The Hawks’ Blogosphere: Defiantly, Dangerously Uninformed
In the course of researching another piece, I just came across a posting at redstate.com, about Seymour Hersh’s detailed New Yorker article on the administration’s major strategic shift toward supporting a range of Sunni factions, including extremist groups, in the volatile, unpredictable tangle of Middle East geopolitics. “Don’t bother reading the article. It really isn’t worth the time. But look for covert actions in the Long War [against Iran] to be the new line of attack by the Democrats on the Administration.”
The author’s post falsely implies that Hersh’s piece is strictly about covert operations within Iran, and strictly a puff piece about CIA dissent, when in fact it’s a broad regional survey of strategic questions of massive complexity and considerable controversy within the administration itself; it’s also another example of policy’s being formulated and approved in an insular corner of the executive branch. This response reveals something worse than a measure of dishonesty, or poor reading comprehension -- even the subhead ("Is the Administration’s new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?") should have alerted the blogger to the fact that the issues raised transcend the concerns of Iran doves. Rather, it also reveals a gross anti-intellectualism. The fact that Hersh is the author was enough to discredit the article and to recommend that others dismiss it sight unseen, and remaining willfully ignorant of the issues involved. The echo chamber of comments to the post are no more encouraging.
I admit the Hersh article is long. But it’s written in a reportorial style, draws on many sources, and is not marred by the polemical tone of, say, the redstate.com dismissal. And it’s, you know, important on the policy merits. Next time anyone complains to you that the left’s distrust of the administration is an arbitrary emotional reaction heedless of the administration’s good-faith efforts to secure the nation, you should first cite this article and other good journalism on the administration. Then, consider whether the accuser has projected his or her own proclivities for blind ideological mistrust onto you.
Note: Obviously some hawkish writers are more dedicated than streiff, the writer cited here, to becoming knowledgeable about the dangers and complexities of the aggressive foreign policies they espouse. But the presumptive hostility to an independent press examination of government assertions and actions appears widespread on the hawkish right.
UPDATE: The Corner links to Anton Efendi’s piece attacking Hersh. Although this is a more serious form of criticism, it has problems. For one thing, to counter the notion of a perfectly symmetrical, uncomplicated antagonism between Shiite and Sunni groups in the region is to attack a strawman; Hersh never denies that there can be tactical alliances. One of his own sources, however -- this Newsweek piece -- undermines his challenge to Hersh by suggesting that at least sometimes these jihadi-Iranian alliances are "here and there" types of relationships, not serious patterns. But does Efendi really want to deny the rough outlines of regional power struggles existing largely along sectarian lines? Of course not. Better then to cast intricate aspersions on details so as to deflect attention from the merit of the underlying criticisms of administration hawks. Of course, Efendi seems to know more than a little about these subjects so I’m hardly saying his concerns about Syrian and Hezbollah propaganda and other issues should be ignored or dismissed out of hand, or that various (often minor) corrections should be discounted. His ideological argument should be respectfully considered, just as I say Hersh’s reporting should be closely studied. My point here is rather that Efendi has not debunked the import of Hersh’s article, namely that the administration is pursuing a complicated policy agenda fraught with the danger of counterproductive actions not only out of public view but out of congressional view and without the benefit of normal internal bureaucratic consultative processes.
February 27, 2007 6:34 PM | Reply | Permalink