Liberal internationalists are now doing their utmost to distance themselves
from Bush, but Wilsonian liberal internationalism is what got us into Iraq; and Hillary Clinton is the "paladin" of these liberals. That is realist Mike Desch's argument in the latest National Interest, at newsstands (are there still newsstands?), and not yet online, but soon to be.
Let me lay out the argument. Wilsonian internationalists are selling themselves to Obama in the book Desch is reviewing as a departure from the last 8 years. But in fact, they were a big part of the problem. They supported the interventions in Europe of the 90s out of Wilsonian exceptionalism: the idea that democracies make peace, militarist states violate human rights–and so regime change is a good thing. The book's co-author Anne Marie Slaughter, dean of the Wilson School (and moderator of the Ross-Mearsheimer debate on the lobby at Cooper Union two years ago) supported the Iraq war on that basis.
The core of the rush to war was the Wilsonian view that Iraq would
become benign if it was a democracy. And this hubris wasn't just Bush's
hubris: it was the liberal internationalists', who were as excited as
the neocons were by the idea of the US as a progressive hegemon post
Cold War. Madeleine Albright called the US "the indispensable nation." The WMD claim and the link to Al Qaeda claim were added on later, Desch says. Some excerpts:
addition to both exaggerating the threat from Saddamâs tin-pot dictatorship and
underestimating the difficulty in substituting democracy for it, the bridge
between Wilsonianism and the Bush Doctrine is the post-Holocaust development of
international law to include âduty to protect,â which justified the violation
of Iraqi sovereignty on human rights grounds. A major part of the story
of the Iraq War is the broad domestic âcoalition of the willingâ the Bush
Administration assembled, including many Democrats in Congress and the
chattering classes. The fact that this war could also be seen as a
humanitarian operation undoubtedly contributed to the flock of liberal hawks who roosted with the Bush Administration on the pro-war perch.
[Co-authorTony] Smith makes the provocative claim that âto the extent that there was an
organized caucus on foreign affairs within the Democratic Party, its members
supported the terms of the Bush Doctrine as their own, modified only by their
invocation of multilateralism.â
[O]n two
key elements of the Bush Doctrine â the imperative of the spread of democracy
and the potentially benign role of U.S. hegemony â there was actually a fair
amount of continuity between the Clinton and Bush Administrations…
Slaughter presents herself as the repentant hawk, who like Wilson ,
learned her lesson after the disastrous unilateral intervention into Iraq.
Unfortunately, Wilson
was a recidivist who, rather than consistently embracing multilateralism
and international law after 1914, continued his unilateral interventions.
And one suspects that given her support for the Clinton Administrationâs
humanitarian interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo, which even though conducted
under the rubric of NATO were widely regarded in Europe as unilateral,
Slaughter would not be averse to the Obama Administration doing the same in
Darfur, particularly it it was also conducted behind the fig-leaf of an
international organization.
I'm reminded of James North's patient analysis of the Darfur situation on this blog, showing that intervention would be hairy. And also of the reasons I'm isolationist: I'm not for any war I wouldn't be willing to fight in. (I was for the Afghanistan war; they were harboring the bastards who attacked my city.)
"I was for the Afghanistan war; they were harboring the bastards who attacked my city."
– I think the word should be 'patsies'.
Phil, after several years of blogging on the topic(s)I thought by now you would understand "Why the bastards attacked my city"
'In addition to both exaggerating the threat from Saddamâs tin-pot dictatorship and underestimating the difficulty in substituting democracy for it, the bridge between Wilsonianism and the Bush Doctrine is the post-Holocaust development of international law to include âduty to protect,â which justified the violation of Iraqi sovereignty on human rights grounds.'
This is exactly what I've referred to time and again as the "two-party regime," which meets at the axis of Zionism and neo-imperialism/totalitarianism. The Corporatists on the Right, and the left-wing neo-Bolshevik internationalists are all using American Empire to project their twisted, greedy, power-mad ambitions worldwide, with the Zionist/post-Holocaust "we must protect the Jews at all costs" narrative as the Trojan Horse, both explicitly (ie Iran) and as sub-text (ie, in the case of the Iraq war.)
As is the case with all Empires, the host countries' best interests are subordinated to the ambitions of the "elite" running the show from the imperial capital, and freedom and liberty is undermined at home and ultimately strangled to prevent the peons in the provinces from objecting to the imperial project.
Obviously, organized Jewry, as the "keeper" of the Holocaust narrative and Zionism, is crucial to the totalitarian project. But their crucial role is nothing new. Consider this review of Benjamin Ginsburg's The Fatal Embrace, Jews and the State:
'The opening chapter shows how Jews have played key roles throughout history in building liberal, absolutist, monarchist and socialist regimes, offering their services and skills in exchange for protection and opportunity–a sometimes "fatal embrace" that, in Ginsberg's analysis, often provokes organized anti-Semitism.'
link to amazon.com
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And why should it not? Theyâre basically collaborating with totalitarians and imperialists to enslave us all, and much of the world.
Finally, are people beginning to realize that Bush doctrine was just an uglier manifestation of 'humanitarian war' that I suppose was the Clinton doctrine. Been arguing this for years — much of the support for the war in Iraq grew directly from the Serbia precedent.
including many Democrats in Congress and the chattering classes.
Wonderful! Since we only drop bombs on other people's heads for very best of of reasons*, we may just as well have another Martini. I take three olives, please!
* Yaron Brook suggested that concerning certain countries even an atom bomb would save lives in the long run. So some martyrs are good martyrs and the others are bad ones.
I think I have to read this.
Phil: I'm not for any war I wouldn't be willing to fight in. (I was for the Afghanistan war; they were harboring the bastards who attacked my city.)
I'm curious Phil, it was a small band of militants, Al Qaeda, who brought the attack. I do not know if the Taliban were aware.
I am quite sure Mossad were aware of the pending attack.
Who are more culpable Mossad or the Taliban. If the Taliban were unaware, it seems you would be fighting a war in the wrong place, this should be in reply to USS Liberty should it not.
The Israelis were equally at fault if you wish to point the blame at the Taliban. I thought this was less about tribalism.
"But who helped to create non-state actors? We did. " Says Mondoweiss just a few posts ago.
Bill Clinton (the draft dodger):
"I'd get a rifle and run right up to to the front to defend Israel!"