With bated breath, last week I mentioned the big conference this week at Harvard's Middle East Strategy group of the Olin Institute, on American finding its way after Bush. A lot of neocons, and a guy named Adam Garfinkle from the American Interest journal who concluded recently that the problem with the Iraq war was "contracting fiascoes." This is a choice phrase I am going to keep repeating till I understand it. You may get sick of it, sorry, I'm slow.
Today I received a report on the conference from one of my farflung friends:
There were two panels: neocon realists who said America’s interests revolved around oil and another panel with neocon idealists that asked how the natives (Arabs) could be brought democracy (“the freedom agenda”). Part of the subtext for democracy promotion was the fear that our Egyptian and Saudi allies might one day be overthrown. Martin Kramer made numerous reference to the pathologies of the Arab world (and arguably there are many including a hideous Wahhabi/Saudi brand of fundamentalism) but made no mention of any other pathologies. The 2nd panel featured Joshua M (forgot his last name)(it's Muravchik, hon) and he blasted Walt Mearsheimer (another correspondent says he referred to the pair as "antisemitic bigots").
Broad themes/soundbites:
–Avoid the optics of defeat (vis-à-vis Afghanistan and the Taliban). They didn’t care about Afghanistan. The rise of the Taliban was not their concern. This I found shocking. Yup they used the phrase "optics of defeat," I scribbled it down. "We shouldn't look like we are losing."
–Adam Garfinkle: “Bringing the Iranian economy to its knees”
–Al-Qaeda was almost completely ignored. I mean I worry about the bastards and the grievous harm they’ve done to this country. But nope, not the neocons at this panel.
–They seemed to worry about Israel’s rough neighborhood and its security concerns. But none of the panelists wanted to let on that they might have any degree of devotion to the place. They blithely put themselves forward as “objective” scholars lauding a plucky nation not at all understood in this country
–The neocon idealists were not malevolent, but they simply don’t get that conflict in the Arab world structurally empowers the Islamists. I mean they can’t be that stupid, right?
–J. Scott Carpenter of WINEP said that Eliott Abrams was one of the biggest forces
behind the Bush "freedom agenda." OMG I thought: Abrams? One of the major architects of US democracy promotion? This
is scary. Carpenter cited Abrams's experience in Latin America and the lessons he learned he wants to apply to the Arabs. God
help us all.
The general mood was one of grimness. I didn’t quite understand why they looked so scared. There was a real attempt on their part to show that they’re good Americans dealing with American interests not some small lobby group.
I didn’t see any Harvard faculty excerpt for Kramer’s patron: Stephen Peter Rosen. No faculty from Center for Middle East Studies was present. No one – almost no Arabs!
