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Jewish World Review Oct. 27, 2005 / 24 Tishrei, 5766 The rift on the right that isn't By Max Boot
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The political class is either celebrating or lamenting, depending on political preference, what is being billed as the conservative crackup. Conservatives are pillorying President Bush over everything from his profligate spending to his nomination of a constitutional neophyte to the Supreme Court. Even his aggressive foreign policy, a big plus for much of the right, has come under withering fire from two prominent former officeholders.
Last week, Lawrence Wilkerson, a retired Marine colonel who served as Colin Powell's chief of staff at the State Department, gave a speech denouncing the hawkish "cabal" that has allegedly hijacked administration decision making. He reiterated those criticisms on this page Tuesday. This week, the New Yorker features an extensive interview with Brent Scowcroft, national security advisor to Bush's father, who details how estranged he has become from onetime friends such as Condoleezza Rice and Dick Cheney.
Does this mean that the "realists" who have been sidelined since 9/11 are making a comeback? Will Republicans fight a bloody battle over whether the pursuit of stability (the realpolitiker passion) or democracy (the neoconservative goal) should be the cornerstone of their foreign policy? Is fratricide in the offing?
Actually, there is a lot less disagreement than meets the eye. Most of the critiques by the likes of Wilkerson and Scowcroft are procedural. They are upset more about how policy has been formulated and implemented — and especially about their own lack of influence — than about the decisions reached.
Wilkerson made some cogent arguments about how Bush has been "courting disaster" because of his inability "to stop the feuding elements" within the administration. Of course, one of those feuding elements was Wilkerson's boss, but point taken — nobody would cite the last few years as a model of disciplined bureaucratic management.
Yet what would the realpolitikers have done differently if they had been in charge? That's not at all clear because so many self-identified realists backed the most controversial decision Bush made: to invade Iraq. Scowcroft was a prominent exception, but Powell, for one, recently told Barbara Walters that he was "right there" with Bush on "the use of force." So were James Baker, George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, George F. Will, Fareed Zakaria and the editors of the National Review and the National Interest — all the rajahs of realism.
Many of their sentiments are on display in a new book edited by Gary Rosen, "The Right War? The Conservative Debate on Iraq." In one of the articles collected in this anthology (full disclosure: it includes two of my columns), blogger Andrew Sullivan points out that "Iraq was not a Wilsonian — or a 'neoconservative' — war. It was broadly supported by the Right as a war of national interest."
Scowcroft acknowledges the point in the New Yorker, saying, "We ought to make it our duty to help make the world friendlier for the growth of liberal regimes." He then goes on to draw a faux distinction between his view — "you encourage democracy over time, with assistance, and aid, the traditional way" — and that of neoconservatives who "believe in the export of democracy, by violence if that is required."
But that's not what neocons believe. The administration decided to invade Iraq not because of an undeniable democracy deficit but because of a supposed surfeit of weapons of mass destruction. Elsewhere — in Ukraine, Georgia, Lebanon and with the Palestinian Authority — Bush is using precisely the traditional, nonviolent approach to democracy promotion that Scowcroft lauds.
This is not to suggest that there are no differences at all between neocons and "realicons." Obviously, the former place more emphasis on human rights and less on international institutions. The latter group is more interested in solving problems through negotiation — but then that's precisely what this "neoconservative" administration is now doing in Iran and North Korea.
Bush's varied record, which defies easy labeling, makes clear that the differences between foreign policy schools are a lot less stark in reality than in theory. Much of today's internecine sniping is less the result of deep-seated disagreements than of the search for scapegoats for the mess in Iraq. But even here the realists don't offer much of an alternative. As Wilkerson noted: "We can't leave Iraq. We simply can't."
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© 2005, Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate |
Arnold Ahlert | ||||||||||||||||||
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