Mark Danner

by tristero

This article by Mark Danner is a superb summary of the spectacular series of mis-assumptions and downright idiocies that created the unmitigated disaster that is Iraq today. As Danner says several times in the article, some of the mistakes are simply unbelievably basic as, for example, invading and conquering a country without any idea about what to do afterwards.

Where I differ, perhaps, with Danner, is in ascribing any positive value to the original neo-con vision that the region would be transformed. It is difficult to say exactly where Danner stands on this. I think he comes down on the side of “very unlikely, but it would be nice if it worked and with the right people, maybe, just maybe, it would.” Others have gone further, asserting that an aggressively evangelical foreign policy to bring democracy to the Middle East and elsewhere is a noble idea.

I think it is a deeply immoral idea. It is an indication of how dangerously stupid our discourse has become that opposition to democracy evangelization is almost instantly labelled as a form of Kissingerism. It is not, by a long shot.

In the interest of keeping this post short and sweet, here are two reasons I’m opposed to such a policy. First of all, it is ignorant. Evangelization rests upon the same “black box” assumptions as realism, that what goes on inside the country to be transformed is far less important than the supposed benefits that will accrue once the people in that country experience American-style democracy.

Second of all, it is racist, in a white man’s burden sort of a way.

The combination of willful ignorance and unquestioned superiority, even if the intentions were wholly disinterested and good (which they never are), make the evangelizing model propagated by neo-cons and other so-called idealists utterly immoral. That doesn’t mean that abetting tyrants and atrocities is moral. Nor does it mean that the United States, acting in concert with other nations, shouldn’t encourage efforts to build democracies and to improve already existing democracies (including its own). It does mean acting with great prudence, defined as acting cautiously and with deep knowledge of a country’s culture, politics, and concerns. Prudence is one value (among many) that is conspicuosly lacking in Wolfowitz, Perle, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Bush.

Prudence also means acting rationally. I’m sure all of you were as disgusted as I was by Richard Cohen’s remarks on America’s so-called “need for therapeutic violence after 9/11” which Digby mentioned below. The corollary to rejecting such an ridiculous idea is that whatever actions the US takes, especially military ones, should never be predicated on emotion but only on cold, rational calculation. Gut instinct has no place in American foreign policy. Ever. That doesn’t mean that self-interest and only interest is the only concern (although I believe it must be the principle one). Compassion certainly has an important role, for example in an American response to the atrocities in Darfur, but it must be a rational, knowledgeable compassion, not the kind of do-good impulse that led Bush the Elder to send troops to Somalia.

Read Danner’s article, which makes it very clear how an imprudent foreign policy unfolded.