Engagement or Gauging Intervention
Whether it is the Israeli, sorry the Israel, Lobby, the Cheney Gang or Obama's new "smart power" team, all of the above are interventionists no matter how you slice it. All too are playing a great game that is hurting a whole lot of people (including themselves) that they are sadly miscalculating.
Cole talks about engagement and many of the comments I have seen do not lose sight of the fact that engagement can definitely take the form of soft or hard power. Historically, with our love and propensity for weapons, the US, along with the prompting of others (Cheney and the lobby), likes the hard stuff.
Directly after proclaiming to rid tyranny and promote freedom, the Bush Administration doubled US Foreign Military Financing (FMF) from $3.5 billion to over $6 billion. Many of the weapons went to, of course, Muslim countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan, but Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Chad, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Uzbekistan (a country that routinely uses torture against political and religious prisoners). These sales unfortunately communicate to the recipients to put hard power first. Coles encouragement to use dialogue, although sometimes tougher on the patience and time scale, will allow us to at least start to move beyond toxic sticks.
Since many of you are also talking about Israel in this dialogue and their relationship to the US and Muslim nations, let me just point out that they receive about $2-3 billion a year to purchase US weapons. In addition, in March 2007, when the US announced its decision to sell arms to Saudi Arabia, $20 billion went to Saudi Arabia and five other Gulf states, and $30 billion to Israel. Over the past decade, the United States has transferred approximately $21 billion in military aid to Israel, a country of just under 7 million people. That is a lot of firepower.
Point being, it is no wonder the US has a hard time talking to people when its historical way of communicating is through tools of force. In a speech this year at Kansas State University even Secretary of Defense Robert Gates noted, "there are fewer professional diplomats in the Foreign Service than there are personnel on an average aircraft carrier task force" (of which the United States has 12). He noted rightly that the State Department only has 6,600 people in its service.
So although the US is low on soft power, I don't see American ceasing to interfere or engage anytime soon. Maybe then, we should look at how we intervene instead, especially since it seems the world isn't getting any smaller.
Finding ways to work with countries instead of giving them weapons would be a good place to start. It would behoove all of us to stop putting war first. Note, the US, through President Obama's recent video, is finally offering to speak to Iran, a country that is literally between Iraq and Afghanistan. The other choice would only ignite an inferno in an already blazing region.
As Cole says, "the contemporary world offers unprecedented opportunities for political and cultural teamwork between the North Atlantic countries and the Muslim world, and the pressing problems we face can only be resolved through [peaceful] collaboration. Doing so will require a setting aside of Islam and American Anxiety, a return to wise and persistent diplomacy and a spirit of compromise on all sides. We can do tit if we engage." He is correct.
It is time to begin to evolve beyond war, engage in some peace and finally gauge our interventions asking ourselves why are we intervening, how and what will the repercussion be short- and long-term. More importantly, I would bet that if we intervene with more dialogue, as Cole suggests, than with empty rhetoric and deadly weapons, the world may ultimately be a bit less hostile and a little more to say the least - engaging in a more appealing instead of threatening way.
I think study of the Moslem world and negotiations with the Moslem world are called for but I don't see what the point of dialogue with Moslem world is. Truth isn't a function of agreement which is what dialogue presupposes. The point is to get along despite disagreements about what constitutes the truth and the such demands study of and negotiations with the Moslem world rather than a dialgoue with the Muslim world. Islam may very well be right about certain things but if so it is because Islam is right rather than we 'agreed is was right' via dialgoue. The ultimate arbitrator of truth is the inidividual rather the 'we' of a dialogue. Dialogue mistakenly displance the arbitrator of truth onto a 'we'.
March 20, 2009 2:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well... I can't think of a country that doesn't like the "hard stuff" - where power is concerned - at least as a fall-back stance. To hold that the United States - or Israel - is uniquely evil in polity, policy or history is jug-headed.
March 20, 2009 3:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let us count how many countries in the last fifty years have been invaded, bombed (by a national air force) or otherwise attacked by:
1.) Iran
2.) USSR/Russia
3.) USA
Most Americans could name a few of the places attacked by the USA and would forget the others.
The neat thing is that Americans feel quite justified about all the attacks and bombings they have funded. They are vaguely aware that the US may have backed Iraq in Iraq's attack on Iran.
The proposed attack on Iran is based on ... what, exactly ?
March 20, 2009 10:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
yeah, those militaristic belligerent states like Norway, Switzerland, Italy, Brazil, Mozambique, Vietnam ....etc.
we use our militaries to attack, kill and subjugate other people all the time.
no, there's nothing unique about the United States & Israel's foreign policy or use of their militaries for the last 50 years.
nothing to see here, move on
March 20, 2009 3:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nothing at all.
March 20, 2009 5:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is an over-simplification, and over-generalization. Distinctions should be made according to historical facts.
March 21, 2009 11:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dialogue?
I don’t think we know how to communicate with people in the so-called “Muslim World” or even identify the extent of an organization’s influence or style organization when we want to communicate.
The context of many Muslim countries is an ever-changing web of patronage networks. Alliances change quickly and the most moral responsibility of any person is to protect their immediate family. The institutions that western think tanks advocate are really personal fiefdoms of power brokers that use those institutions to protect their immediate family’s interests---not national interests.
Actually, out of that system, the political actors have learned very complex skills to promote consensus and on-going dialogue among themselves. Their system is fragile, and factional conflict breaks out into occasional armed conflicts and insurgencies; nevertheless, they know how to make it work. Actually, they practice these complex skills every day. They even use those skills when they negotiate prices at the village market or bazaar.
This background probably has lots to do with why China now has so much influence in Pakistan and more every day in Afghanistan. They understand how to do it, and we don’t.
Bob Spencer
March 20, 2009 4:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
China now has so much influence in Pakistan and more every day in Afghanistan. They understand how to do it, and we don’t.
I think we once knew, we just forgot:
March 21, 2009 11:25 AM | Reply | Permalink