• Spelling out the "draining the swamps" theory

It seems to me that right now there is clearly a world wide consensus that Bush and the neo-cons have got it completely wrong in Iraq. Those who supported the war (from both the right and the left) are currently quite isolated. In my view this reflects a deep misunderstanding of the real war aims  - something which is not all that surprising given the mixed messages coming from the USA (not to speak of its history since WW2). 

On this site, we have frequently used the phrase "draining the swamps" ¹ to characterize what we see as the deep change in US  policy that has taken place  under  the Bush administration This metaphor suggests that you only eradicate the mosquitoes if the swamp is drained; there's no long-term point in trying to eliminate them individually or in groups without paying attention to the conditions that breed them in the first place.  The US is not so much engaged in a "war on terror" as with the forces of reaction and oppression which have given rise to terror. This has nothing in common the pseudo-left position of sympathizing, excusing and "understanding" terror. 

There are clear, self-interested and essentially historical reasons for why the most farsighted members of the US ruling elite are now pushing for a democratic Middle East.  Bush and the neo-cons realized (way ahead of a large section of the US ruling elite) that they had no option but to jettison their old policy of maintaining stability in the ME by propping up the worst dictatorships (and even gong so far as to allow CIA funding of several jihadist groups). However their  interests as a relatively declining power (the last superpower) are now firmly connected to globalization and the standards of modernity required of this era.  It has thus become historically necessary for them to "drain the swamps" by kick-starting a process of real and progressive change in the ME.

Not surprisingly,  this policy is currently quite a radical and risky one for them to be following and its necessity does not guarantee its success in the short term. This is shown by the reality that a significant section of the US ruling elite has failed to understand it and is working hard to undermine it.

The genuine left has always supported the spread of progress, democracy and modernity. We therefore stand firm against the rising cacophony of voices from both right and "left" bewailing and predicting  "disaster", "instability", "civil-war" across the ME. 

The "humanitarian argument" in favour of the war falls increasingly flat when those who espouse it fail to also stress that what is actually happening in Iraq is not simply the toppling of a fascist dictatorship and its replacement  by a democracy but an historically necessary democratic revolution  aimed at triggering change across the entire region. Given the reality that  deep change  although joyous and liberating  when successful, is also by its very nature, disruptive and  painful, it is necessary for the Left  to make the point that this change in the ME is one that had to happen sooner or later.  The choices were between leaving the swamp as it is for a while longer, perhaps leaving it to implode all by itself ( a far worse scenario than what we are seeing now) or siding with those who have seized the historical  opportunity to make it happen now.

What shocks the conservative right and their pseudo-left allies (along with an increasing segment of progressive left liberals) is that this turns out to something very different from utopian dreams of an easy transition via the installation of pro-US democracies.  In Iraq for instance the currently elected government is strongly Islamist  and has already opposed the US  on several issues.

The pseudo-left speaks with the same voice as the conservative right on this issue - bewailing the lack of stability and arguing that Bush et al are (variously) incompetent/stupid/naive/ evil/ mad.  From a Left perspective however  it seems clear that  although there have indeed been  some  very serious problems along the way (the US army  has certainly had  no recent experience  as a liberating force) , Bush et al are not stupid  – they know what they are doing and are behaving in a way that does make real world sense.

It's confusing of course because the last superpower is playing a complex game of simultaneously trying to:

• maintain a degree of popular support at home
• mollify the conservative right
• maintain its image as an almighty superpower (when in reality it can no longer do just what it wants)

• avoid full acknowledgement of the reactionary nature of its previous policy

Thus we have the continual neo-con framing of the war as "a war on terror" with only the occasional explicit admission of the highly radical changes that the last superpower has in fact kicked off. 

It seems to me that neo-con policy has always been to get this thing going and unleash the changes to the point of no return,  rather than to win support for their actual policy.  Thus they launched the war with the claim that it was all about WMDs and have continued to duck and weave ever since.   This makes sense given the urgency of the task and the minuscule chance of having convinced Congress to fund a war of liberation.

Having got the ball rolling they can now be fairly sure that the worst that can happen is a slowing down. There can be no turning back. Even a Democrat president  will have no choice but to stay the course. 

The mass confusion about what's really going on has now extended to many progressive left liberals who supported the war.

In order to combat this sort of confusion  it is necessary  to stress that although the US can push things in the right direction it cannot simply "impose democracy" in the  same way that it was previously able to impose puppet governments. Having devoted decades to mainatining  the ME as a stagnating swamp, rife with backward, fundamentalist and anti-western ideology, it's not so easy to just march in and establish a democratic culture. The initial stages will of necessity require the inclusion of quite reactionary, fundamentalist groups with the resulting elected governments being anti-US, not strongly secular, influenced by Sharia law and so on.  Nevertheless this process is the only way to effectively reduce and eventually destroy the traction of the worst ideas of these groups.

A particular arena of confusion involves the Palestinian question.  From a "draining the swamps perspective" the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel is a central task - perhaps the central task.  Nevertheless many of the progressive Left have framed the issue in the simple terms of  defending Israel against the terrorism – a position which reflects the current careful rhetoric from the US. At the same time the pseudo-left has (naturally) responded with its usual knee-jerk position, accusing the US of continuing to be Israel's main ally.

Both positions have failed to see that a Palestinian state is now an historical imperative. 

For the US, its old policy of propping up Israel at the expense of the Palestinians has become a strategic liability and it is increasingly evident that they intend to put this right.

When this happens it will rapidly undermine the ability of Syria, Iran and the other vicious (but moribund) autocracies in the region to rely on the Palestinian issue to distract people from their own oppression.

Bush is the first US president to have talked seriously of the necessity for a Palestinian State – and not only that, he has also effectively come out in support of the party of Arafat!  At the very same time as creating the impression that he is the most pro-Israel president in history, he has in fact been the first US president to make it quite clear that Israel must withdraw from both Gaza and the West Bank.  Despite all the hype during (and in the aftermath) of the recent Israel-Lebanon war,  all indications are that the majority of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are in favour of a cease-fire with Israel and that there is broad agreement with the "Prisoner's Document". At the same time, most Israelis want peace with their Palestinian neighbours.  "Victory" against the Palestinians has now been cleverly reframed by Olmert (and previously Sharon) as "an end to terrorist attacks on Israel" rather than a continuation of its hegemony over the occupied territories.

As in Iraq, the end-game will be complex and many of the moves along the way unclear.  But if we interpret events in the light of historical necessity rather than falling for the rhetoric emanating from both sides the trend is clear.

Materialist analysis starts with real world conditions and attempts to discern what this makes possible – how we can push things forward in order to win. The reactionary idealism of the pseudo-left  ignores the real world because it is driven by a  backward- looking victim mentality with a primary focus on complaining about how bad things are rather than with how to change them. On the other hand, the more positive idealism of progressive left liberals is at least oriented toward support for democratic change. However that is not enough. Idealism in all its forms takes as its starting point ideas about how we would like the world to be  rather than how the world can be.  In the current situation it is floundering both in the face of the current chaos, sectarian violence and strong influence of backward Islamist ideology in the new Iraq  - and with regard to the related question of solving the Israel/Palestine issue.

¹  Draining the swamps:  We took this expression right out of Chomsky's mouth.  See this discussion which contains a link  to some interesting (2003) correspondence between Chomsky and one of our members.

It's not sufficient to argue that fascism, reaction, oppression  (etc) are bad and should be got rid of.  Even the pseudo- left mouths similar sentiments.  We can see through the pseudos because (unlike progressive liberals of the pro-war left) they in fact have chosen to lend their support to the status quo.  Those left liberals who stuck to principle and supported US intervention in Iraq have taken an undoubtedly progressive stand - but it is now time for those of us on the hard-left to get serious about pushing for a materialist analysis

In the absence of a more hard-headed materialist analysis it becomes increasingly difficult to make sense of events.

When we consider world events in the light of what we call  "historical necessity"  we are certainly not trying to say  that there is any short term inevitability involved. Historical necessity indicates what is possible given current real-world conditions revealing that there is a certain direction in which things must move in the long run - and in the current historic era that direction is toward world wide democracy and modernization.  This movement can still be derailed slowed down, dragged out  by the forces of reaction  (  jihadists,  the conservative right,  the pseudo left and other reactionaries), but in the long run it is the only way forward.

Engels’ discussion of  Hegel’s famous remark, “all that is real is rational; and all that is rational is real” provides an excellent account of history as a process of progressive change during which what is actual (current reality) loses its necessity thereby becoming both unreal and irrational. Each historical stage is necessary in so far as it is “justified for the time and conditions to which it owes its origin” but eventually becomes unnecessary and therefore unjustified “in the face of new, higher conditions which gradually develop in its own womb. It must give way to a higher stage which will in its turn decay and perish”.

I don’t have the space here for an extended philosophical discussion of historical possibility and necessity but recommend that people follow the Engels link and also take a look at a discussion we had on the LS forum  entitled : Hegel and the pseudo left .

From this standpoint (seeing what makes sense and how things develop) it is  possible to begin make sense of the whole whirl of  historical events -  to discern what is possible (because necessary) and to avoid (impossible and abstract ) idealist demands that the world should somehow be otherwise. In Hegel's words: "the phantom of a world whose events are an incoherent concourse of fortuitous circumstances, utterly vanishes" 

Ok, I'm impressed!

Just in time for the thirtieth anniversary of Mao's death too!

Cannot help still feeling REALLY irritated that this wasn't done literally years ago instead of leaving me feeling miserable about total isolation and disinterest - but I suppose that's the same as believing we could have avoided five hundred years of misery and strife if only Richard the Lionheart had gone for free trade instead of launching the Crusades.

So now that it's been proved people here CAN work towards documents actually setting out a coherent position are we now going to really start trying to take on the world?

In recent months, we have been bombarded with reports of the death of the Bush Doctrine. Of course, there have been many such reports since the doctrine was first promulgated at the start of what I persist in calling World War IV (the cold war being World War III). Almost all of them were written by the realists and liberal internationalists within the old foreign-policy establishment, and they all turned out to resemble the reports of Mark Twain's death—which, he famously said, had been "greatly exaggerated." Nothing daunted by this, the critics and enemies of Bush are now at it yet again. This time, however, their ranks have been swollen by a number of traditional conservatives who were never comfortable with the doctrine bearing his name and who have now moved from discomfort to outright opposition.

But what is genuinely new, and more surprising, is the entry into this picture of a significant number of my fellow neoconservatives. As the Bush Doctrine's greatest enthusiasts, they would be much happier if they could go on pointing to signs of life, but so disillusioned have they become that a British journalist can say that, to them, "the words 'Rice' and 'Bush' have all but become the Beltway equivalent of barnyard expletives." No wonder that they have now taken to composing obituary notices of their own.

Are we then to conclude that the latest reports of the death of the Bush Doctrine are not "greatly," if indeed at all, exaggerated, and that it has at long last really been put to rest?

So misrepresented has the Bush Doctrine been that the only way to begin answering that question is to remind ourselves of what it actually says (and does not say); and the best way to do that is by going back to the speech in which it was originally enunciated: the President's address to a joint session of Congress on September 20, 2001.

In analyzing that speech shortly after it was delivered, I found that the new doctrine was built on three pillars. The first was a categorical rejection of the kind of relativism ("One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter") that had previously prevailed in the discussion of terrorism, and a correlative insistence on using such unambiguously moral categories as right and wrong, good and evil, in describing the "great harm" we had suffered only nine days earlier. But, the President went on, out of that harm, and "in our grief and anger, we have found our mission and our moment."

In spelling out the nature of that mission and moment, Bush gave the lie to those who would later claim that the idea of planting the seeds of democracy in Iraq was a hastily contrived ex-post-facto rationalization to cover for the failure to find weapons of mass destruction there. Indeed, the plain truth is that, far from being an afterthought, the idea of democratization was there from the very beginning and could even be said to represent the animating or foundational principle of the entire doctrine:

"The advance of human freedom, the great achievement of our time and the great hope of every time, now depends on us. Our nation, this generation, . . . will rally the world to this cause by our efforts, by our courage."

Having thus set the foundation for a new American policy in the broader Middle East, the President was left with the problem of how it could and should be applied to the narrower Middle East—that is, the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. In October 2001, only a month after 9/11, George W. Bush had become the first American President to come out openly for the establishment of a Palestinian state as the only path to a resolution of that conflict.

But by June of 2002, he had also arrived at the realization of a glaring contradiction between his own doctrine and his support for the creation of a Palestinian state that would, as things then stood, inevitably be run by terrorists like Yasir Arafat and his henchmen. He therefore added a number of conditions to his previously unqualified endorsement of Palestinian statehood:

"Today, Palestinian authorities are encouraging, not opposing, terrorism. This is unacceptable. And the United States will not support the establishment of a Palestinian state until its leaders engage in a sustained fight against the terrorists and dismantle their infrastructure."

This, he added, required the election of “new leaders,” who would embark on building

"entirely new political and economic institutions based on democracy, market economics, and action against terrorism."

Having thus set the foundation for a new American policy in the broader Middle East, the President was left with the problem of how it could and should be applied to the narrower Middle East—that is, the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. In October 2001, only a month after 9/11, George W. Bush had become the first American President to come out openly for the establishment of a Palestinian state as the only path to a resolution of that conflict.

With all this ringing in his ears, Bush defiantly took the oath of office for a second time with a restatement of the doctrine bearing his name that was even more eloquent, more forceful, and more unequivocal than the great series of speeches in which he had originally promulgated it three years earlier.

"There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment, and expose the pretensions of tyrants, and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of human freedom. . . . America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one. . . . So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture."

******

"This is not primarily the task of arms, though we will defend ourselves and our friends by force of arms when necessary. . . . The great objective of ending tyranny is the concentrated work of generations."

****

"Achieving peace in the Holy Land is not just a matter of pressuring one side or the other on the shape of a border or the site of a settlement. This approach has been tried before, without success. As we negotiate the details of peace, we must look to the heart of the matter, which is the need for a Palestinian democracy." 

"On what basis", Podoretz asks. "is it being claimed all over the place that he no longer believes in either (his policy's) soundness or its viability?"

Referring to an article published in Time magazine("The End of Cowboy Diplomacy", July 17, 2006), which made the claim that Bush had learnt his lesson and had now retreated from "unilateralism" to a milder "multilateral" and diplomatoc approach, Podhoretz argues that this sort of 'analysis" reveals a complete lack of understanding of the complexity of the new policy.  It was never a policy ruling out action of  a non-military nature and quite necessarily heavily invested in multi-layered wheeling and dealing.

More interestingly Podhoretz moves on from the Time article to provide a bit of a review of where various conservatives of the US foreign policy establishment now appear to stand.

First he mentions Philip Gordon of the Brookings Insitution  who has argued that "The budgetary, political and diplomatic realities that the Bush team tried to ignore have begun to set in". Gordon seems to be of the opinion that despite some successes in Iraq the consequence of this is  "the reversal of the Bush revolition" and a "return to realism".

Charles A Kupcahn and Ray Takeyh  of the Council on Foreign Relations  have made the claim that the Bush "ideological hubris and political incompetence have only succeeded ins etting the region ablaze. They yearn for a return to the good old days of "clinton's diplomacy".

Then there is "traditionaliat conservative", George Will (a columnist) who "fears that tehre is enough life left in the Bush doctrine to continue doing damage" and who has singled out Condi Rice for being foolish enough to consider "today's turmoil preferable to the Middle East's 'false stability ' over the past 60 years". According to Podhoretz the views of Will are very similar to those of Brent Scowcroft (Bush snr's National Security Adviser) who contended "that you cannot with one sweep of teh hand or the mind cast of thousands of years of history".

In answer to both Will and Scowcroft Podhorezt  replies:

But the despotisms in the Middle East are not thousands of years old, and they were not created by Allah or the Prophet Muhammad. All of them were established after World War I—that is, less than a century ago—by the British and the French. This being the case, there is nothing “utopian” about the idea that such regimes—planted with shallow roots by two Western powers—could be uprooted with the help of a third Western power and that a better political system could be put in their place. And, in fact, this is exactly what has been happening before our very eyes in Iraq.

Interesting how he ignores previous US policy  in the region....

William F Buckley is the other "major traditionalist conservative who has, after much hesitation decisively given up on the Bush doctrine.  Buckley is convinced is hat these policies have failed to pass "the acid" test of Iraq.

Podhoretz goes on to say that he is

 puzzled by the amazing spread of the idea that the Bush Doctrine has indeed failed the test of Iraq. After all, Iraq has been liberated from one of the worst tyrants in the Middle East; three elections have been held; a decent constitution has been written; a government is in place; and previously unimaginable liberties are being enjoyed. By what bizarre calculus does all this add up to failure? And by what even stranger logic is failure to be read into the fact that the forces opposed to democratization are fighting back with all their might?

Surely what makes more sense is the opposite interpretation of the terrible violence being perpetrated by the terrorists of the so-called “insurgency”: that it is in itself a tribute to the enormous strides that have been made in democratizing the country. If this murderous collection of diehard Sunni Baathists and vengeful Shiite militias, together with their allies inside the government, agreed that democratization had already failed, would they be waging so desperate a campaign to defeat it? And if democratization in Iraq posed no threat to the other despotisms in the region, would those regimes be sending jihadists and material support to the “insurgency” there?

Perhaps, then, what the sectarian murderers and their foreign allies are trying to prevent is less the democratic project as such than the emergence of an Iraq which would be unified under the loose federal system prescribed by the constitution adopted last year? Perhaps what the Sunni “insurgency” is trying to do is prevent the Shiite majority from becoming dominant? Perhaps the Shiite militias are mainly engaged in reprisals for recent Sunni atrocities (not to mention being bent on revenge for the relentless oppression they suffered at the hands of the Sunnis under Saddam Hussein)? Perhaps all this is leading to a breakup of the country into three separate entities, with a fully independent Kurdistan in the north, with the Sunnis ruling in Baghdad and its environs, and with the Shiites in power in the south?

The Israeli political theorist Shlomo Avineri and Clinton’s ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith have long contended that such an outcome is the best that can be hoped for, and that in any event the vision of an Iraq unified under a democratic system is nothing more than a mirage. From this glum analysis it follows that the United States should scrap the Bush Doctrine and resign itself to a tripartite division as the least bad alternative to complete chaos and an all-out civil war.

This position (which in the latest variant proposed by Galbraith has been endorsed as “second best” by a disillusioned neoconservative in the person of David Frum) comes at us with all the trappings of what looks like a hard-headed assessment of the sectarian facts on the ground in Iraq. But in common with many such apparently hard-headed assessments of other facts on other grounds, it poses intractable problems of its own.2 Worse yet, its plausibility depends on the ruling-out of the new possibilities that can materialize out of popular aspirations for something different, and something better.

Only yesterday we saw such aspirations vividly expressed in the flocking of millions of Iraqis to the polls, and all the world marveled at the sight. Now, because the enemies of these aspirations within Iraq and their foreign supporters are mounting a last-ditch campaign to blow them to smithereens, we are being told that it is useless to go on giving our support to what is clearly a lost cause. Shades of how George W. Bush’s father treated the Shiites whom he had encouraged to rise up against Saddam Hussein at the tail end of the first Gulf War, only to sit by as many thousands of them were slaughtered by this merciless despot who had been left in power by the “realism” of American policy. (It was, incidentally, only because some of us had forgotten the bitterness this betrayal had planted in the Shiites of the South that we were surprised when they greeted our troops in 2003 with surly suspicion instead of cheers and flowers.)

Well, having through the Bush Doctrine repudiated his father’s “realism” as, precisely, unrealistic, George W. Bush is hardly likely to welsh on the promises he in his own turn has made to the people of Iraq. And since most of them—Sunnis no less than Shiites—know very well that their lives literally depend on making the new system work, they have the greatest imaginable stake in fending off the evil forces that are dedicated to destroying its chances.

Another group of conservatives also agrees that Bush has somehow lost his nerve, but these conservatives have taken the position of arguing for the urgency of military action against Iran. Here Podhoretz refers to demands by William Kristol for "an immediate military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Going all the way, Kristol denounces the administration’s delay in launching such a strike as a form of appeasement". He notes that there is indeed "a split" among the neo-cons on the desirability of military action against Iran.

Richard Perle has accused Bush of "blinking" on Iran,  arguing that Bush has "beaten an ignomonious retreat by agreeing to enage in talks with Iran on its nuclear program"  thereby betraying the pro-democracy movement in that country.  Other neo-cons such as Max Boot have raised the same issue with regard to Egypt and others have gone further to maintain the Bush has changed course to the point of "coddling despots" such as the repressive leaders in Russia and China.  With regard to North Korea, Nicholas Eberstadt ("a neo con expert on that country) says:

Apparently unwilling to move against North Korea’s nuclear challenges by itself, and evidently incapable of fashioning a practical response involving allies and others, the Bush administration’s response to Pyongyang’s atomic provocations is today principally characterized by renewed calls for additional rounds of toothless diplomacy.

The "consensus" backlash against Bush

Two extraordinary features mark the consensus that has formed on the death of the Bush Doctrine. One is that it embraces just about every group all along the ideological spectrum, critics and friends of Bush alike: the realists, the liberal internationalists, the traditionalist conservatives, the paleoconservatives, and the neoconservatives. The other extraordinary feature is that the only group that has refused to join in this unprecedented consensus is made up of Bush’s enemies on the Left.

Take the inveterate Bush hater Fred Kaplan who, in the Left-liberal webzine Slate, argues that “reports of the death of ‘cowboy diplomacy’ are greatly exaggerated,” and that while there has been a “moderating tone in Bush’s rhetoric . . . his actual policies have barely changed.” It is in Slate, too, that its editor Jacob Weisberg (the same Jacob Weisberg who has devoted himself to collecting “Bushisms” supposedly proving how stupid the President is and how adept at finding “new ways to harm our country”) posted his article acknowledging Bush’s persistent refusal to engage with “rogue regimes.” Moving further to the Left, we come upon Mother Jones, where one Ehsan Ahrari also denies that “cowboy diplomacy” has really ended.

No doubt, both Ahrari and Kaplan would very much prefer to agree that Bush has abandoned his wicked ways, and to congratulate the Left on this great accomplishment. But the best they can do is concede that he is now “drifting” rather than pushing forcefully ahead (Kaplan) and to hope that Iran and North Korea will eventually force a real change in his overall approach (Ahrari). As for me, unaccustomed as I am to finding myself siding with my ideological enemies on the Left, I have no honest choice but to admit that I think Fred Kaplan’s analysis of where the Bush Doctrine now stands is closer to the mark than any of the others discussed above, including the ones offered by some of my fellow neoconservatives.

Of course, there are plenty of leftists around for whom the true “axis of evil” still does and always will consist of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld. In my opinion such people are worthy of contempt, as are all those who, whether or not they admit it even to themselves, are rooting for an American defeat in World War IV. My own heart—it should go without saying—is with those neoconservatives who have been pressing for a more aggressive implementation of the Bush Doctrine. I even think that there is at least some merit in many, or perhaps even most, of the arguments they offer to explain why they have concluded that American foreign policy is no longer true to the doctrine’s promises. Without denying that the President is still talking the talk, they contend that his actions demonstrate that he has ceased walking the walk; and it is by stacking those actions up against his own language that they seek to justify the charge of, at best, a loss of nerve and, at worst, an outright betrayal of the goals they formerly believed he meant to pursue and to which they themselves are as dedicated as ever.

Nevertheless, I think they are wrong—less wrong than the old foreign-policy establishment, which agrees with them that the President has abandoned his own doctrine, and is gleeful instead of angry about it, but still wrong.

Bush the "politician"

To begin with, the neoconservatives who have given up on Bush or are in the process of doing so overlook one simple consideration: that he is a politician. This ridiculously obvious truth has been obscured by the fact that Bush so often sounds like an ideologue, or perhaps idealist would be a better word. But here an old Jewish joke applies that I used to tell in connection with the same mistake that was also made about Ronald Reagan.

“Why are you dressed like that?” asks the Jewish mother of her son when he visits her wearing the uniform of a naval officer. “Because, Mama,” he explains, “I just bought a boat, and I’m the captain.” To which, smiling fondly, she replies, “Well, by you you’re a captain. And by me you’re a captain. But by a captain are you a captain?” Which is to say that, like Ronald Reagan before him, George W. Bush may be an ideologue “by” most politicians (who believe in nothing much and are always ready to trade a principle for a political gain), but “by” an ideologue he’s no ideologue.

In other words, while he is certainly driven by ideas and ideals to a far greater extent than are most politicians, in implementing these ideas and ideals he is still subject to the same pressures by which all other politicians are constrained: pressures coming at him that, as President, he can ignore only at the peril of totally alienating the support his policies need both at home and abroad if they are to be sustained. And what this, in turn, means is that prudential considerations inevitably come into play whenever a major decision has to be made.

There are utopians to whom pursuing a principled or idealistic policy necessarily precludes the prudential judgment that determines which fights to pick at a given moment and which to delay until the time is ripe, when to pause and when to advance, and which tactic is the right one to use in maneuvering on a particular front. There are also “realists” who take the necessity of prudential judgment as proof that a policy driven by ideals is altogether incapable of being executed and can only lead to disaster if its proponents are naïve enough to try putting it into practice.

In pointing this out, I am not suggesting that those of us who share Bush’s ideas and ideals, but who labor under neither utopian nor realist delusions, are barred from questioning the soundness of his prudential judgment in this or that instance. But I am suggesting that, by the same token, we have an intellectual responsibility to recognize and acknowledge that he has already taken those ideas and ideals much farther than might have been thought possible, especially given the ferocity of the opposition they have encountered from all sides and the difficulties they have also met with in the field. Indeed, it is a measure of his enormous political skills that—at a time in 2004 when things were not looking at all good for the Bush Doctrine’s prospects in Iraq—he succeeded in mobilizing enough support for its wildly controversial principles to run on them for a second term and win.

The Middle East has been "unfrozen"

In maintaining that Bush has done more to implement those principles than might reasonably have been expected, I would recall to the stand two highly credible witnesses on whom I have frequently relied in the past. The first is the Lebanese radical Walid Jumblatt, who had always been violently anti-American, who had therefore opposed the invasion of Iraq, and who had even declared that the killing of American soldiers there was “legitimate and obligatory.” But as he watched a process of change beginning to take hold throughout the Middle East, Jumblatt underwent a change of his own:

It’s strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq. I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting, 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world.

The second of my two witnesses is the Egyptian democratic activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim, who had also opposed the invasion of Iraq but who later had to admit that it had

unfrozen the Middle East, just as Napoleon’s 1798 expedition did. Elections in Iraq force the theocrats and autocrats to put democracy on the agenda, even if only to fight against us. Look, neither Napoleon nor President Bush could impregnate the region with political change. But they were able to be midwives.

Since these statements were made, the theocrats and the autocrats have, just as Ibrahim predicted, fought back, and the successes they have scored have understandably distressed Max Boot, Joshua Muravchik, Michael Ledeen, Michael Rubin, Richard Perle, and other like-minded neoconservatives. Beyond being distressed, they are also angry at George W. Bush for doing things that they believe helped trigger these setbacks and for failing to do the things that could reverse them.

Yet to me it is by no means self-evident that the course urged upon Bush by his neoconservative critics in this or that instance has—all factors considered—necessarily been right or viable. Paul Mirengoff of the blog Power Line, taking account of the role of prudential judgment in a variety of countries with differing circumstances, does a good job of defending Bush’s record in this area against his neoconservative critics:

In each instance, the administration tilts toward democracy, with the degree of the tilt dictated by its perception of our ability to control events and the viability of the status quo. . . . In short, the administration’s policy in the Middle East is to attempt to promote democracy to just the extent that doing so makes sense in light of facts on the ground. Since these facts vary from situation to situation, so too do the manifestations of our policy.

Besides, as a glance at the the website of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) reveals, the reformist impulse aroused by the Bush Doctrine is still very much alive throughout the region. Which tells us that not all those committed to reform have lost heart, as, according to Muravchik and Boot, some have done in Egypt (and not even everyone there, as recent demonstrations attest).

But even if it could be shown that the disillusioned neoconservatives’ judgment of “the facts on the ground” has been right in every instance, the really tremendous fact—the overriding fact—would remain that it is entirely thanks to the Bush Doctrine that the Middle East has been “unfrozen.” And even if its author should for one reason or another prove unable to advance the process of political change that his policies have set into motion, there will be no return to the old arrangements and the old ways—no return, to repeat the words of Fouad Ajami, “to the old pact with tyranny.”

I'll skip the next bit which about Ronald Reagon (except to say thatPodhoretz says he has now learnt a lesson from (previously) focusing too much  on Reagon's "declaratory" policies that as a result  repeatedly (and incorrectly) "blasting him for one betrayal after another".

This is the conclusion to the article:

It is my contention that the Bush Doctrine is no more dead today than the Truman Doctrine was cowardly in its own early career. Bolstered by that analogy, I feel safe in predicting that, like the Truman Doctrine in 1952, the Bush Doctrine will prove irreversible by the time its author leaves the White House in 2008. And encouraged by the precedent of Ronald Reagan, I feel almost as confident in predicting that, three or four decades into the future, and after the inevitable missteps and reversals, there will come a President who, like Reagan in relation to Truman in World War III, will bring World War IV to a victorious end by building on the noble doctrine that George W. Bush promulgated when that war first began.

I agree with just about everything in relation to the "draining of the swamp" The prominant "neocon" in America is Dr. Charles Krauthammer. He writes: "Yes, as in Germany and Japan, the undertaking is enormous, ambitious and arrogant. It may yet fail. But we cannot afford not to try. There is not a single, remotely plausible, alternative strategy for attacking the monster behind 9/11. It’s not Osama bin Laden; it is the cauldron of political oppression, religious intolerance, and social ruin in the Arab-Islamic world--oppression transmuted and deflected by regimes with no legitimacy into virulent, murderous anti-Americanism. It’s not one man; it is a condition. It will be nice to find that man and hang him, but that’s the cops-and-robbers law-enforcement model of fighting terrorism that we tried for twenty years and that gave us 9/11. This is war, and in war arresting murderers is nice. But you win by taking territory—and leaving something behind. And that "something" is democracy.

But were we go astray is that somehow American hegmony is in a state of decline. That our "superpower" statis is almost gone. That somehow we no longer posess the power to do what we want. This logic is flawed in my opinion, and would love for someone to explain just how we are in decline as the worlds sole superpower!

Hi mason, welcome aboard!

I agree with most of your post and will therefore focus on the last part

Your last sentence sort of reminds me of the guy in your picture telling the Court that he's still President of Iraq. He isn't and the people replacing him aren't US puppets as the pseudo-left pretends. That's decline. It used to be the case that when the US intervened it was able to appoint a government of by and for the USA. Now it has to hold free elections, which in every case so far are won by parties such that the US previously worked with tyrants to keep them out of power.

When the US was not in such sharp decline it actively promoted the "the cauldron of political oppression, religious intolerance, and social ruin in the Arab-Islamic world" because that suppressed communism and later helped in maneuvers against the other superpower, provided cheap oil and was in Israel's interest to be surrounded by backward countries too stagnant to threaten its domination.

This policy continued long after it had ceased to provide any real benefit to the US, mainly because you could afford the luxury of delegating your Middle East policy to Israel and nobody but the Israel lobby cared much.

This remained true despite the fact it was clearly against your interests for this situation of "oppression transmuted and deflected by regimes with no legitimacy into virulent, murderous anti-Americanism" to continue.

Nevertheless, you let it continue until you had no choice but to do something about it after 9/11. There is a "weary" tone even in the words you quote from Krauthammer "It may yet fail. But we cannot afford not to try."

That is the voice of decline. The left on the other hand has supported democratic revolution since the Communist Manifesto issued during the 1848 revolutions that ended Europe's "cauldron of political oppression, religious intolerance and social ruin" and we greet its extension to the Middle East with the same confidence in victory that we have always had. We are the people who were being repressed by the regimes you backed. Naturally we support you changing course.

Coincidentally I just did a post on the theme that the US is the "last" superpower rather than the "sole" superpower here.

When the US was still seeking hegemony it propped up vicious dictatorships throughout Latin America, Asia and Africa as well as the Middle East. Most of the "gorilla" regimes of Latin America have now fallen, as has the Apartheid regime in South Africa, the Marcos regime in the Phillipines, Soeharto in Indonesia etc etc. - all of which were part of the "Free World" led by the US. The advance of democracy corresponds to the decline in superpower status. This also includes the advance of democracy in eastern Europe which corresponds to the complete collapse of the Soviet superpower. Basically being a superpower able to determine the affairs of other nations is inherently inconsistent with democracy which implies that the people of each nation determine their own affairs.

Cleaning up the Middle East is long overdue but actually supporting democracy in a region where your only friends have been the tyrants is so radical a departure from the anti-democratic policies that the US has historically been associated with in that region that most people around the world still don't believe a word of it and most of your foreign policy establishment are convinced its sheer lunacy.

I believe we are in fundamental agreement about "draining the swamp". But don't forget that this strategy is so novel for the US Right that the Iraq war had to be launched on the pretext that it was about WMDs and disarming Sadaam rather than about democracy.

Likewise don't forget that jihadi terrorism was previously financed by the CIA and the Saudis in Afghanistan and the Taliban regime that hosted Al Queda was supported by Pakistan at America's request.

Perhaps Israel and Palestine is the clearest example, where you still haven't bitten the bullet that you need to retreat and actually allow the Palestinians to choose their own government rather than being governed by Israeli military occupation because that step, so obviously now essential to US interests in a democratic Middle East, is so clearly a retreat from your previous position that years of preparing public opinion has been required.

You are very welcome to join the global democratic revolution rather than continuing to oppose it, likewise your participation in the last war against fascism was very welcome, even though it was not forthcoming until after Pearl Harbour just as the US Right didn't care much about islamo-fascism until after 9/11.

But please drop the "power to do what we want" stance. Its very irritating and wildly inconsistent with the attitudes you need to get out of the mess you have got yourself into with that sort of arrogance.

Incidentally here's an interesting item from Haaretz supporting the analysis here that the Lebanon fiasco's main significance was to prepare public opinion for an international force to replace the Israeli occupation in the West Bank. Note that it requires an international force, not an "American led" one. This is not because other countries are willing to do what you want but because you no longer possess the power to do what you want and are being required to accept Lebanese and Palestinians doing what they want.

In your long rant, (for the future I don't need a history lesson) you have yet to explain how we are in decline. . .

Somehow, because we removed Saddam from power, and didn't prop up a "puppet government" in Iraq lends weight to our decline as a superpower? I think not!

You said: "There is a "weary" tone even in the words you quote from Krauthammer "It may yet fail. But we cannot afford to try" This is the voice of decline.

That isn't the voice of decline. That is the voice of caution. The voice of caution that warns against the hubris of thinking we can transform an alien culture because of some postulated natural and universal human will to freedom.

You said: "But please drop the "power to do what we want" stance. Its very irritating and wildly inconsistent with the attitudes you need to get out of the mess you have got yourself into with that sort of arrogance."

Do me a favor. . .Google:

1. The Unipolar Moment Revisited Krauthammer

2. Democratic Realism Krauthammer

After reading both of these articles, then come back here and try a legitimate arguement on the decline of U.S hegmony or our Superpower status.  

Hello Kerry, and thank you for your warm welcome! First, I would like to say that I agree with the sentiments written by "my hero" in regards to Australia. If I posted a dead link just google "Why I love Australia Krauthammer"

http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/krauthammer062306.asp

You said: "From our perspective we would predict that once democracy and modernity is world wide, nationalism (and separate nations) will be on the way out.

Forgive me, and with all due respect, but to me, this kinda talk is just fantasy. Don't get me wrong, I long for the day when the world is at peace. . .A world in which "there will no longer be need for spheres of influence, for alliances, for balance of power, or any other of the special arrangements by which, in the unhappy past, the nations strove to safeguard their security or promote their interests." ~ Cordell Hull, FDR’s secretary of state 1943

But neither I nor my children will see this world. It simply put, is the "nature of man." His lust for power--"to keep it and expand it." We live "In an international system with no sovereign, no police, no protection--where power is the ultimate arbiter" Forgive me, but I'm a realist who just chooses to see the world the way it is verses the way I would like it to be.

http://www.aei.org/news/newsID.19912/news_detail.asp

Forgive me, but I'm a realist who just chooses to see the world the way it is verses the way I would like it to be.

Kerry writes:

"The idea (expressed by Kruthammer) that the "natural" state of the world is a "Hobbesian one" and that therefore we need a superpower like the US to act as world policeman (a policeman driven by "the will to freedom") is one I disagree with.   Although  I believe that the US is currently geuninely intent on democratizing the Middle East  (and I support this of course), I think it's idealistic (in the sense of not seeing the world as it is) to see the US as having always been "on the side of the angels".  What we are seeing is a change in US policy driven by a recognition that they can't continue being world policeman.  And that is a sign of being a declining superpower."

MY SUPERPOWER ARGUEMENT AND THE "ON THE SIDE OF THE ANGELS ARGUEMENT: But we are the worlds policeman! The E.U. 3 were in negotiations with Iran for 2.5 years to give up it's nuclear ambitions. 3 months ago, Tehran refused, broke the seals, and resumed uranium enrichment. Entering negotiations carries with it the responsibility to do something if they fail. The E.U. 3 understood that when they took on Tehran 2.5 years ago. So after acknowledging their obvious failure, and not wanting to live in range of a nuclear tipped Iranian missile, they come "hat in hand" to Washington to have us take up their failed talks with Iran.

It was American jets that were patrolling the no-fly zones. It was American power that removed Saddam's army from Kuwait in the 90's, and from power 3 years ago. The Russians (at the height of their empire) tried for years to get into Afghanistan. They were stopped "dead in their tracks" and forced to retreat. At a distance of 8,000 miles from our shores we routed a hardened enemy favored by geography and climate in the "graveyard of empires" in just 100 days!

And if that still isn't enough, check this out

 http://www.politicalgroundzero.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2252

This also lends weight to our being on the side of angels!

Moreover, democratic globalism is an improvement over realism. What it can teach realism is that the spread of democracy is not just an end but a means, an indispensable means for securing American interests. The reason is simple. Democracies are inherently more friendly to the United States, less belligerent to their neighbors, and generally more inclined to peace. Realists are right that to protect your interests you often have to go around the world bashing bad guys over the head. But that technique, no matter how satisfying, has its limits. At some point, you have to implant something, something organic and self-developing. And that something is democracy.

Kerry wrote: "But what he doesn't talk about is the US role in creating the swamp that they now have to drain.  Despite what he says,  the US hasn't always been "on the side of the angels". Quite the reverse."

This is a little vague. Can you be specific in how America created "the swamp?"

I wait patiently for your responses

I new I would hear the blissful sound of crickets!

"I'm thinking of looking at Guatemala, Iran, Israel, Chile and, yes, Sadaam's Iraq - some of the places where bad things have been tolerated by the rulers of the USA."

I'm not really interested in the things we "tolerated"  I'm looking for how we (America) "created" the "swamp" that we all come to know as the Middle East

To play his role the Shah requires special preparation. By nature a creature of indecision, beset by formless doubts and fears, he must be induced to play his role, and this role must involve a minimum of affirmative action and cover as brief a period as possible.

We consider Princess Ashraf, his forceful and scheming twin sister, to be the person most likely to be able to induce the Shah to play his role. We are certain that Ashraf will eagerly co-operate to bring about the fall of Mossadeq. Therefore, Ashraf must be approached at her current location , briefed on the task and sent back to Iran. Contact will have to be maintained between Ashraf and the US field station.

c) As long as Mossadeq is in power, the country will get no new financial aid from the United States, and indeed present aid may be slashed.

d) Mossadeq must go

....c)If the Shah fails to go along his dynasty is bound to come to an end soon. In spite of the Shah's previous misconceptions, the United States and the United Kingdom have been and are supporting him, but if the Shah fails now, this support will be withdrawn. The representativewill discuss the implications of this.

How did I know you would bring up the 1953 coup. . .Yes we were involved. But our involvement was to stop the spread of Communism, pure and simple. Is this the sole reason Iran is a failed state today? Is it the sole reason every nation (except Israel) is a 3rd world country? Our involvement in 1953 can't be blamed for the massive "swamp" that makes up the Middle East in the year of our Lord 2006.