Fareed Zakaria shouldn’t blame politicians for doing what’s politically necessary.
There’s a rather cruel old story about a man who, as an infant of three months, moved with his family to a small Maine town. He lived in the town for all of his 96 years, never setting foot outside the borders of the town. When he died, his fellow-citizens put on his tombstone: “He Was Almost One of Us”.
In a lengthy article looking Beyond Bush, Fareed Zakaria finds something to criticize in the positions of all of the present covey of candidates for the Presidency and stops just short of endorsing the candidacy of Barack Obama. He has no good words for the Republicans:
The competition to be the tough guy is producing new policy ideas, all right—ones that range from bad to insane.
He castigates Romney for the suggestion that U. S. mosques in which hatred is preached might be wiretapped and Giuliani for get-tough rhetoric. He notes, correctly, that American Muslims are not radicalized:
The crucial advantage that the United States has in this regard is that we do not have a radicalized domestic population. American Muslims are generally middle class, moderate and well assimilated. They believe in America and the American Dream. The first comprehensive poll of U.S. Muslims, conducted last month by the Pew Research Center, found that more than 70 percent believed that if you worked hard in America, you would get ahead.
implicitly cautioning against alienating that population. Unfortunately, imams in the United States
are less educated (and more radical) than Muslims in the U. S., generally. They are predominantly foreign-born and funded from overseas, often by some of the most reactionary religious extremists. While we shouldn’t hyperventilate about it, it seems to me that some prudent level of concern is warranted.
He isn’t a great deal easier on the Democratic candidates:
Though Democrats sound more sensible on many of these issues, the party remains consumed by the fear that it will not come across as tough. Its presidential candidates vie with one another to prove that they are going to be just as macho and militant as the fiercest Republican. In the South Carolina presidential debate, when candidates were asked how they would respond to another terror strike, they promptly vowed to attack, retaliate and blast the hell out of, well, somebody.
He goes on to praise Barack Obama’s hipshot reaction (which must have given his handlers some uncomfortable moments):
In fact, Obama’s initial response [ed. that he would bolster first responders] was the right one. He said that the first thing he would do was make sure that the emergency response was effective, then ensure we had the best intelligence possible to figure out who had caused the attack, and then move with allies to dismantle the network responsible.
Note that Fareed Zakaria doesn’t merely argue against overreaction. He’s arguing against reaction, specifically, that any reaction imperfectly targetted would be an overreaction and in this I don’t think that a youth spent in India, Ivy League education, and adulthood spent in Washington, DC and New York have furnished him with the political realities of the United States. The political realities that Mr. Bush faced in 2001 were that he had to respond. President Clinton would have done so (I heard him say as much after the invasion of Afghanistan). I suspect that President Gore would have done so.
Would President Gore have invaded Iraq? I don’t honestly know. I believe he would have been tempted to do so. If he had not, he would have had to contend with flagging sanctions and a Saddam Hussein which everyone at the time believed possessed weapons of mass destruction and was pursuing more.
But the president would have responded. Or been replaced in 2004 by someone who would. And every one of the other bad secondary effects that Mr. Zakaria points to would have come to pass.
Mr. Zakaria continues with concerns about the rhetoric of Democratic candidates:
For the Democrats, the new bogeymen are the poorest workers in the world—in China and India. The Democrats are understandably worried about the wages of employees in the United States, but these fears are now focused on free trade, which is fast losing support within the party. Bill Clinton’s historical realignment of his party—toward the future, markets, trade and efficiency—is being squandered in the quest for momentary popularity. Whether on terrorism, trade, immigration or internationalism of any kind, the political dynamic in the United States these days is to hunker down.
Liberalism ain’t what it used to be.
Mr. Zakaria ends on a hopeful note:
At the end of the day, openness is America’s greatest strength. Many people on both sides of the political aisle have ideas that they believe will keep America strong in this new world—fences, tariffs, subsidies, investments. But America has succeeded not because of the ingenuity of its government programs. It has thrived because it has kept itself open to the world—to goods and services, ideas and inventions, people and cultures. This openness has allowed us to respond fast and flexibly in new economic times, to manage change and diversity with remarkable ease, and to push forward the boundaries of freedom and autonomy.
It is easy to look at America’s place in the world right now and believe that we are in a downward spiral of decline. But this is a snapshot of a tough moment. If the country can keep its cool, admit to its mistakes, cherish and strengthen its successes, it will not only recover but return with renewed strength. There could not have been a worse time for America than the end of the Vietnam War, with helicopters lifting people off the roof of the Saigon embassy, the fallout of Watergate and, in the Soviet Union, a global adversary that took advantage of its weakness. And yet, just 15 years later, the United States was resurgent, the U.S.S.R. was in its death throes and the world was moving in a direction that was distinctly American in flavor. The United States has new challenges, new adversaries and new problems. But unlike so much of the world, it also has solutions—if only it has the courage and wisdom to implement them.
He’s right that the idea that we are in decline is absurd—look at which way the canoes are headed. How many people are immigrating to China or Iran? As to why we may be discouraged, the relentless PR campaign against us being waged all around the world as well as by our own media and politicians may have something to do with opinion here and overseas.
I’m not arguing that retaliation is right, just, or effective. But, when attacked, America will respond and, if the president doesn’t do it, Americans will find a president who will. That’s the political reality here and Mr. Zakaria should know that.
Response without rationality. What a lovely epitaph.
Hi Dave:
I think it highly unlikely that any other president (including Republican) would have moved on Iraq, and doubly hard to argue that would have been the case.
The current president and the particular configuration of advisers at the time were unique in that they created the atmosphere for an Iraqi adventure. I fail to see how Iraq would have been a natural progression from the Afghanistan campaign without those individuals in place. I can think of other parts of the world that were more likely future targets (Somalia, Sudan, etc.)–but the Iraq misadventure was the child of the collective brain trust in power at the time.
The above commenters are pretty much correct: you have to squint very hard to believe that Afghanistan wasn’t sufficient reaction, and that we had to attack Iraq as well.
You also have to do some odd doublethink to suggest that Saddam would have been some uniquely troublesome problem had we not gone to war with him – yes, the sanctions were flagging and Iraq’s WMD status was troublesome, but post 9/11 we easily had the political and diplomatic capital to reinforce sanctions and restart inspections, had we choosen to do so.
Dave, bottom line is, you’re saying here that “we HAD to do something”. But the truth is, we DID do something, and you shouldn’t let a blind desire to “do something” excuse doing DUMB stuff.
I am not in the least defending the invasion of Iraq: I opposed it from the very start; I opposed the AUMF. I’m merely pointing out what every presidential candidate, Republican or Democrat knows but Fareed Zakaria, apparently, does not: that responding to attacks, at least on our own soil, is politically necessary.
Dave-
If you’re not defending the invasion of Iraq, you might want to reword your post a bit. It’s hard to read statements like:
“Note that Fareed Zakaria doesn’t merely argue against overreaction. He’s arguing against reaction, specifically, that any reaction imperfectly targetted would be an overreaction…”
…and not think of the “imperfectly targeted” Iraq, especially when you follow it up with hypotheticals about what President Gore might have done in Iraq, and bring up the same “Saddam could not be contained” talking points that pro-war folks were using to get us into Iraq in the first place.
I have no doubt that you were against the invasion of Iraq, but you surely can’t be unaware that the argument you’re making above closely resembles the arguments that pro-war folks are still making today about the validity of the war.
That Mr. Zakaria is convinced that inaction is better than action which may well strike the wrong targets can hardly be disputed if you read the article itself and, perhaps, that’s prudent advice. But the point of this post is that it is advice that can’t be taken.
I also don’t feel compelled to defend myself against the charge that somebody else might be making an argument that I’m not making for reasons that I don’t have. Why should I?
Anyone who thinks that a Democrat president, even Al Gore, capable of being elected in any but an exceptional period (such as post-Watergate) would not go to war when necessary in his opinion is simply misleading themselves. The Democrats have different criteria for war (national interest, the Republicans’ main raison de guerre, is discarded almost entirely, while alleviating human suffering where it is possible to do so and get good press – such as Bosnia but not, notably, Rwanda – is more prominent). You can argue which set of preconditions for war is better, more just, more reasonable or what have you. But to argue that a Democrat wouldn’t take the country to war is just silly; it’s contradicted by the history of all of our Democrat presidents bar perhaps Jimmy Carter.
Also, on America having the prestige after 9/11 to strengthen the Iraq sanctions regime, it should be noted that the regime continued falling apart after 9/11, and the French and Russians (in particular) were arguing for loosening those sanctions as late as the fall of 2002. Moreover, this is an argument that soft power, rather than hard power, would have been a better instrument to solve the issue of Iraq. It’s arguable, but my tendency is to doubt it.
Whether or not we should have gone into Iraq when and how we did (I think we were right to do so), and whether or not we should stay now until we win (I think we should), neither of those arguments is relevant to what Dave is describing. When America is attacked, the Jacksonians go nuts, and they don’t stop until they are sated. Afghanistan did not sate them; Iraq did. If there is another attack – had the JFK plot succeeded for example – to think that the Jacksonians would be willing to not respond is folly. Similarly, the Hamiltonians would want to respond, because terrorism acts against public order and thus against business interests. Jeffersonians might be willing to not respond to such an attack beyond a narrowly-targeted response. Wilsonians are probably disgusted enough with the outcome of the Iraqi occupation at this point that they would be willing to drop the Pottery Barn Rule.
In other words, it was politically impossible for President Bush not to respond in force, and anyone who was president at that time would have been similarly forced to respond. And none of the plausible presidents could have stopped with Afghanistan. We can argue where a putative President Gore would have gone after Afghanistan, but he would assuredly have gone somewhere. Moreover, at this point, if we are attacked again, the odds are the we would respond – and not in a limited, narrowly-targeted way, either.
The funny thing is, a lot of anti-war people say that “you can’t kill over a billion Muslims.” But they’ve got it wrong: it’s actually much, much easier to kill over a billion Muslims without any discrimination at all than it is to kill the right ten thousand or hundred thousand jihadis without killing anyone else. If President Bush’s strategy of forcing the Muslims to confront modernity and representative government fails, it is very likely that there will be a genocide, and possibly a nuclear genocide, within the next decade or two.
Dave:
Believe me I know you were not in favor or the Iraq escapade (I position I respect you highly for). But the way you frame the post (or parts of it) does imply that political forces in the United States would have required the kind of inappropriate Iraqi campaign by ANY presidential figure–at least, that is how I read it (even after re-reading the post and Zakaria article). If we are attacked America will respond–I do not dispute this nor the idea that one cannot excel or survive in American politics by acting any other way. What I do dispute is that Iraq would have been a target of any other president due to this political incentive. That is what your post (or parts of it I should say) seems to imply, at least to me.
Dave-
That Mr. Zakaria is convinced that inaction is better than action which may well strike the wrong targets can hardly be disputed if you read the article itself and, perhaps, that’s prudent advice. But the point of this post is that it is advice that can’t be taken.
You have an unwarranted assumption here: you’re suggesting that Zakaria is arguing for inaction, full stop, if the rightful target can’t be immediately identified. I don’t see him or Obama arguing for that – I see them arguing that action should be postponed until the guilty party can be identified. (And note that “postponed” can actually mean a fairly long time in this context – it was nearly a month before we went to war in Afghanistan, in part because we did take the time to work out what had happened, rather than hitting anyone and everyone who mighthave been involved.)
It’s an interesting question to ask what Obama or Zakaria would do if they bad guys couldn’t be ID’d within a certain time frame, but I don’t think there’s any real info on how either of them would answer that hypothetical, and so I don’t think your assumption is warranted.
I also don’t feel compelled to defend myself against the charge that somebody else might be making an argument that I’m not making for reasons that I don’t have. Why should I?
Well, because you’re attempting to communicate with other people, and you’re doing so in a context where certain words and arguments have built up unavoidable associations. Regardless of whether it’s fair for you to have to do so, your ideas will get across much better if you avoid the appearance of making certain arguments… as a lot of the grief you’ve gotten about the Iraq war on this very thread should prove. I mean, yes, you can argue that you’ve been misread by a lot of the commenters here… but wouldn’t it have been better to avoid the issue entirely by making it clear you weren’t trying to support the Iraq war?
People seemed to forget how a majority of Democrats and Republicans before Bush came into office supported “regime change” in Iraq. Certainly that is not the same as supporting an invasion and toppling of Saddam, but the chances of military action, even short of invasion, were always quite strong and would have remained so had someone else won the 2002 election. Although not well known, Saddam planned to invade Kuwait again late 1994 and was only deterred when the preparations were detected and the US put thousands of troops into Kuwait.
Given the nature and history of Saddam and his regime, I believe it’s likely that some incident could have easily occurred to drive a Democratic President into invasion of Iraq, particularly once the majority of the sanctions regimes were gone or circumvented. It would not have been preemptive war, but it would be war nonetheless.
Chris, I was still in the service at the time and responsibility for 9/11 was known and confirmed within a day or two. The reason for the delay was not to “work out what happened,” but to get our forces in place, negotiate with Pakistan and other countries for overflight and basing rights, and to plan and deploy for the actual operation.
Chris, I was still in the service at the time and responsibility for 9/11 was known and confirmed within a day or two. The reason for the delay was not to “work out what happened,†but to get our forces in place, negotiate with Pakistan and other countries for overflight and basing rights, and to plan and deploy for the actual operation.
Andy, I said the delay was in part because we were working out what had happened – and while it’s true OBL was ID’d as a prime suspect fairly quickly, the investigation still took far longer than a few days.
More importantly, while it is true that a good portion of the delay was to move our troops, negotiate, etc., it’s also true that we also gave the Taliban at least some amount of time to meet our demands, and that we went in after it was clear that they would not do so. Since my point was basically that we didn’t automatically kick the crap out of anybody and everybody for the sake of retaliation, I think my point still stands.
I interpreted this (from the original article cited above)
as approval from Mr. Zakaria for a passive response. Perhaps I’m being too hard on Mr. Zakaria.
There is no time limit on “the best intelligence possible”. There will always be more information.
He said that Bush should be commended for his action in Afghanistan…I don’t think he disagreed on that as you said