Spreading Democracy (again) 

Spreading Democracy (again)

In the rationales for invading Iraq, the U.S. tended to emphasize WMDs first, links to al Qaeda second, and liberating non-Americans third. The main reason for liberating non-Americans, as Bush has said, is that no American can be safe at home until all non-Americans are free, or something like that. What used to be a fantastic, utopian project, divorced from self-interest and common sense, is now the most practical way to prevent another 9/11.

At some point many Bushies must have realized there were few WMDs, if any. Probably no one with any credibility ever thought Saddam had nukes, or would have them soon, or was working directly with al Qaeda in any way. So the official pretexts were more than half smoke. Why were the Bushies so comfortable with them? Of course, the pretexts polled well--many Americans were comfortable with them. Beyond that, though, all these pretexts kept emphasizing to Americans: it is our safety that counts; we are not wooly-minded humanitarians. The implication always was: if we can win the war on terror without liberating Iraqis, or even by making their lives considerably worse, of course we will do it. (When I heard Bill Kristol in Toronto, he said something like: maybe Iraq isn't going so well; there are other countries). Many of the neo-cons, at least, don't believe that progress is possible if many countries are sacrificed--they really believe greater safety for Americans at home, and indeed for everyone, comes with spreading democracy.

I have to give Christopher Hitchens credit for his support for Wolfowitz on this. Hitchens still clearly has some loyalty to the Palestinians, and to almost any Communists. He hasn't shed his old campus politics, even as he has become a kind of Bushie.

But in this interview he is clear about what he likes in Wolfowitz, and it shows he was willing to see things "shaken up," in the hope that democracy would emerge, almost everywhere.

Wolfowitz and Kissinger disliked each other and disagreed very strongly with each other for a long time. I think the origin of the disagreement and the origin of Wolfowitz's political career is that he argued it was important to dump the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines. Base or no base, let it go and take the chances that this would have a ripple effect in the rest of Asia, which was just what Kissinger didn't want. As a result, there were outbreaks of democratic insurgency, starting with the Aquino election, in South Korea, in Taiwan, eventuating in Tiananmen Square, in fact, in 1989, which of course, Kissinger also opposed and took the side of the Chinese Stalinists. On the Middle East, the victory of the neo-conservatives is very paradoxical, because contra Bush, Eagleburger, Bush Sr., Scowcroft -- I've just mentioned, by the way, the two leading members of Kissinger Associates -- and others, Colin Powell. The argument of the neo-conservatives, or at least of the Wolfowitz wing, was, "We can't go on like this, running the Middle East as a kind of political slum of client states. We have to take the chance that destabilization would be worth it in the long run." That's what, that's still why the extreme right in the country, people like Buchanan and others, oppose it. Precisely for that reason. They and the pro-Saudi conservatives. To the extent I'm a neo-conservative, it would be because they're the only ones willing to take the radical risk of regime change.

While such stalwarts as Pat Buchanan and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay were allied with the angels, Bill Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, The National Review's John O'Sullivan and the editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal enlisted in Bill Clinton's cluster-bomb crusade and clamored for a ground war.

Whatever else he may be, Milosevic is no threat to the West. However objectionable his methods, in trying to thwart the establishment of another Islamic republic in Europe, he was doing us a favor.

When the Cold War ended, some conservatives forgot how to think strategically. Firepower should be saved for real threats (China, for instance), not wasted on conflicts that don't concern us.

There is, strange to say, an anti-nationalist element on the right, epitomized by The Wall Street Journal, that views nation-states as obsolete and envisions a world without borders governed by free trade and market principles.

Whenever a group like the Serbs threatens this emerging order by putting love of country and attachment to the land above the globalist vision, it becomes necessary to bomb them to an appreciation of international harmony.