Month: December 2004

Kevin Drum observes:

The political blogosphere is far more partisan than any organ of the mainstream media, more partisan than most op-ed pages, and most of the time more partisan than even the overtly political magazines. The blogosphere is about the most partisan and least independent voice this side of talk radio.

Aaron Radcliffe, in a thoughtful gloss on this, bemoans “that peculiarly blind, unthinking leap to defend the positions — any positions — of one’s ‘man'” that he finds throughout blogdom:

The initial stand on an issue is not the product of a little bit of thought, it is always the instinctive leap to the Man’s side of the debate. The position is chosen first, the thinking comes much later (if at all), and then only to provide justification. This piffle is tiresome — and unfortunately here to stay. I haven’t noticed much post-election willingness in the blogworld to depart from the conventional stances and talking points.

Of course, there are exceptions to this, but it’s largely right, and there’s no better illustration of it than the tarradiddle spewing forth from blogdom over the Douthat-Ledeen dispute, including silly and irresponsible charges of racism that spread through “a self-replicating echo chamber.” (The phrase belongs to Hugh Hewitt, who applies it to the “old media.” But a network of interconnected websites that link to each other can function more effectively in this manner.)

Which brings up the question of the sort of political debate that blogs promote. Here’s how the “blog of the year” describes the “fundamental political debate of our time”:

It is between those who are willing to roll up their sleeves and try to make the world a better place, and those who offer no alternative but prefer to stand on the sidelines and sneer.

Which means that the “fundamental political debate of our time” isn’t a debate at all (there isn’t even another alternative), but a test of partisan will. As Noah Millman notes, in a post on American intellectuals, “We live in an increasingly fragmented culture, which makes it hard to speak to the culture as a whole.” A blogosphere that incessantly screams “Don’t go wobbly!” doesn’t seem to help matters in this regard. Which is why, though I’m not in charge of things around here, I like Mr. Millman’s idea of a Ponnuru Award “for principled opposition to a partisan position.” That sort of award seems targeted to correct blogdom’s worst tendencies. I can even think of a few nominees.

TEXT FOR THE TIMES: In related news, Arts and Letters daily links to this review today: “The point of public argument is not to be right, but to win.”
— Steven

Without adding a single other word, I’d like to cite, with emphasis added, a brief passage from Reuel Gerecht’s “The Struggle for the Middle East”:

And it is an open question, of course, whether any combination of sanctions, short of a blockade of Iranian oil, could convince the ruling mullahs to cease and desist since the nuclear program is one of the few things that the quarrelsome political clergy can agree on. It is also undoubtedly popular with many ordinary Iranians, who see the nuke as an expression of Iranian nationalism, not as an instrument of mass destruction in the hands of virulently anti-American clerics. The mullahs, who have alienated just about everyone in the country with their incompetence, corruption, and antidemocratic behavior, have accidentally discovered something that gives them prestige and nationalist credentials.

Well, I’ll add this. Long before Iran’s clerical regime came to power, the Shah initiated a low-level nuclear weapons program. The Shah’s rule was authoritarian, capricious, and cruel, and its security services, foremost among them the hated SAVAK, committed ghastly atrocities against dissidents. At the same time, the Shah’s Iran was, ostensibly, a steadfast ally of the United States. The country was ripe for a democratic revolution. It happened. It didn’t go as planned.

India-where a threatening strategic environment and domestic politics both played a role in the decision to pursue nuclear weapons-also comes to mind. That’s for another time.
— Reihan

Here. I should note that he and Pejman are quite right — I wrote “Arab countries” here, when I meant “Muslim countries,” (Iran being obviously not an Arab country) and I apologize for the misblog. In addition, while I have not read Ledeen’s book, I have read roughly 90% of his columns (I am a faithful NRO reader, after all — hi, Kathryn!) over the last few years, and it’s true that he’s written frequently about how to overthrow the mullahs. My point was not that he doesn’t have a plan, but that I’m unconvinced of the plan’s efficacy, and that I think it suffers from an unwarranted optimism about the power of the U.S. to bring about “democratic revolution” in the Muslim world. (And yes, I know, Reagan brought down the Soviet Union. But he had some help from within — and I don’t just mean the Soviet dissidents.)

Otherwise, I’ll let the arguments in this (much longer) post stand.

— Ross

I was hoping to get through this guest-blogging stint without being called a racist, but no such luck. Roger Simon pulls out all the stops: Not only am I accused of using an “off-puttingly racist locution,” but he also implies that I don’t give a damn about the victims of the recent tsunami, and that I might well have opposed the Civil Rights Movement.

(I also appreciate, in the comments below Mr. Simon’s post, being accused of being a liberal. Which is a new one.)

Anyway, just to clarify: when I quoted Michael Ledeen saying that “we have to stand with our people, everywhere,” and suggested that regarding Iranian democrats as “our people” is a mistaken approach to foreign policy, I did not mean to suggest that we do not share a common humanity with the Persians — or the North Koreans, or the Syrians, or any other people living under tyranny. Nor did I mean to suggest that they are racially inferior to us. Nor that I am indifferent to their fate. Nor that I don’t think it would be a good thing, indeed a great thing, if a “democratic revolution” came to each and every dictatorship on this planet.

OPTIMISM IS NOT A POLICY: What I did mean to suggest is that the United States has different obligations to different peoples — and that its primary responsibility is to safeguard the well-being of American citizens. (I hope this isn’t a controversial statement.) If this can be done while promoting democracy in Iran, so much the better. However, as Mr. Simon rightly points out, the primary challenge facing our government today is “the hugely dangerous proliferation issue.” And Iran is the centerpiece of that challenge — a proud nation with a history of political dominance in the region, governed by a corrupt gang of fanatics who are only months, perhaps, away from acquiring nuclear weapons.

So what are we to do? Mr. Ledeen has suggested, most recently here, that the best way to prevent Iran from acquiring nukes (and to pacify Iraq, though that’s a separate debate) is to promote democratic revolution within that nation. Fair enough. I wondered how, precisely, he intends to go about promoting such a revolution. A few days later, he wrote that what pro-democracy activists in countries like Iran need is what we gave the protestors in the Ukraine: “A bit of guidance in the methods of non-violent resistance, a bit of communications gear, and many words of encouragement.” And I asked, in the post that apparently dripped with racism — is this really a plausible strategy for dealing with Iran?

Those who think the answer is “yes” need to address a number of issues. First, taking a bold, “we’re-going-to-undermine-you-from-within-and-there’s-nothing-you-can-about-it” tack with the Iranians pretty much removes any hope of a diplomatic solution to the nuclear quandary. Well, there isn’t going to be a diplomatic solution, Ledeen, Simon, et. al. might retort — but it’s also the case that the more confrontational our rhetoric with Iran, the higher their state of alert, and the harder it will be to launch a quick military strike of the kind Reuel Marc Gerecht advises here. (Though he adds that the strongest argument “against attacking Iran’s nuclear-weapons facilities is that we may not technically be able to do it,” which doesn’t entirely inspire confidence.)

Finally, even if the mullahs were toppled, it seems extremely likely that a democratic Iran would still pursue a bomb — and more importantly, would continue to be the U.S.’s (and certainly Israel’s) major strategic rival in the region. (There’s no evidence that democracies, and particularly poor, nationalistic democracies, can’t be just as nuke-happy and bellicose as the next nation.) So it’s by no means clear that “democratic revolution” is a solution to the problem of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East at all.

Look, I’m not at all sure what what our Iran policy should be. But based on their comments, Roger Simon and Michael Ledeen seem to think that we should put our faith in the Iranian dissident movement. I’ve listened to their arguments, and I’m not convinced. I’m not trying to “throw stones at the optimist”; I’m trying to figure out what the posture of the United States government should be. And I think that on an issue as grave as nuclear proliferation, resting the security of “our people” (by which, yes, I mean Americans first and foremost) in the hands of Iran’s would-be democrats — many of whom, as Gerecht notes, “have a very jaundiced view of the United States” — is a dangerous gamble. And foreign policy is too serious a business to gamble with, just for the sake of “driving the car forward,” as Mr. Simon puts it.

A NOTE ON REALISM (AND IRAQ): I should add that I don’t consider myself a realist, and certainly not of the classic Metternich-Kissinger school, though I have respect for both men. (Well, okay, mainly Metternich.) I certainly think idealism of various kinds has a place in foreign policy, though I’m not always sure what that place is. (For instance, I would have backed intervention in Rwanda, but I’m less sure about Kosovo. Of course, we did the reverse.) And I don’t have any problem with the United States making democratization the large-scale goal of its foreign policy.

What I do have a problem with is in the notion that the proper approach to foreign policy is a mix of willy-nilly optimism about “democratic revolution” and foot-on-the-gas bellicosity — and I detect both of these qualities in Mr. Ledeen.

He might well retort that in a world filled with terrorists, loose nukes, and the potential for more 9/11-style attacks, we must at times take some significant risks in whom we support, whom we condemn, and whom we invade. And he would be right, up to a point — just as he’d be right that whenever possible, when we take such risks, we should err on the side of promoting human rights and republican self-government.

However, the last time we undertook such a risk was in the invasion of Iraq, which, whatever you think about its wisdom (and I think I am in good company in having serious doubts), has placed us in a difficult position vis-a-vis the threat posed by Iran. And I hope that at the very least, everyone (
left and right) can agree that at least a few mistakes were made during the run-up to the Iraq War . . . and that among them was a significant over-optimism about the ease of installing democracy in a Muslim dictatorship in the heart of the Middle East. So perhaps, just perhaps, we should have a little humility — heck, call it a little “conservatism,” if you want — about our ability to bring about a “democratic revolution” in the country next door.

FINALLY: Since I’m fairly new to this whole blogging thing, I’d like to thank Mr. Simon for thickening my skin. I hope that my initial seething fury has been translated into a fairly cogent post — and I apologize to the weary reader for its length.

— Ross

One film, two takes.

THE OLD (NORSE)MAN AND THE SEA: Yet more on the burning question of fish-eating among Greenlanders, from the indefatigable Matthew Yglesias.

TSUNAMIS AND THEODICY: How do people who believe in a loving God deal with this week’s disaster? Various intelligent folks wrestle with the issue.

THE APU APPROACH TO FOREIGN POLICY: Another take on democracies at war.

— Ross

I just finished Ian Buruma’s “Letter from Amsterdam.” Buruma covers roughly the same ground as Christopher Caldwell in “Holland Daze.” Whereas Caldwell focuses on the intellectual landscape, Buruma, Dutch by birth, brings first-hand narrative reporting to bear, along with a closer look at Mohammed Bouyeri, Theo van Gogh’s twenty-six-year-old assailant. The best part involves Buruma’s visit to a social-studies class. The students’ wide-ranging discussion reads as admirably free of cant.

One of the black students made fun of the Muslims’ preoccupation with “identity” and said, “Moroccan, Egyptian, Algerian-who the fuck cares. They’re all thieves.” The others laughed, even some of the Muslims.

Fortunately, no cataclysmic rumble ensued-a hopeful sign in itself. Buruma’s article closes with a paean to Dutch liberalism:

After the war, and especially since the nineteen-sixties, the Dutch prided themselves on having built an oasis of tolerance, a kind of Berkeley writ large, where people were free to do their own thing. Liberated, at last, from the strictures of religion and social conformity, the Dutch, especially in Amsterdam, frolicked in the expectation that the wider world would not disturb their perfect democracy in the polders. Now the turbulent world has come to Holland at last, crashing into an idyll that astonished the citizens of less favored nations. It’s a shame that this had to happen, but naxefveté is the wrong state of mind for defending one of the oldest and most liberal democracies against those who wish to destroy it.

Here one is struck by the elisions, and the stark contrast with Caldwell’s take. Describing the same “oasis of tolerance,” Caldwell notes “that most Dutch people don’t like it,” and that large majorities describe their country as “too tolerant.” The “oasis” derived from the retreat of church authority, and an elite consensus to the effect that libertarian orthodoxy would take its place. The extent to which Dutch democracy has been “perfect,” in Buruma’s description, has been precisely the extent to which it has not been democratic.

And so Buruma’s implicit call for a hardheaded liberalism, shorn of its naxefveté and committed to defending “Berkeley” against the barbarians, is necessarily an appeal to elites. The burghers, after all, never embraced “Berkeley.” Just as the youth revolt in Holland was seen as a “rebellion against church authority,” the ongoing populist revolt represents a rebellion against the “perfect democracy.”

I HAVEN’T GOT TIME FOR THE PAIN: A few weeks ago, Buruma wrote on Iraq, arguing against “perfect democracy,” i.e., rigorously secular democracy, and for at least the possibility of “Islamic democracy.” Drawing on the writing of Reuel Gerecht and Noah Feldman, Buruma makes a persuasive case. So persuasive a case, in fact, that he might consider applying it to Holland:

It is always tricky for an agnostic in religious affairs to argue for the importance of organized religion, but I would argue not that more people should be religious or that democracy cannot survive without God, but that the voices of religious people should be heard. The most important condition for a functional democracy is that people take part. If religious affiliations provide the necessary consensus to play by common rules, then they should be recognized. A Sharia-based Shiite theocracy, even if it were supported by a majority, would not be a democracy. Only if the rights and interests of the various ethnic and religious groups are negotiated and compromises reached could you speak of a functioning democracy.

That negotiation and compromise were preempted by elite consensus in Holland now seems clear. Democracy failed. To say that it’s only now under threat, now that the exclusion and alienation of an immigrant class has reached a crisis point, is to ignore the deeper tensions.

Which is one reason why the liberal disdain of populist conservatism is misplaced. That secular liberals will seek to defeat populist conservatives in argument is a given. But marginalizing concerns over “moral values,” the approach fatefully taken in Holland and elsewhere in Europe, has had ugly consequences all its own. Be careful what you wish for.

This all leads back to Iraq, and Buruma’s sharp and to my mind short-sighted opposition to regime change, but I’m too wordy as it is. And Tylenol PM has me confused. I will say that I’ve had a terrible flu, and that “Street’s Disciple” is excellent.
— Reihan

Steve has a New York Sun column today on George Lakoff, a Berkeley professor whose notions about rhetorical “framing” are apparently attracting a lot of attention from Democratic politicians. Lakoff’s general point is that people think, and vote, in ways that have little to do with right reason properly applied, and much more to do with the sub-rational frames — Republicans as the responsible “daddy party,” for instance, and Dems as the simpatico but soft-minded “mommy party” — through which they view American politics.

I think there’s a lot to be said for Lakoff’s general argument. (At the very least, it gets closer to the heart of voter behavior than overly optimistic notions about “deliberative democracy”.) But as for Lakoff’s specific applications of his thesis . . . well, I’ll let Steve take it away:

With this deep psychological motivation lurking behind American political debates, it’s no surprise that Mr. Lakoff perceives hidden agendas everywhere. Conservatives “are not really pro-life,” he writes. Rather, because abortion allows teenagers to be promiscuous and women to delay childbearing to pursue a career, it threatens their model of social control: “Pregnant teenagers have violated the commandments of the strict father. Career women challenge the power and authority of the strict father,” explains Mr. Lakoff. “Both should be punished by bearing the child.”

Similarly, Republicans support school testing not to identify substandard schools and improve them, but for more nefarious reasons.”Once the testing frame applies not just to students but also to schools,” writes Mr. Lakoff, “then schools can, metaphorically, fail – and be punished for failing by having their allowance cut,” leading ultimately to “elimination for many public schools.” The goal, it turns out, is to replace the entire public school system with private institutions.

The list of GOP deceptions is seemingly endless. Republicans don’t support tort reform because they care about the cost of frivolous lawsuits; they want to bankrupt a Democratic Party that relies on contributions from trial lawyers and leave corporations free to pollute the environment. The war in Iraq, as one might expect, is really about “the self-interest of American corporations.” . . . On issue after issue, “what conservatives are really trying to achieve is not in the proposal,” Mr. Lakoff explains. The “real purposes are hidden.”

Let’s allow that there’s a kernel of truth here — namely, that any political movement tends to emphasize small-scale aims that are palatable to most voters, in the hopes of moving the country toward larger-scale aims that can’t yet claim much popular support. For instance, many Republicans would like to drastically overhaul Social Security, but the GOP is proposing incremental reforms at present, because the public generally likes Social Security as it is. Similarly, many Democrats would like to have a European-style social safety net, but in the absence of public support, they spend most of their time either defending the status quo, or proposing incremental welfare-state expansions (e.g. John Kerry’s health care plan).

THE PARANOID STYLE: But why, instead of focusing on how the Democrats can find the right frames to move the country toward Swedish-style statism (or whatever preferred end he has in mind), does Lakoff leaps immediately to the assumption that rhetorical frames must, by definition, conceal bizarre hidden agendas — agendas that bear almost no relation to the frames themselves? Steve rightly cites the famous Richard Hofstadter essay on the “paranoid style” in politics . . . but why is this style so appealing to otherwise intelligent people? Why the eagerness to believe the absolute worst about your political opponents (pro-lifers don’t care about babies, they care about subjugating women; Wolfowitz, Feith, et. al. aren’t misguided idealists but power-mad lackeys for oil companies, and so on)?

Hofstadter’s essay suggests — rightly, I think — that the leap into paranoia has to do with a desire for rationality and order. “The higher paranoid scholarship,” he writes, “is nothing if not coherent — in fact the paranoid mind is far more coherent than the real world.” This isn’t just a matter of dividing the world into a neat moral black-and-white, though that has something to do with it. It’s also a matter of explaining away the messiness of reality. If the Bush Administration really believed there were WMDs and wanted to democratize Iraq, the paranoid mind thinks to itself, then 1) why didn’t we find any weapons, and 2) why are we doing such a lousy job of democratization? It could be that the world is a messy, human-error-riddled place — but saying that we really went in for the sake of Halliburton and the oil companies makes the chain of causality so much simpler. (The same is true of conspiracy-theorizing on the right, I should add, where Bill Clinton’s success could never just be explained by the willingness of the American people to excuse sleaziness and mendacity during economic good times . . . no, there had to be murder behind it.)

In other words, the paranoia of writers like Lakoff is itself a “framed” way of viewing the world. Which, I suppose, only makes his thesis that much stronger.

— Ross

At age 71, one of Andrew’s favorite intellectuals has passed away.

— Ross

Responding to my earlier post, Matthew Yglesias does a little digging and can’t find any evidence of the alleged Viking fish-eating taboo.

Must . . . avoid . . . temptation . . . to call Diamond’s argument . . . “fishy” . . . (argh!)

— Ross

A few days back, I dinged Michael Ledeen for talking up Iranian and Syrian “democratic revolution” as a solution to our difficulties in Iraq. I wanted to know how, precisely, he thought we should go about promoting such revolutions — and in this Corner post, he offers a partial answer:

For those of us who have long preached the power of democratic revolution, [the new Ukrainian election] is a happy day, and I hope that our leaders draw the appropriate lessons:

–The mild support we gave to the democratic forces in the Ukraine proved far more powerful than most of the experts expected. The revolutionaries required a bit of guidance in the methods of non-violent resistance, a bit of communications gear, and many words of encouragement. They did the rest. The same can and should be done elsewhere in the world (Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, China, North Korea . . .)

–Our democratic values are shared by the overwhelming majority of the people in the world, and are rejected, sometimes violently, by tyrants and their followers. We need to stick to our principles, which means that we cannot blindly and compulsively support all the policies of individual anti-democratic leaders just because they help us. That kind of support always gets us in trouble (as in the Middle East, where we are justly criticized for our many decades of support for corrupt tyrants). Sometimes we will have to make some compromises, but when we do, we must still support democratic forces–openly, unapologetically . . .

–You can’t always see the revolutionary forces inside oppressive countries, but, given a chance, they will emerge more often than not. We are the most successful revolutionary society in history, we have to stand with our people, everywhere . . .

I give Ledeen points for optimism, but I’d be more convinced that “a bit of guidance in the methods of non-violent resistance, a bit of communications gear, and many words of encouragement” will bring down the mullahs in Iran if there were a single example of a successful democratic revolution anywhere in the Arab world that Ledeen could cite. I’d be more convinced of the aptness of the Ukrainian parallel if there was any similarity at all between a struggling parliamentary democracy like Ukraine and a five-decades old tyranny like North Korea. And I’d be more convinced of the reality of “revolutionary forces” that we “can’t always see” because they’re inside “oppressive countries” if I hadn’t spent months listening to, and at times believing, the same argument about WMDs. (Sometimes we can’t see them because they aren’t there, it turns out.)

OUR PEOPLE?: Finally, and not to get too old-fashioned-realist here, but . . . the Iranians are not “our people.” Neither are the Syrians, the Saudis, the Chinese, or the North Koreans. And they do not become “our people” just by believing in democracy, or even by establishing democratic self-government. An Iranian democracy would be a good thing in countless ways — but it would also probably be just as hell-bent as the current regime on acquiring nuclear weapons, flexing its muscles in Iraq, and perhaps even sponsoring anti-Israeli terrorism. As such, it would be our strategic rival, not our brother nation, even were its constitution copied word-for-word from ours.

We would do well to remember this, should Michael Ledeen’s “democratic revolution” ever come to Tehran.

— Ross