In a particularly strained bit of analogizing, Andrew Sullivan compares the preconditions for democracy in Iraq with the current crisis in Gaza in order to argue that the neocon agenda is trapped by its own internal inconsistencies — and that the best way forward is for the US to leave Iraq:
[The unrealistic conviction that they could ever “impose” democracy on Iraq] is surely the self-contradiction at the heart of neoconservatism. Even at the maximum surge strength, America is helpless in the face of an Iraqi civil war that has only just begun, can be fuelled indefinitely by corrupt oil money, and is driven by centuries-old sectarian hatred between Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims and decades of totalitarian trauma. And yet the neocons insist we should plough on, adding more troops, planning on permanent bases for indefinite occupation.
First of all, it remains to be seen whether or not maximum surge strength will leave America “helpless” — and in places where the surge has begun as a dedicated counterterrorism measure, successes have been noticeable, although they may only be attributable to the insurgency relocating as a result of the miltiary push. Time will tell.
So to declare the surge a failure, as Sullivan does here, is fundamentally dishonest — as is the comparison he makes between the radicals in Gaza and those in Iraq.
Of course, Sullivan has no other choice, because his goal is to try to equate the two situations in a way that reflects poorly on neoconservatism and advances the argument that our best course of action in Iraq is to pull out and let the brown folks fight each other, with the US as an interested proxy. Much like when we backed Saddam against the Iranians in the 80s, I suppose:
[…] you can’t have it both ways. Either Arab culture without autocracy really is what we see in Gaza and Iraq or it isn’t. If it is, then trying to build western-style democracy during a brutal civil war in Iraq is a mug’s game.
We have, I think, two options. We can withdraw from Iraq and play the grand regional Shi’ite-Sunni war in the Middle East by proxy. Or we can enmesh ourselves much more deeply and irrevocably in a metastasising conflict. Such a conflict may well breed even more antiwestern terror and run the risk of inserting Americans into an ancient sectarian blood feud.
Or it may not, and the result could be a fledgling democracy that signals a sea change in the entirety of the middle east, and deals the kind of blow to Iran that leads to a popular uprising against the mullacracy. Which, far from being a mug’s game, may be the best bet for a stable middle east.
But either way, Sullivan’s premise sets up a false comparison — and I believe him wrong to take such an either/or position. Because the kind of Arab culture without autocracy we’re seeing in Gaza is the product of a very different historic dynamic than the Arab culture in Iraq; which is to say, the Islamization of Gaza, with Israel (and the US) set up as the enemy, is more easily accomplished by a client state like Iran in the Palestinian territories than it would be in Iraq, especially while the US, having deposed a hated dictator, is engaged in the fight to fully enact a moderate Constitution that the Iraqi people overwhelmingly supported, one that would in fact marginalize radicalism — which is precisely why Islamic radicals are so concerned with kicking up the kind of sand that convinces people like Sullivan that all is lost.
Argues Sullivan:
There are grave dangers in both options [staying engaged or pulling out our troops] and no one should underestimate the risks of withdrawal from a power vacuum we created. But surely the lesson of Gaza and Iraq is that occupation will not transform Arab culture for the better either. It may in fact make things worse.
Well, again, this is persuasive only if one looks at Gaza as analogous to Iraq, and simultaneously conceives of Iraq as a finished project as it now stands — ignoring the numerous roadblocks people like Sullivan have thrown into the path of democracy along the way, not the least of which is the constant threat that hangs over our every move that we may, in fact, pull out at any time, leaving those Iraqis who supported democratization hanging out to dry (much like we did in the wake of the first Gulf War).
Which is why Sullivan’s conclusion strikes me as so disengenous:
What I guess I’m saying is that if you take neoconservatism seriously as an analysis of Arab culture and the regional conflict in the Middle East, and you are primarily interested in the defence of the West, the case for cutting our losses in Iraq is a very strong one.
But somehow the neocons are afraid to follow their argument to its logical and inexorable conclusion. We need to leave. Soon. Or reap a gathering whirlwind.
Or it could be that the critics of the neocons are afraid to let the project succeed — and have decided it best to cover their own asses by posing as critics, when at this point what they are really doing is actively sabotaging the efforts.
Sullivan’s rhetorical conjoining of Gaza and Iraq, far from being an honest analogue, is rather an attempt to argue for the kind of realism that, ironically, gave us the infamous Rumsfeld / Hussein handshake photo — as well as the subsequent arguments about root causes, American complicity in a corrupt Arab culture, chickens coming home to roost, and little Eichmans.
His worry about a “power vacuum” that we “caused” suggests that he would have preferred the status quo — Iraq without a power vacuum, or, more precisely, Iraq “contained” and ruled by a brutal dicator. Which I don’t believe was always his position.
Nevertheless, while the foreign policy goal of neoconservatism has been to correct the mistakes of realist policy as a way to protect American interests in the future, it is, ironically (or cynically, take your pick) being met by those who would patronizingly argue that Arab states can only resist chaos and anarchy if they are ruled either by an autocrat (like Saddam) or else are fully radicalized.
Which, in essence, is an argument for a return to puppet governments and attempts by the CIA to structure the international geopolitical landscape.
A valid realist position to take, I should add, though hardly one I’d call progressive — and hardly one that conceives of Arabs as anything other than either savages to be contained, or else as collateral damage in life’s great viral / memetic evolutionary war.
Of course, much of my own analysis could be way off base — in which case I’ll just join my progressive critics in blaming the Klonopin.
(h/t Karl)
I imagine Sullivan circa 1946, would’ve sounded something like this-
"This Marshall Plan is nuts. The Germans have always been a warlike people, and who are we to think we can waltz in and shove democracy down their throats. Hitler was elected democratically, and look what that got the Germans! No, we should just leave and let them and the reas of Europe fight to see who ends up on top. We’ve been fighting over there for over FOUR YEARS and even though the regime is gone, the place is a mess and everyone over there hates us (well, except for the Jews I guess)."
I am almost embarassed to say that at one point in time, I read Sully regularly. For a time, prior to the war and the gay marriage issues, he struck me as a fairly thoughtful commentator, with an interesting perspective. I do not recall when the train went off of the tracks exactly, but his blather is as predictable as Mona pimpin’ GiGi, and Christine being a cunt=assholeTM. It is now either Chimpy McHitlerBurton/Gitmo/Abu Ghraib/torture advocate or gay marriage, and usually, a combination of the 2. I would almost give him a little credit if he would come out against the policies against homosexuality practiced by the jihadis, but that is expecting too much.
This seems like a dishonest comparison to me – they’re such distinctly different circumstances that it’s hard to see how we can generalize from the one experience to the other. Particularly since the civil war in Gaza seems to be between two groups of unoccupied Palestinians.
On the other hand, we could just shrug and declare this the two state solution!
I know it sounds a bit callous, but isn’t a situation where jihadis are killing other jihadis a good thing ?
That’s the worst part JD, Sully was for the Iraq war for all the right reasons intially.
Add a little Abughraib, some gay marriage and mix it with the road map to nowhere, and you have the "woe is me" Sully that appears to have been there all along.
It may be even worse than Jeff suggests.
As I wrote here earlier:
Installing democratic regimes — or trying to — is the Bush Admin policy based on the second theory.
If Sully is buying into the first theory (and, to a lesser degree, the third), what is his policy for dealing with Islamic terror networks? The first theory would, in the longer run, imply more brutal military action — which Sully would most certainly be against.
If he’s taking the position Jeff suggests, he is playing directly into the theory that US support for despots in the region breeds Islamic terrorists who want to strike at America. But Sully’s piece does not attempt to address that objection.
Or it could be that Sully is sliding into a complete capitulation… and doesn’t even realize it.
Karl – You are assuming a level of intellectual honesty that simply is not there.
JD and Nano,
As Cox and Forkum say, six of one…….
But isn’t Sullivan, or his fellow travelers, calling for action in Darfur? How is the brutal situation much different that what was happening in Iraq before the we took out Saddam? I believe the neo-con foreign policy was a needed replacement for ‘realism’. Realism had us constantly funding the scum of the earth so that they’d be ‘our bastards’. While that may have been the only option during the Cold War, the fall of the Soviet Union removed the underlying rational for it. It was, and is, that fact that we continue to deal with brutes like Assad, Mubarak, and the whole Saudi royal family, that really breeds resentment against the US.
To me the democratic realism which powers neo-con thinking is an attempt to bring our foreign policy back to the ideal of spreading freedom around the world. Freedom may be hard, and creating a civil society in which it can flourish is even harder, but it is not impossible. And it has a much better chance in a place where we are actively engaged, and a place with a history as a nation. Palestine, on the other hand, is an invention. Jordan is the part of Palestine that the Arabs got. What we see in Gaza is a result of not only a power vaccum, but of a ‘nation’ that nas no sense of nationalism or of itself. All they have is an ingrained culture of victimhood and an economy completely reliant on foreign aid.
This, amazingly, has a white-man’s burden ring to it.
Is this the motto of Sullivan’s neo-Arabism? It has a sentiment of longing for the days discussed in a previous thread, when foreign policy supported either one thug or the other, based upon which one was less anti-American.
I seem to recall a spokesman for the Fatah/Hamas government (when there was one) say, "The situation in Gaza was better under Israeli occupation. That was just before the current Palestinian civil war started.
To paraphrase:
I’ve come to the determination that Sullivan just isn’t all that bright.
Sounds like Chicago.
Indeed, it wasn’t.
As for a "helpless" America – somehow I have stopped believing Mr. Sullivan is very good at understanding the instruments of National Power, as he seems to only want to use one of the four generally recognized elements [DIME = Diplomacy, Information, Military and Economic]. I’ll let you guess which one…
I don’t think you’re wrong at all! That’s an excellent, insightful analysis, not only of the differences in Middle East Arab cultures, but of the consequences of a precipitous withdrawal for the future direction of American foreign policy. Well done!
“How is the brutal situation much different that what was happening in Iraq before the we took out Saddam?”
Well, Muslim on Muslim brutality is excusable, but Muslim on black isn’t. It’s not genocide, because they’re all varieties of Muslim. Bunches of murders don’t make a genocide, unless it’s divided up into categories simple enough for a progg to understand.
The shrieking from the left is their outrage at actually being called out. American support for dictators is the cause of all these problems? Fine, let us support democracy with all of our power – both hard and soft. Now that has happened the cries are that democracy cannot be forced on people.
Of course it can, but that leaves the responsibility in the hands of those people – empowers them, in the pop sociology speech. They cease being victims of American imperialism and become actors in their own right. How dare we do that and remove an easy B.S. talking point from the left? How evil can the Americans be, taking the left at their word and asking them to put up or shut up when they want to do neither?
That was unforgivable.
Dan, you are asking them to treat each human as an individual actor making choices and not as convenient pictures for placards, as human beings and not props in the fantasy play of their moral posturing and preening.
Sorry, Mikey. Sometimes my rosey-lensed idealism takes over. But, you know, Jeff could take a page from some of his liberal critics, and choose an ancient Greek nom de plume: Klonipinides.
Ancient Greek names? Then I choose Beerophon.
I get Testikles.
I got Testikles.
Beemorpheus here.
Dailykos?
Dan: I was avoiding #20, and I really don’t want to know about #21. Really. I’ll stick with Beer-o-fan, I mean, Beerophon.
OT: Does anybody question why there aren’t any pegasi around? You get your chariot washed and waxed, then…WHAM! Worse than pigeons.
Dan, I saw your Testikles and they’re nothing to write home about. (Sorry.)
I begin to wonder if Sullivan — outside of the obvious problem of being caught in a leftist contradiction, as noted by several commenters above — isn’t really losing his mind, literally, perhaps as an effect of one or another venereal disease: I used to read him on a regular basis, too, and I also don’t know when the trolley came off the rails; but he definitely seems to be losing his grip on reality.
Ghod: I never realized before that BDS was a real Mental Disorder….
Challeron: I’ve often wondered if the drug cocktail required to manage AIDS affects the mind. It may. Sullivan may be a very public example of it; but political correctness, which permits isolation of typhoid carriers but not AIDS carriers, will not suffer such assertions.
Let’s hope not, and let’s not spend any more time discussing it.
"Even at the maximum surge strength, America is helpless in the face of an Iraqi civil war that has only just begun…"
Wishful thinking on Sully’s part.
I think St. Andrew of the Blessed Heart-ache might be right. I mean, they have yet to legalize domestic partnerships, not to mention gay marriage in Iraq. Talk about a fucking quagmire.
Talk about a quagmire fucking.
There. Fixed that for you.
I can’t believe that you attack someone who’s helped you and guided you and only done good for you Jeff. I used to respect you man, but now? Bah.
I mean, blaming problems on Klonopin? What has Klonopin ever done to you what you didn’t already want to have done?
"Even at the maximum surge strength, America is helpless in the face of an Iraqi civil war that has only just begun…" And his evidence for this is what, exactly? This is a pronouncement of faith, the Nicene Creed of neorealism.