Thought Triggered by Three Articles

Three pieces I read in the last 24 hours somehow came together in my head.

1. "The occupation of Iraq: It might have been otherwise," The Economist, April 19th 2007. This is a review of Ali Allawi's book, The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace. The reviewer writes:

It has become commonplace, for example, to say that the Americans were woefully ignorant of Iraq's turbulent history and tangled sociology. Mr Allawi goes much further, arguing persuasively that they fundamentally misread Iraq's political culture. They simultaneously overrated the power of its secular middle class and underestimated the attachment of the majority Shias to their faith and to their religious leaders. The idea that the mass of Iraqi Shias would be willing accomplices in their country's makeover into a secular, liberal democracy—which America's neo-conservatives clung to as an article of faith—was absurd.

This fundamental error led to others. There was the naive belief that Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the most senior Shia cleric, favoured the separation of mosque and state when, in fact, it was he more than anyone else who was to secure the electoral triumph of the Shia Islamists. And the young firebrand Muqtada al-Sadr was written off as a street thug rather than the leader of a loose-knit but significant grassroots movement among the Shia poor.

2. "Does He Hear the World's Poor? Don't Bank on It" by William Easterly, The Washington Post, April 22, 2007. Easterly writes:

The root cause of his (Paul Wolfowitz') debacle at the (World)bank was pretty much the same as the reason for the fiasco in Iraq: intellectual hubris at the top that disdained the messy realities at the bottom. He imagined it would be as easy to clean up the pathologies of foreign aid as he had thought it would be to create democracy in the Middle East.......

(H)is main objective -- transforming bad governments into good governments -- was simply unworkable.

Wolfowitz's arrogant belief that the bank could overhaul the often nasty politics of the world's poor countries sounded familiar to many bank staffers; his predecessor, James D. Wolfensohn, also had a fondness for utopian schemes. All of this overreaching bogged the bank down, making it less capable than ever of delivering even the simplest things that alleviate the sufferings of the world's poor -- medicine, water, food. Frustrated, suspicious and resentful, the staff was ripe for revolt.....

But the problems with Wolfowitz's management of the bank ran even deeper than his botched anti-corruption campaign. He also embraced and expanded the utopian goals of his predecessor, Wolfensohn.

For example, while Wolfowitz was allegedly getting tougher on "bad government" in places such as Uzbekistan, the bank was simultaneously insisting that development programs show "country ownership" -- bureaucrat-speak for having the recipient government take charge of its own programs. But how do you get tough with misbehaving governments while insisting that they run your programs?

Such follies are only one symptom of a deeper intellectual crisis over whether the bank has the slightest clue of how to achieve its grandiose goals. Just as Wolfowitz arrived at the bank in 2005, it produced a report on "Lessons of the 1990s." The lessons were that the bank did not know which lessons to teach; the report showed that countries that had ignored bank dogma (China, Vietnam, India) were thriving, while those under bank tutelage (Russia, Argentina, Zambia) did poorly.

3. "Cold War Realist" by Walter Isaacson, The Washington Post Book World, April 22, 2007. This is a review of GEORGE KENNAN: A Study of Character by John Lukacs. Isaacson writes:

The messy collision with reality that has befallen the Bush administration's freedom agenda and democracy crusade in the Middle East has meant a comeback for the foreign policy doctrine known as realism.....

Kennan's roots as a realist thinker came from a cold view of national interests, narrowly defined, and a dark view of human nature. That made him a traditionalist and a conservative, even though his sharpest critics came from the right. In a passage that gives a revealing taste of his book, Lukacs goes so far as to paint him, admiringly, as a lonely dissenter among the worshipers of progress: "He believed that people, and especially Americans, have reached a time when they must rethink the entire idea of 'progress.'......

Lukacs remains sympathetic throughout this brief book, but he provides grist for those who might have qualms about Kennan's brand of realism. From his early days as a foreign service officer to his later ones as a sage in Princeton, Kennan was unabashedly dubious about democracy. He approved of authoritarian regimes and was contemptuous of America's middle class. He also disdained the role of morality, as opposed to calculated national interests, in foreign policy; he resisted allowing more Jews to immigrate to America after Hitler took power, and he was cool toward America's entry into World War II.

Comment: It is too bad when words pick up political connotations that keep them from meaning what the dictionary says that they mean.

I certainly am in favor of realism (in the dictionary sense) in foreign policy. U.S. foreign policy makers should have had a realistic understanding of the political dynamics in Iraq before invading, and certainly in occupying that country. Indeed, they should have had a realistic understanding of the willingness of the U.S. public to support casualties and support nation building efforts over the long haul; a long haul effort should obviously have been envisioned for achieving a resolution in Iraq appropriate to our national interests. So too should Wolfowitz have had a realistic appreciation of both the difficulties in achieving reforms in developing nations, especially the least developed nations, and the World Bank.

On the other hand, a narrow, short term interpretation of U.S. interests in foreign policy should not, in my opinion, be graced with the title "realism". The U.S. public does support human rights and democratic governance and -- since our national interests are an expression of our citizen's values -- these should be seen as U.S. national interests. Moreover, I feel that in the long term altruism is a better basis for U.S. foreign policy than greed -- it is not only morally superior but more successful even in promoting our economic and security interests. Of course the Unites States has economic and security interests that should be protected, and of course other nations and peoples understand that fact, but the U.S. had a lot of good will internationally (that was beneficial in all of our dealings with other nations) as a result of its fight against Fascism in World War II, the Marshall Plan, the Alliance for Progress, U.S. support for Egypt in the Suez Crisis, and other occasions in which U.S. policy tried to "do the right thing". Realism should not sacrifice the global environment to U.S. corporate profits in the next decade -- a long term view is needed as well as keeping ones eye on the ball in foreign policy. JAD