JustinLogan.com

A Conservatism of Yore

Apropos of nothing, sometimes I run across a quote that I'd like to share.  Depending on how many Burke disciples read this blog, it may be known to most, but I found it particularly striking given the high esteem in which Burke is held in conservative circles.  It's almost impossible to imagine a contemporary conservative writing these lines today:

"Among precautions against ambition, it may not be amiss to take one precaution against our own.  I must fairly say, I dread our own power and our own ambition; I dread our being too much dreaded...It is ridiculous to say we are not men, and that, as men we shall never wish to aggrandize ourselves in some way or other...we may say that we shall not abuse this astonishing and hitherto unheard of power.  But every other nation will think we shall abuse it.  It is impossible but that, sooner or later, this state of things must produce a combination against us which may end in our ruin."

--Edmund Burke, "Remarks on the Policy of the Allies with Respect to France," The Works of Edmund Burke, vol. 4 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1901), p. 457.

I Guess I'm Not on the Christmas Card List

Thomas P. M. Barnett evidently didn't like my review essay in Orbis (unfortunately not online) of his two books.  He accuses me, among other things, of flirting with membership in the "queer libertarian club," and not reading the newspaper.  I'm not sure what he means by the first charge, and the second is easy enough to refute.  (Sometimes I do struggle with the Washington Times, but other than that, I'm okay.)

Barnett accuses me of harboring "dreams of future war, with future fantastically expensive and large platforms, against fellow great powers."  Actually, I agree with my former colleague Chuck Pena that we could make massive cuts to the defense budget and be much better off.  I desperately hope that future wars will be scarce--much scarcer than Barnett's quasi-imperial dreams, to be sure--and that if wars should happen, they will not be against fellow great powers.  But hoping and analyzing are two different things, and we can't preclude possibilities from the realm of analysis just because they're unappetizing.

Barnett doesn't do much to rebut my critique, but he does offer a relatively lengthy protest that his theories differ from those of Immanuel Wallerstein.  And indeed, they do.  For the record, in the course of a 5,000 word review essay, the Wallerstein reference consisted of one footnote, displayed below in all its glory:

3. In some ways, Barnett's analogy resembles the core-periphery model of Immanuel Wallerstein's world-systems analysis.  See, e.g., Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction (Durham, N. C.: Duke University Press, 2004).

One of my central criticisms of his work is that Barnett frequently makes bold statements, like purporting to "repudiate" "all that realists hold dear" and then refuses to engage realist international relations theory at all.  Barnett doesn't formulate any parsimonious, coherent theory of international politics, but rather seems to make it up as he goes along.  In responding to my criticism of his lack of engagement with realist IR theory, Barnett replies thus:

I was forced to swallow that realist/great power view of the world throughout four years at Wisconsin and six years at Harvard, and it never took. I found it bogus and bankrupt and a poor causal explanation for basically all of history. It was just too sterile, too narrow, and--worst of all--too insular. To read a realist's book is to be impressed with his scholarship, which consists solely of citing other realist authors' works ad nauseum and endlessly repeating the canonical statements from the accepted doctrine. If you don't cite, then your research is shoddy--by definition. And if you don't repeat, then your arguments and logic are anything but--you do nothing more than assert, my good fellow.

Isn't it interesting how when people like my logic, my book is full of scholarship and sound argument but when they don't, it's all very shallow and shoddy and full of assertions?

One defense of realism's purported "insularity" is that it was the first coherent and complete theory of international politics.  Since constructivism and liberalism have been further refined, there's really been no shortage of engagement with contrary theories.  It's fine to find realism totally unsatisfying.  A systematic critique of realism along with a contrary theory of international politics would be great to read.  Unfortunately, Barnett didn't a) make any effort whatever to demonstrate realism's shortcomings or b) flesh out his own testable and complete theory of international politics.  As I wrote in the review, Barnett's second offering, like his first, is

a deeply confused book.  It is rife with internal contradiction, unsupported claims, and a dangerous idealism.  Barnett ignores the work of a wide swath of international relations scholarship, presenting his ideas as a grand unified theory of international politics without confronting or even acknowledging the existence of other theories.

That's what he does in his books, and that's what he continues to do in response to criticism.

Since the review's not online, I guess this might be pretty boring, but if anybody's interested, feel free to shoot me a line and I can see if I can get you a copy.

Fukuyama's Dissembling

I don't generally read DailyKos, but I ran across this post that highlights Francis Fukuyama's infuriating attempt to dodge the essential issue that he now says he was opposed to the Iraq War, but he never said so publicly before the Iraq War.

Kind of thing that could make you go bananas.

Podcast on Iran

JLC aficionados and Iran watchers may be interested in my Cato podcast on the two-letter two step done by the Iranian government, and what we should do in response.  Cato's just started podcasting, and you can have a look at all of them, or subscribe to an RSS feed for the podcasts here.

You Can't Keep a Hero in Error Down

Am I hallucinating?  The NYT reports that when the Iraqi government comes together, we may have a surprise about who's interior minister:

[Bahaa al-Aaraji, a Shiite member of the negotiating committee] said the candidates for the Interior Ministry were Ahmad Chalabi, the former exile leader and former Pentagon favorite; Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq's current national security adviser; and an unknown figure, Nasir al-Feyadh.

Ahmed Chalabi?  Mr. Less than One Percent of the Vote?  What is Chalabi doing behind the scenes to get himself in a position where arguably the most important ministry could go to a man with essentially no popular support?

Galloway vs. Di Rita

At the prompting of Gen. Barry McCaffrey, Knight-Ridder columnist Joe Galloway has allowed an email exchange between himself and Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita to be posted on the Internet.  Pat Lang has it here.  It's rather terse, but it's a great read.  It's tough to pull a clip from, so just read the whole thing.

Iran Coverage in Weeklies

Lots in the weeklies about Iran.

Newsweek seems to think that negotiations may come about:

as the diplomatic impasse continues, and Pentagon officials voice misgivings about future military options, the administration's firm line may be wavering. The chief U.S. negotiator, Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, has indicated to colleagues that he is mainly waiting for the right moment, when America's leverage and its chances of success are maximized. "Whereas in recent months the U.S. response was 'It's impossible to do direct talks,' now the refusals from Washington are not so unequivocal," says a senior European envoy who works with Washington and wants to remain anonymous because of diplomatic sensitivities.

US News surveys the terrain in a long piece.  Most interesting tidbits:

-- Some Bush administration officials are unhappy with the consensus intelligence community assessment that Iran could attain a weapons capability sometime between 2010 and 2015, based on assumptions about its ability to overcome technical problems. More-hawkish officials view the CIA, scorched by criticism over its exaggerated reports on Iraqi nuclear efforts, as timid on Iran, and Vice President Dick Cheney is said to have recently criticized the intelligence assessment in private as "too cautious."

[...]

-- With Bush emphasizing diplomacy, tensions have emerged between the White House staff and more-hawkish members of Cheney's office. The two camps "are not talking to each other too much" on Iran, says a knowledgeable official.

[...]

-- Senior Bush administration officials are increasingly skeptical that diplomacy can stop the Iranian nuclear drive. That is fueling a new commitment of money and attention to promote democracy inside Iran--a strategy they hope will foster "regime change."

Also, USN gives us this tidbit on the man behind the overture:

In a speech meant for regime insiders, the former head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Hassan Rowhani, refuted claims by hard-liners that he was too pliable in negotiations with the Europeans: "In reality, by creating a tame situation, we could finish Isfahan."

And fleshing out the hard-line position is Michael Rubin in Time magazine:

Negotiating with a regime like Iran's, however, would have drawbacks. Skeptics dismiss the sincerity of the Iranian proffers, calling them ploys to distract attention from Tehran's defiance and dilute the international community's will to confront Iran. "We have nothing to say to them," says a U.S. official deeply involved in the Iran issue. "Every demand and every incentive that we would support has already been put on the table." The official adds that by agreeing to talk to Iran, the U.S. would "absolve the international community of the responsibility to tackle this problem." Opponents of engagement further argue that opening direct talks would confer legitimacy on Iran's leaders--who, aside from their suspected desire to obtain nuclear weapons, deny Israel's right to exist, support terrorist groups and lack support among their own people. Says Michael Rubin, an Iran expert at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank: "The very act of sitting down with them recognizes them."

The last sentence represents one of the most insidious notions to influence American's perceptions of foreign relations: That the US is some sort of benign certifying body, and that it goes around with a stamp, conferring its graces on certain states, and weakening other states by denying them certification.  If our policy is that we don't talk to folks we don't like, then diplomacy--by definition--doesn't exist.

If "the very act of sitting down with them recognizes them," if you're unwilling to "recognize" them, and if you think a nuclear Iran is a dire threat to US security, then we'd better just fire up the B-2s now, because I'm not willing to leave a dire threat to US security in the hands of a smorgasboard of Iranian exiles who are supposed to topple the government in Tehran and remove Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Chalabi me once, shame on you.  Chalabi me twice...

We Have Met the Enemy and He Is the Knight-Ridder Baghdad Bureau

It appears AEI is holding an event to advance accusations of Fifth Columnism against the media.  Expect some play in the hawkosphere.  Here's a blurb from the invite:

Has the negative portrayal of events in Iraq hurt soldiers who take pride in their mission and their accomplishments? What do the American people need to know about the progress and ongoing conflict in Iraq that has not reached the press?

Maybe--and stay with me here--it was the disastrous decision to start a war with Iraq in the first place (advanced most prominently by the host of the event) that hurt the soldiers.  Maybe it was the rank incompetence and breathtakingly naive approach to Phase IV planning that hurt the soldiers.  Wait, nope, it's the media.  Forgot.

The really odd thing about this is that, umm, the president can get just about as much airtime as he wants.  He gave stump speeches throughout 2004 and even into 2005, and the media breathlessly interrupted its normal programming to bring us the latest solemn intonations of the "stay the course, go on the offensive" focus-groupped talking points that we've all heard before.  He had a chance to dazzle us with the tales of awe-inspiring progress and really zing those supposed Walter Durantys in the media.  And we got talking points.

Cato Blog on Fyaah

Sometimes you have to wait for a big news day for a blog to really light up, and that day is today.  Cato's blog is chock full of stuff including optimism (!) that limited government will return to the Republic, Jerry Taylor blasting away at environmentalists, a flurry of posts on the new NSA-may-be-spying-on-you-too story, and of course my post on the second Iranian letter that I hope everybody'll read.

The thing's looking really good today.  Go over and scroll through for the stuff you're interested in.

Fun with The New Republic

Reading Martin Peretz's stuff is frequently bad for the enamel on my molars.  Sometimes, though, the comment threads in response to his stuff make up for it.

Apparently a significant chunk of TNR's readership doesn't think very much of Dr. Peretz.