Notes on "Neo-Liberal" Foreign Policy
After directing some incendiary criticisms at a friend's recent political bloggage, I came across Edward Herman's article in Z Magazine trashing Michael Ignatieff's piece "Who Are Americans to Think That Freedom is Theirs to Spread?" Ignatieff, is a Harvard professor and regular contributor for the New York Times Magazine this summer, and his article(?), editorial(?) is indeed the unequivocally unadulterated crap Herman shows it to be. Unlike the NYT piece, there are no smoke or mirrors in the Z Magazine critique. What interest me, though, isn't Ignatieff's piss poor apologetics for the Bush administration or his prissy, logic-less rhetoric; what interests me is that he's not alone. He's got friends in "liberals" like Thomas Friedman and Peter Beinart as well as the rest of that farm team of the conservative big leagues The New Republic. It's Ignatieff's point of view, what I'll call neo-liberal foreign policy, that craves attention and definition.
So here it goes:
1. Liberals can be as tough as Republicans.
"Who Are Americans to Think That Freedom is Theirs to Spread?"
I'll start with the title. It takes a neo-liberal to pose this kind of question unironically; for interventionist conservatives, it isn't a question at all. By posing the question, the neo-liberal puffs out his chest to show he can toe the same line as the conversatives. By answering the question, the neo-liberal and raises his fists to duke it out toe-to-toe with the realities of the "real" (i.e., as seen by conservatives) world. He'll never deliver a knock out punch in this fight because the champ is in the other corner, and he doesn't care if how many sacrifices the neo-liberal has make to enter the ring, he knows he's got him beat. As that elitist bow tie, George Will said on This Week, we're the ones who aren't supposed to care, we're the realists.
2. The Problem with Operation Iraqi Freedom is technical, not ideological.
The Iraq War is the errand of America, the standard bearer of democracy, but the problem is, according to the neo-liberals, Bush is just the wrong errand boy (though Igatieff wouldn't say so). The problem with invading Iraq isn't invading Iraq, it's the poor planning and execution of the war. If we could only erase the atrocities of Abu Ghraib, the post-war plans gone awry, the Bush Administration, democracy would grow in Iraq. The only problem, the neo-liberal thinks, is that we didn't have smart enough people running things. With more precision, more Harvard graduates like the guys who eased Russia's economic transition from a Soviet economy to a capiatlist oligarchy, we could make democracy work.
3. The assumption that foreign countries don't want us to come in and exchange their oppressive regimes for a U.S. sponsored client democracy is American chauvinism. In other words: "the soft bigotry of low expections."
In debate we call this "case turn": the other side turns your own arguments and stance against you. Give Rove or whoever cooked it up some credit. It's conservativism that usually receives the blame for not caring about the poor and downtrodden. Here's Ignatieff's application: "most human beings, if given the chance, would like to rule themselves. It is imperialistic not to believe this. It might even be condescending to believe it."
Now I always thought that imperialism was one country extending its influence into another country, but I guess I stand corrected. Imperialism isn't an action, it's a belief. It's that word "condescending," though, that really turns the screw. For us to assume that Iraq doesn't want or can't have democracy is bigotry. In order to be truly open-minded, we must accept the possiblity that they want us to interfere with them. That's not imperialism. That's loving your neighbor.
Few would argue that we did the Iraqis a favor by getting rid of Saddam, though inspections were working, and the threat of (rather than an actual) invasion might have earned a more peaceful transition and fewer civilian deaths. But the "soft bigotry of low expectations" is really rhetorical excuse for American interference in other countries.
4. Liberals can be 'realists' too.
Conservativism, George Will said this morning, is realism. That's bullshit, but at least it shows how conservatives view themselves. The Neo-Liberals, like most conservatives, desperately want to see themselves as the bastions of this realism. In order to do so, they embrace conservative beliefs and hold up the straw men they call liberals who are out of touch with the populace, at best well-meaning idealists, at worst a "Michael Moore-style left," condescending, rude. In short, the despoilers of the Democratic Party. Neo-liberals espouse the necessity of interfering in the business of other countries because well, sometimes, you just have to be realistic. Interventionism isn't a matter of right and wrong; it's a matter of cost-benefit analysis. Here's how Igatieff describes the equation as it applies to Vietnam: "Noble dream or not, the price turned out to be just too high."
5. Spreading democracy is a legitimate excuse to extend our influence into other countries.
Our track record, however, has been less than auspicious. We have consistently worked to overthrow democratically governments we perceived as not in our favor: Iran, Chile, Nicaragua, Granada, and most recently, Haiti. We tell ourselves (or at least our leaders tell us) that our intentions are good, but in reality, we overwhelmingly support dictators, death squads, or whatever it takes to make other countries serve our purposes and work to overthrow those governments we don't like. That's why the rest of the world doesn't trust us any more. That's why liberals don't support interventionism: it denies history and cheapens democracy.
I don't know if there's a big difference between being a neo-liberal and a conservative Democrat. I'll have to think about it more. I'm not sure Hillary, for example really believes we should be in Iraq. I think she's too calculating to believe it. Igatieff et al., however, are clearly fooling themselves with the belief that the Left is alienating the Democratic party from the American people. Up until the last few months, the media had done the Texas Two-Step all the way to the right. The Left has really been left out of the debate altogether. It gets no coverage from the MSM. Once in a while, Victor Navasky or Katrina VandenHeuvel gets on a talking head show, but aside from Robert Reich, you never see true progressives on television. For liberals, you get the slightly left-of-center Cokie Roberts.
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So here it goes:
1. Liberals can be as tough as Republicans.
"Who Are Americans to Think That Freedom is Theirs to Spread?"
I'll start with the title. It takes a neo-liberal to pose this kind of question unironically; for interventionist conservatives, it isn't a question at all. By posing the question, the neo-liberal puffs out his chest to show he can toe the same line as the conversatives. By answering the question, the neo-liberal and raises his fists to duke it out toe-to-toe with the realities of the "real" (i.e., as seen by conservatives) world. He'll never deliver a knock out punch in this fight because the champ is in the other corner, and he doesn't care if how many sacrifices the neo-liberal has make to enter the ring, he knows he's got him beat. As that elitist bow tie, George Will said on This Week, we're the ones who aren't supposed to care, we're the realists.
2. The Problem with Operation Iraqi Freedom is technical, not ideological.
The Iraq War is the errand of America, the standard bearer of democracy, but the problem is, according to the neo-liberals, Bush is just the wrong errand boy (though Igatieff wouldn't say so). The problem with invading Iraq isn't invading Iraq, it's the poor planning and execution of the war. If we could only erase the atrocities of Abu Ghraib, the post-war plans gone awry, the Bush Administration, democracy would grow in Iraq. The only problem, the neo-liberal thinks, is that we didn't have smart enough people running things. With more precision, more Harvard graduates like the guys who eased Russia's economic transition from a Soviet economy to a capiatlist oligarchy, we could make democracy work.
3. The assumption that foreign countries don't want us to come in and exchange their oppressive regimes for a U.S. sponsored client democracy is American chauvinism. In other words: "the soft bigotry of low expections."
In debate we call this "case turn": the other side turns your own arguments and stance against you. Give Rove or whoever cooked it up some credit. It's conservativism that usually receives the blame for not caring about the poor and downtrodden. Here's Ignatieff's application: "most human beings, if given the chance, would like to rule themselves. It is imperialistic not to believe this. It might even be condescending to believe it."
Now I always thought that imperialism was one country extending its influence into another country, but I guess I stand corrected. Imperialism isn't an action, it's a belief. It's that word "condescending," though, that really turns the screw. For us to assume that Iraq doesn't want or can't have democracy is bigotry. In order to be truly open-minded, we must accept the possiblity that they want us to interfere with them. That's not imperialism. That's loving your neighbor.
Few would argue that we did the Iraqis a favor by getting rid of Saddam, though inspections were working, and the threat of (rather than an actual) invasion might have earned a more peaceful transition and fewer civilian deaths. But the "soft bigotry of low expectations" is really rhetorical excuse for American interference in other countries.
4. Liberals can be 'realists' too.
Conservativism, George Will said this morning, is realism. That's bullshit, but at least it shows how conservatives view themselves. The Neo-Liberals, like most conservatives, desperately want to see themselves as the bastions of this realism. In order to do so, they embrace conservative beliefs and hold up the straw men they call liberals who are out of touch with the populace, at best well-meaning idealists, at worst a "Michael Moore-style left," condescending, rude. In short, the despoilers of the Democratic Party. Neo-liberals espouse the necessity of interfering in the business of other countries because well, sometimes, you just have to be realistic. Interventionism isn't a matter of right and wrong; it's a matter of cost-benefit analysis. Here's how Igatieff describes the equation as it applies to Vietnam: "Noble dream or not, the price turned out to be just too high."
5. Spreading democracy is a legitimate excuse to extend our influence into other countries.
Our track record, however, has been less than auspicious. We have consistently worked to overthrow democratically governments we perceived as not in our favor: Iran, Chile, Nicaragua, Granada, and most recently, Haiti. We tell ourselves (or at least our leaders tell us) that our intentions are good, but in reality, we overwhelmingly support dictators, death squads, or whatever it takes to make other countries serve our purposes and work to overthrow those governments we don't like. That's why the rest of the world doesn't trust us any more. That's why liberals don't support interventionism: it denies history and cheapens democracy.
I don't know if there's a big difference between being a neo-liberal and a conservative Democrat. I'll have to think about it more. I'm not sure Hillary, for example really believes we should be in Iraq. I think she's too calculating to believe it. Igatieff et al., however, are clearly fooling themselves with the belief that the Left is alienating the Democratic party from the American people. Up until the last few months, the media had done the Texas Two-Step all the way to the right. The Left has really been left out of the debate altogether. It gets no coverage from the MSM. Once in a while, Victor Navasky or Katrina VandenHeuvel gets on a talking head show, but aside from Robert Reich, you never see true progressives on television. For liberals, you get the slightly left-of-center Cokie Roberts.
Mb
posted by Diana I. Bail at 10/08/2005 08:04:00 AM
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