Something John Derbyshire blogged yesterday got me to thinking.
A few inconsequential "rollback" exercises aside (Grenada, El Salvador), the Cold War was a war of containment. The object was to prevent the advance of totalitarian communism, most especially its futher advance into Europe, then seen as the heartland of Western Civ. The bet we placed was that communism was such a lousy way of organizing a society that it would eventually turn into something else, something less threatening. The bet worked with Russia.
Islamofascism is much less of a threat -- economically, militarily, and culturally -- than communism. Why would containment not work just as well, with the expectation that these societies would crumble and change even faster than the communists did? We'd need to be vigilant against fanatical terrorists of the 9/11 type, and against moves in the MME to develop nuclear weapons. The second of those must surely be easy, though -- just a matter of decent intelligence and an occasional Osirak-type military action. For the first, we need to keep out foreign Islamofascists the way we used to keep out foreign communists, and to keep a close watch on any home-grown ones we might produce, and to publicly demonize Islamofascism -- teaching our kids that it's evil, turning out movies and TV dramas that show it as an enemy, and so on. (Where is our Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. for this "new Cold War"?) Now THAT would be using the Cold War as a model! Unfortunately, it would fly in the face of all the dogmas of tolerance, diversity, and multiculturalism that our society nowadays holds to be precious and inviolable.
Bush 41 took a lot of heat a few years ago for "not finishing the job in Iraq" by liberals opposed to finishing the job in 2003. I think Derb's thinking here mirrors Bush 41's thinking back then. He pretty much beat Saddam up, but rather than create a power vacuum with Iran next door, he decided that containing Hussein would result in fewer lives lost and more stability in the region. I think Bush made a reasonable decision at the time. The containment approach was also essential considering Congress had only authorized Bush to follow the charter of the United Nations and they didn't have the stomach for much more than getting Hussein out of Kuwait and away from the Saudi border.
What Bush 41 didn't anticipate was being defeated for re-election. Clinton had no desire to keep Saddam to the cease-fire agreement. Saddam was constantly pushing the limits of the no-fly zone and shooting at allied planes. He was skimming money out of the oil for food program. Clinton let his violations go on without punishment or worry. His administration was far more concerned with religious Zealots minding their own business in Waco, Texas. And, of course, if we're talking about how U.S. action creates terrorists we cannot forget that the Waco debacle resulted in Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing.
One essential reason for removing Saddam in 2003, and no administration official can say it out loud, is that Republicans cannot take for granted that future Democrats in the White House will focus on containment. In the post Vietnam era, Democrats no longer have the stomach to back up their threats with action, and therefore the world knows that American interests will not be fought for. Democrats will solve European problems like Serbia or Caribbean problems like Haiti, but they will not take hard stand on American interests. We may think that these tin horn dictators are ignorant of our ways, but they understand the division with American politics enough that they can just wait Republicans out for a Democrat.
By going to Iraq and letting the Iraqi people re-shape their own future, it keeps Democrats from backing down. If one is elected in 2008 it will make them take the Middle East situation more seriously. A failure in Iraq post Saddam will be the failure of whatever president is at the helm.
Had a Republican like Dewey or Taft been President at the end of World War II, the Russian/American problem may have taken a different track. The cold war may have ended before it began. But since Truman invented containment, it became the Democrat alternative to all-out war up and through 1968 and the Vietnam protests. By the time Carter came around, containment meant little more than boycotting the Olympics. Reagan ended the cold war not just by out-spending them, but spending enough money that they realized he was serious about fighting if it came to that. It was the "evil empire" attitude that made them think seriously. His idea of containment had muscle behind it.
Without Reagan, I'm sure that Russia would have had to evolve their economy to makeup for the scarcity that communism creates. I'm sure it would be more open today than it was in 1980. But I'm not sure it would have dissolved already. I tend to think modern day Russian would be more like China with more economic freedom but still little political freedom. Look at Castro and how he can survive after 45 years of American sanctions. The economic part is important, but the muscle part is what makes the change.
The Democrat party is split down the middle between moderates that will fight an enemy to America and lefties that consider America the villain in any confrontation. Since the moderates cannot win without the lefties, they end up having to back down to get elected. Liberal Blogs like Daily Kos hate Hilary Clinton for trying to take the moderate position on Iraq. Don't even mention Joe Lieberman around there. Among the grass roots, Howard Dean is considered the savior of the party.
Which brings up the question if American leftists hate war, why don’t they show the strength that prevents most wars? Because they hate American power more than they hate war. That’s why instead of honoring the troops they focus on the failures and casualty rates. They’d rather see a long war with more dying that discredits America than a quick war that emboldens America. Remember how they predicted mass casualties before we invaded Iraq and then showed not the least bit of relief when we stormed Baghdad mostly unhindered? It’s not all Democrats that feel this way, it’s probably a minority, but that minority is essential to their coalition.
Containment only works if everyone is on board. This reality means that Republicans have to fight more direct wars with unconditional surrender rather than sit back and let Democrats lose the peace.
1 comment:
Yes. Very good, Tom.
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