On Sunday the Washington Post editors commented:
In fact, much of the controversy over the negotiations is based on misinformation, some of it spread by Iran’s proxies in Iraq. There are claims that the Bush administration is seeking to establish scores of permanent U.S. bases. In fact, Iraq has merely asked that the agreement list the bases from which American forces would be permitted to operate. It is claimed that the deals would perpetuate the U.S. “occupation.” In fact, they would be a major step in the opposite direction, by placing American troops under the sovereignty of the Iraqi government rather than the United Nations. If the United States were to make a formal commitment to defend Iraq from external aggression, congressional consideration and approval of the pact would be appropriate. For now, the biggest risk is that Tehran and its allies will pressure Mr. Maliki into backing away from a partnership with Washington. In that case, Iran would hasten to substitute itself as Iraq’s defender and strategic ally, with momentous implications for the rest of the Middle East. Surely this is not what the Democrats want.
It is interesting that they acknowledge that there is so much “misinformation” about a key development in Iraq, perhaps another tacit admission that the American media has done an abysmal job of late in relating the extent of political changes in Iraq. There are, of course, two options for the Iraqi government if they do not want Americans to bug out immediately (which they do not) : go to the UN for a new resolution or work out a status of forces agreement (SOFA). The Iraqis, who as the Post editors point out, will enjoy greater control and authority with a SOFA will likely in the end hash out a SOFA, but if not the UN alternative remains available. In a meeting with John McCain on Sunday the Iraqi foreign minister sounded an optimistic note on the SOFA negotiations.
As Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack pointed out last week in their Brookings Institute briefing, the negotiations reveal the emergence of a fully sovereign and national Iraqi government in which public opinion of Iraqi citizens plays a real role. Like so many other developments — the revival of the national police force, the effective functioning of brigades with mixed Sunni and Shia forces, the abatement of civilian violence and the emergence of Maliki as a national figure — the American media has essentially ignored the significant developments resulting from and accompanying the surge. We can ponder why but the result is that the American public and elected leaders have a fundamentally incomplete and therefore inaccurate picture of Iraq.
And it is nice to hear that although he won’t be going to Iraq himself anytime soon or getting briefed by our commanders there Barack Obama will get more up to speed from the Iraqi foreign ministerwho remarked after his Sunday meeting with McCain: “It’s in our interest, in fact, to brief both candidates on the reality of the situation, the way we see it from our perspective, from people who’ve been at the thick of this conflict.”
Perhaps the Post editors could ask their colleagues on the news side to start running stories to explain all of this so that our current debate reflects reality. But it’s so much easier to say “nothing’s changed.” Easier, but wildly inaccurate.
Obama is certainly abandoning Bush’s liberty agenda for his Fakism: that is, old style support of autocrats covered by New Agey, multiculturalist rhetoric about “respect.” The struggle over the next few years will simply be to keep the idea of a “liberty strategy” alive, as the Left will use the prodigious means at their disposal to discredit it forever. This means not only developing a suitably complex understanding (as Wehner does here) of liberal democratic transition, but, in my view, a clearer view of the strategic role of “regime change.” Regime change should be seen as a way of forging new alliances with the peoples of the region against our enemies–in other words, it’s not a question of across the board efforts at democratization. It is a new way of war–otherwise, it becomes an academic exercise, managed and processed to death by bureaucrats and diplomats. It is the most powerful lever to use against terrorist and tyrants–that we will empower the people they oppress to defeat them. We can hope that the power of example will ultimately transform those countries whose governments don’t at present oppose us, but we can’t aim at that directly.
If Peter Wehner wants to play global emancipator he should do so on his own dime and send his own kids to martyr in Iraq or wherever. Realism is back, thank God. The era reckless adventurism concocted by wild-eyed cracker ignoramuses like Dubya is over. Considering the total failure of his every policy recommendation, Wehner should really go crawl in a dank basement and hide himself in shame– oh, but Commentary is a dank basement….
It is fascinating watching “progressives” who’ve lectured everyone about the sins of America in supporting dictatorships and oppressive regimes during the Cold War now turn silent when America embraces that same amoral approach when it no longer faces nuclear annihilation.
President Obama is freely willing – in total silence – to work with oppresive regimes and dictators and respect their sovereigny if they unclench their fists against us. Meanwhile, they can use that fist ad libitum, so to speak, against their own people without one word of criticism from the US. Respect, you see, is the new game in town.
And so with this new sophisticated approach, the Arab and Muslim people will believe in the US again like they did, the President said, 20 years ago (check that history out). After all, we stopped harsh interrogation, closed Gitmo (to be seen), and will give them full (or near) rights when held by us. Meanwhile, these same new believers in the shining city on the hill will find themselves shot and tortured and arrested and oppressed by governments that the US thinks are just fine.
Forgive me if I’ve seen this plot before. It doesn’t turn out so swell.
Realism is back, thank God.
So you believe that our uncritical support with repressive regimes that torture, shoot, and murder their own people will win over the hearts and minds of those same people?
Is it one thing to use hard power to install democracy around the world. There are limits and high costs to that approach. But for the US to silently work with these dictators while they oppress their people will also have a cost. We’ve seen this movie before.
Closing Gitmo might win over a few people in the Arab and Islamic world. Remaining silent – not bombing or invading, but being silent – while governments open up even worse camps to imprison their people is going to lose a lot more people.
At least we may be starting to get some truth in advertising, finally–”ksilim” is very clear, no “hopenchange” for this guy. We’re back to coddling dictators, and not a moment too soon. At least that makes the terms of the discussion clear.
ksilim is also clear–it’s now OK to use racial slurs like “cracker.” What a breath of fresh thinking!
Adam for comment of the day!
“The reality is that such undertakings [as the Domino Democracy™ of the neocomrades] can be enormously complicated and don’t work in a linear fashion.”
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Dr. Limbaugh was barkin’ and bellowin’ yesterday about BHO unfairly pretending to be a Reagan Democrat. [1] I laughed at the performance, but clearly I laughed too soon, for here are GOP Neocomrades P. Wehner and F. von ‘Ajamí playin’ much the same game, call it, loosely, “Dish the Whigs.” The lines about the world being more complicated than the vulgar suppose it properly belong to us l*b*r*l fiends — every schoolboy knows that.
The honourable and gallant Party agitpropper from Johns Hopkins University did manage to add a little value to what he swiped, namely that nonlinearity _shtyk_ that caught his commentarian ideobuddy’s fancy. For full appreciation, however, one needs to examine the _Urtext_, in the _Wall Street Jingo_ of 28 January [2]:
“Say what you will about the style — and practice — of the Bush years, the autocracies were on notice for the first five or six years of George. W. Bush’s presidency. (…) True, Mr. Bush’s diplomacy of freedom fizzled out in the last two years of his presidency, and the autocracies in the Greater Middle East came to a conviction that the storm had passed them by and that they had been spared. But we are still too close to this history to see how the demonstration effect works its way through Arab political culture.”
Talk about ‘nonlinear’! After his Boy’s alleged six fat years of democratifacture, Neocomrade F. ‘Ajamí skips over two lean years and then blandly announces the Big Party’s perfect willin’ness to take credit for anythin’ good that may happen to turn up, Obama Administration in power to the contrary notwithstanding.
That is really pretty nifty, as partisan parlour games go.
But, as usual in such cases, any number can play. The present keyboard, for instance, can claim with equal warrant that whatever good emerges in the neo-Levant of 1430/2009 comes out of the pipeline laid down by Jimmy Crater. Or why not out from under Woodrow Wilson’s enormously convoluted overcoat?
Happy days.
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[1] http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_012809/content/01125106.guest.html
[2] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123310499999722371.html
“At least we may be starting to get some truth in advertising, finally–”ksilim” is very clear, no “hopenchange” for this guy. We’re back to coddling dictators, and not a moment too soon. At least that makes the terms of the discussion clear.”
That’s an interesting assertion – just when did we STOP coddling dictators? As I recall, Saudi Arabia was a close ally in Bush’s war on terror – and – also interestingly enough, one of the first things the Obama administration did was call out China on currency manipulation – I sure don’t recall Bush going after the biggest dictator of them all – but you should say what you REALLY mean – when the dictator is small and weak and inneffectual, we’ll be real tough guys on the block.
We should make no apologies for getting rid of small and weak dictators if it is strategically and morally right to do so–we’re not proving our manliness in the schoolyard here. We’re protecting those who are much smaller and weaker than even the smallest and weakest dictator–their victims. At any rate, if Obama is going to start supporting the victims of tyrannical regimes, large and small, pressing for democracy and insisting upon it when we confront tyrannical enemies–well, then he’ll be a neo-con, and if he does a better job of it than Bush that’ll be fine with me. So far, though, Bush took one very significant step in that direction; and Obama, in his inaugural and his interview on Arab TV, took a medium step backward. That’s what the discussion is about.
I am also in favor, though, of an exemption for tyrannical regimes that verifiably and consistently fight with us against our enemies; I will also say that I don’t believe that Saudi Arabia has ever fallen into that category. Bush’s own declared policy provided us with the best terms for criticizing his policy toward Saudi Arabia.
Ksilim’s comment proves one and only one thing. “Realism is back, thank God.” Actually, Racism is back, would be more appropriate. Why else would ksilim use the term “cracker”?
Democracy expansion – which would have to take place on different levels and in different spheres – is the work of generations. As I’ve argued on previous threads, including the earlier one on Ajami, Obama’s opening moves raise legitimate concerns, but it’s far too early to characterize the Obama approach either as old-fashioned amoral Realpolitik or as Neoconservatism in a pink dress or as anything else. By the same token, there is much to criticize about the Bush policy, but a useful critique doesn’t begin and end with the top headlines, much less with the familiar far left renditions of them, but with a fair accounting of what was really attempted and of the range of results achieved.
Thanks Kslim you just add more evidence to the adage: Liberals are abject cowards
ksilim Says:
“Considering the total failure of his every policy recommendation, Wehner should really go crawl in a dank basement and hide himself in shame– oh, but Commentary is a dank basement….”
Really? EVERY policy recommendation? That is a bold statement. News for You: Not everything succeeds! Wow! Strange that you would see fit to comment on a blog like this to say such rude and meaningless things.
The only way a genuine democratic capitalism could grow from the hard, unprofitable soil of the mideast, is it were to arise in the wake of the passage of a new American Sherman and a Patton.
First there must occur the uprooting, the demolishing, the “making straight the paths.” Valleys must be filled in and mountains levelled.
Minarets must be raised to the ground. And all of the baggage and long accumulated trappings of the prevailing pathology must be laid low.
ONLY THUS, will the soil be ready to receive the new seed. ONLY THUS will the people prove receptive.
Brutal thoughts.
Grim realities.
And all of this languid, faculty lounge and parlour games, all of that only puts off the reckoning.
But the reckoning will come.
Hark! The reckoning is nigh………………..