Lots of discussion of Grand Strategy today, triggered in large part by the killing of Sheikh Yassin, the Clarke book, and the 9/11 Commission testimony.
I think that this discussion is a good thing; I don’t think we discussed these things enough, or were explicit enough, and that it cost us.
And I’ll note that Robert Tagorda, and the Oxblog-derived Nathan Hale society are having a meeting Sunday night here in Los Angeles that I’m going to try and attend.
Two posts, one from Matt Yglesias, and one from Kevin Drum (at his new big-journalism home) touch on related issues.Matthew writes:
I wouldn’t want to deny “that remaking Iraq is a vital part of the war on terror because it will help to remake the Middle East, terrorism’s primary source” and that, in this sense, the second Gulf War is a part of the war on terror. Rather, I would want to deny some of the following:
* It was important to invade in 2003, rather than devoting additional resources to nation-building in Afghanistan and direct anti-Qaeda efforts, leaving the Iraq issue for a later day.
* It is likely today (or was likely based on the evidence available in 2003) that a Bush-led invasion of Iraq will lead to the emergence of a stable, democratic Iraq.
One could go on. The general point I would like to make — Daniel Davies’ “anti this war now left” idea — is this. There are policies that fit under the general heading “invade Iraq” and, especially, “promote Middle East transformation” that I would be happy to support. It does not follow, however, that I should support any policy that parades under the banner “invade Iraq to promote Middle East transformation.” In particular, I don’t believe that the actual policies Bush has been implementing are likely to achieve this goal. My dispute with the administration, therefore, is a somewhat narrow one, not a grand clash of ideas.
It’s interesting to me, because while I’ve read him as antiwar, I’ve felt that – like me – he started out wobbling on the fence on it through 2002. But he fell off on the other side and, I think, has consistently taken a fairly dark view of the decision to invade and the management of the aftermath.
What’s interesting to me is that he’s skating close to what I have wondered about for a while – the position that the war would have been OK if only it hadn’t been prosecuted by Bush.
I’m not sure if this is foreign policy insight, legitimate criticism of real missteps, or a simple unflinching partisanship which can’t acknowledge that the other side could do anything right. And that distinction matters, because if I could unpack it, I think I’d have a greater level of comfort in much of the debate I’m hearing around our current state of affairs.
Then Kevin Drum takes off from a discussion on Israel’s decision to kill the Hamas leader Sheikh Yassin and raises a question:
For anyone who’s serious about this stuff, these questions deserve an answer:
* Is it enough to simply build up homeland defenses and hunt down terrorist leaders? This is essentially what Sharon is doing.
* Or is it necessary to also have a grander strategy of engaging the hearts and minds of the Arab world and spreading democracy? This is (allegedly) the strategy of the Bush administration.
I’m not sure you can have it both ways. If hunting down terrorists is enough, then Sharon is doing the right thing and Bush deserves criticism for wasting time in an unnecessary Iraqi adventure. But if long term success requires a serious effort to spread democracy and change local attitudes, then Bush’s approach is defensible while Sharon is doomed to failure.
The United States is bigger than Israel, so the scope of our operations will naturally be bigger. But within our respective spheres, I have to believe that we’re dealing with roughly the same problem and roughly the same kind of people. So what’s the right strategy? Who’s doing it right and who’s doing it wrong?
I think Kevin is asking the wrong question. There’s not a chance in hell that Israel could ‘remake’ the Middle East, except by leaving, or by nuking the Arab states – neither of which, fortunately, seems like a plausible option right now. The U.S., on the other hand, has a plausible chance to (note the element of risk and probability).
Israel and the U.S. face substantially different manifestations of the same problem. Solving our problem can also solve Israel’s. Solving Israel’s problem could go some ways toward solving ours, but wouldn’t, because the anti-Western ‘rage of the oppressed’ would still be there. The key is to start them down a road that makes them less oppressed.
My support for Bush’s policies to date comes from my belief (not rising to certainty, by any means) that this was and is the only path that gets us from here to there. I’m open to hearing other suggestions, but, to be honest, haven’t yet.