A Century of Fakers

by Eric Martin

In a recent piece in Foreign Policy magazine, James Traub struggles to divine the true nature of the Obama administration's foreign policy posture - in particular, the quality of the Obama administration's predisposition to pursue engagement with other regimes and institutions, regardless of the makeup of said organizations.  In this, Traub agonizes over the potential willingness of the Obama team to compromise core values in the pursuit of perceived vital interests:

Virtually all conversations with Obama administration foreign-policy officials, no matter where they begin, come to rest at "engagement" -- that vexing, mutable, all-purpose word. The U.S. president has "engaged" with rogue states, civil society, the United Nations, and citizens around the globe. Iran vindicates the policy of engagement -- or discredits it. China is a failure of engagement, Russia a success. Inside the Obama realm, engagement has come to mean "good diplomacy."

Barack Obama himself arguably encouraged this view during his 2008 presidential campaign by criticizing George W. Bush's moralistic bluster, by regularly expressing his high regard for archrealists like James Baker and Brent Scowcroft, and by stipulating his willingness to meet "without preconditions" with even the worst tyrants. And since becoming president he has muted criticism of the regimes in Sudan and Burma, and referred respectfully to "the Islamic Republic of Iran." [...]

But is [Obama-style engagement] not, still, a realist bargain, trading away those universal values that the president so often evokes in the hopes of geostrategic wins, whether on Iran or climate change or the global economy? [emphasis added]

Given that Traub recently penned a book on the subject of the role of democracy promotion in U.S. foreign policy, it would be hard to fathom that he is naive on such matters, and yet, so much confounding naivete is communicated in this piece (I prefer that interpretation to deliberate obfuscation).

The short rebuttal is that Obama, like every single President that preceded him, is likely willing to trade away values that are extolled rhetorically in exchange for "geostrategic wins."  This is how it has always been. Treating it as a new development is ahistorical at best. 

Further, how curious to fret about mere diplomatic engagement with Iran's regime - which Traub includes under the rubric, "worst tyrants" - when we not only engage on a diplomatic level with brutal, oppressive, undemocratic regimes in the region like Pakistan (until recently, a military dictatorship), Saudi Arabia (monarchy), Jordan (monarchy), Egypt (de facto hereditary dictatorship), etc., but we often lavish those same despotic regimes with generous aid packages, including top-of-the-line military equipment. 

Not to mention that our closest ally, Israel, whose relationship with the U.S. is sacrosanct and whose conduct we never criticize (or even allow the UN to criticize), currently oversees an apartheid state, and commits grievous human rights abuses against the beleaguered populations in the occupied territories, as well as war crimes in its maintenance of control thereof.

And yet, the continuation of those relationships receives far less scrutiny and is not treated as an existential moral crucible for sitting Presidents in the same way that potential negotiations with North Korea and Iran are (see, also, U.S. government relations with China, Vietnam and other communist countries, but "principled" refusal to "appease" the Castro regime because...it's communist). 

In fact, though imperfect in obvious ways, Iran's political institutions are more democratic, and less tyrannical, than most of our longtime favored allies in the region.  Not to mention that before the Iranian revolution in 1979, we did engage the Shah's regime (which, tyrannically, maintained power with the aid of the notoriously brutal SAVAK secret police) and favored him with money, state of the art military aid and other niceties.  To tell the whole story, we not only supported his regime, we helped stage a coup in the 1950s, toppling the democratically elected regime in Iran, and replacing it with the Shah's dictatorial rule.

But let us ponder whether Obama's decision to engage the Iranian regime represents some serious compromise of American values.

It's almost as if Traub is confusing Bush's bluster for actual policy, and seeking to draw a contrast between Obama and his predecessor, when in reality, little has changed over the past century or so of U.S. foreign policy.  Don't be fooled by a couple of old-school, self-interested military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan that were packaged with a flimsy veneer of magnanimous "democracy promotion."  

Dick Cheney might have intoned, defiantly, that "we don't negotiate with evil" with respect to the regimes in Iran and North Korea (and Iraq, presumably - after Saddam was a favored ally during the Reagan administration), but those words were uttered at the same time that the Bush administration was maintaining the aforementioned relations with regional despots, as well as pursuing a working relationship with Islam "Boil Dissidents Alive" Karimov for purposes of facilitating the war effort in Afghanistan - not to mention implementing policies of preventive war, torture, detainee abuse and indefinite detention that were themselves tyrannical.

One way that various U.S. regimes have tried to paper over the persistent hypocrisy of word and deed is to stuff wads of propaganda in the widening gaps between rhetoric and reality.  In pursuit of this, regimes/groups that are amenable to our particular foreign policy goal are arbitrarily described as "democratic" and "moderate" (like Saddam when he was fighting Iran), while those regimes/groups that oppose our agenda are, by nature, "extremist" and "tyrannical" - even though there is often little rhyme or reason to the classification beyond our own ulterior preferences.

It is when we confuse the facade created by spackling the cracks with smooth reality that we look most foolish to foreign populations that are less mesmerized by our self-gratifying, exceptionalist propaganda. I'm reminded of a recent Rami Khouri piece in the Daily Star:

We are told that [Secretary of State Clinton's] trip to the region has two main aims: to strengthen Arab resolve to join the United States and others in imposing harsh new sanctions to stop Iran’s nuclear development program; and to harness Arab support for resumed Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. In both of these critical diplomatic initiatives the US has taken the lead and achieved zero results...

The weakness in both cases, I suspect, has to do with the US trying to define diplomatic outcomes that suit its own strategic objectives and political biases (especially pro-Israel domestic sentiments). So Washington pushes, pulls, cajoles and threatens all the players with various diplomatic instruments, except the one that will work most efficiently in both the Iranian and Arab-Israeli cases: serious negotiations with the principal parties, based on applying the letter of the law, and responding equally to the rights, concerns and demands of all sides.

Two Clinton statements during her Gulf trip this week were particularly revealing of why Washington continues to fail in its missions in our region. The first was her expression of concern that Iran is turning into a military dictatorship: “We see that the government of Iran, the supreme leader, the president, the Parliament, is being supplanted, and that Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship,” Clinton said.

Half a century of American foreign policy flatly contradicts this sentiment (which is why Clinton heard soft chuckles and a few muffled guffaws as she spoke). The US has adored military dictatorships in the Arab world, and has long supported states dominated by the shadowy world of intelligence services. This became even more obvious after the attacks of September 11, 2001, when Washington intensified cooperation with Arab intelligence services in the fight against Al-Qaeda and other terror groups.

Washington’s closest allies in the Middle East are military and police states where men with guns rule, and where citizens are confined to shopping, buying cellular telephones, and watching soap operas on satellite television. Countries like Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Libya, as well as the entire Gulf region and other states are devoted first and foremost to maintaining domestic order and regime incumbency through efficient, multiple security agencies, for which they earn American friendship and cooperation. When citizens in these and other countries agitate for more democratic and human rights, the US is peculiarly inactive and quiet.

If Iran is indeed becoming a military dictatorship, this probably qualifies it for American hugs and aid rather than sanctions and threats. Clinton badly needs some more credible talking points than opposing military dictatorships.

From the days when the U.S. began establishing its colonial fiefdom in Central and South America, through the Cold War and now the ill-named War on Terror, the primacy of democracy promotion as a goal of U.S. foreign policy has been tenuous at best.  All things being equal, and in nominal ways when doing so creates some minor friction, the U.S. will support democracy promotion.  Immanuel Kant would not be impressed with our sense of conviction.

Worse still, we have also been willing to actively interfere with democratic elections through massive infusions of cash and propaganda in favor of preferred candidates in locales from Central and South America, to Italy, West Germany and France.  In Japan, we plucked war criminals off death row and forged a political party with them at the lead that has maintained power (again, with massive amounts of aid from the CIA) almost unchallenged until relatively recently.  We instigated coups to topple democratically elected regimes in favor of brutal dictatorships in places like Iran, Guatemala and Chile (not to mention failed attempts in several other nations).  All along the way, we've coddled, armed, funded and propped-up all manner of nefarious dictator, monarch, despot and tyrant when doing so was deemed in our interest. 

I would recommend that Mr. Traub familiarize himself with his New York Times colleague Tim Weiner's work, which documents these many episodes using declassified government documents.

So, please, let's not pretend that a decision to engage the Iranian and North Korean regimes represents some break from precedence or compromise of our values, or that there is anything "principled" about maintaining the counterproductive diplomatic cold shoulder.  Engaging these regimes is not hypocritical.  The hypocrisy is actually pretending that such diplomatic outreach would be unique, inconsistent or at all out of the ordinary.

(see, also, David Shorr's take on Traub's piece)

Comments

[ChrisJ]

In pieces like this I generally assume disingenuousness, rather than good faith pondering, as the operative mode. It's a pretty good rule of thumb, I think.

[Julian]

Great piece. Thank you, Eric.

[Uncle Kvetch]

An excellent post and a Belle & Sebastian reference--truly the best of both worlds.

[Jay C]

A very simple rule to remember, Eric, when commenting on US foreign-policy issues, goes right back to former VP Cheney's formulation:

"We don't negotiate with evil"

Where, of course, the concept of "evil" is defined de facto, as correlating directly to "anti-American" - in word or deed. Or, if necessary, only in word.

Example: the typical (well, typical for the blogosphere, anyway) frame for Internet commentary on Venezuela: President Hugo Chavez is scarcely different from any number of Latin-American strongman caudillos past or present, yet he is routinely demonized as as a sort of Teh Hideous Political Antichrist - mainly because he has made strident anti-Yanqui rhetoric the mainstay of his regime's cheapjack populism.

After all, we're "God's Country", aren't we?

[Eric Martin]

After all, we're "God's Country", aren't we?

Are you trying out a dueling musical allusion cause I got ye covered?

[Jay C]

Are you trying out a dueling musical allusion cause I got ye covered?

No, man... You're the musical-allusion maven here; I'm clueless, in this case...

though thanks, I guess, for getting my back...(?)

Anyway, another useful analogy: Robert Mugabe is (quite correctly, mind you!) usually excoriated online as a vicious, kleptocratic despot; whereas various other African "governments" treat their citizens every bit as vilely, and don't garner near as much of negative press/commentary. Might not the fact that Mugabe has made a career out of blaming others - mainly "Western colonialism", though I'm sure stock anti-Americanism isn't ignored - for most of the woes his rule has inflicted on Zimbabwe influence said judgements?

[Eric Martin]

I was thinking "In God's Country" off of Joshua Tree which was, in my opinion, the last good U2 album. There have been good songs since (many in fact, and some very good), but not another album which is solid from beginning to end.

[Jay C]

True that, Eric: one of the hardest, IMO, tricks for anyone (not just U2) to pull off in (commercial) music is to produce an entire album - a dozen or so songs/tracks - "solid from beginning to end". Which is why, I guess, they're so notable: if for no other reason that the rarity factor.

But maybe that's a discussion for another thread: we aren't done dissecting foreign-policy shibboleths yet!

[russell]

How does refusing to talk with any other given country further our interests and/or whatever "universal values" we hope to encourage?

Is the idea that we will make some kind of big moral point?

I don't get it.

[Julian]

The hardline evangelical republican stance seems to be: we're the big tough kid in the playground, and the only thing these maggots understand is force. Also, we're special and God says it's okay for us to do what we want. When we do it, it is good, when other countries do it, it is bad.

[russell]

these are the kinds of people that cause stupid bar fights.

[Eric Martin]

Russell,

The arguments are also based on the following notions:

1. Merely meeting with reps from the US government confers "legitimacy" on the regime in question.

2. The US should not sully its purity and moral standing by meeting with such regimes.

3. If the US refuses to meet with such regimes, and condemns their human rights abuses loudly enough, those regimes will fall/change their practices (see, ie, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall..." - even though Reagan...engaged with the Evil Empire itself!)

[Jacob Davies]

"Tear down this wall" is in fact a perfect example of engagement. Reagan could say that because he was working on a deal with Russia to reduce the intensity of the Cold War. Talking to potential opponents wasn't "weakness" then and isn't weakness now. It was and is just the recognition that it is in neither side's interest to go to war, and that if conflict is to be averted, one must first understand what it is that the other side wants.

Not talking to people because they're eeeeeeevil is so stupid I can't believe the US still does it. It's just a conversation. It's not like they invite Ahmadinejad over to the War Room and let him start picking targets. Conversation does not imply concession.

[Fred]

You need to get out of the habit of dropping blood libels on Israel at the drop of a hat. The charge of war crimes is complete moose manure. Anybody with an IQ higher than his shoe size knows that.

Even the Goldstone Report didn't say the charges were proven.

[Hartmut]

Yeah, why don't the killed innocents come out to accuse the perpetrators?

[Eric Martin]

This:

The charge of war crimes is complete moose manure. Anybody with an IQ higher than his shoe size knows that.

Followed by this:

Even the Goldstone Report didn't say the charges were proven.

Made me laugh.

So let me see if I have this straight: the claims are such utter BS that even an unbiased report from a well respected observer that was not supposed to adjudicate guilt merely reported on them but didn't "prove" them.

Thus, the claims utter BS. Hilarious. Better check your shoe size Freddy.

[novakant]

I'm against engagement - the US should mind its own business for a couple of decades. Considering the track record of post-WW2 US foreign policy, anything beyond normal diplomatic and trade relationships is bound to result in needless suffering and death. And don't get me started on "US interests" ...