been fierce opposition for using GIs as cannon fodder for Israel's sake!!!
September 24, 2008 12:55 AM | Reply | Permalink