Iraq from the View of a Budding Neo-Liberal

My, how the tables have turned. Not long ago, the conservatives routinely accused the liberals of letting their pie-in-the-sky ideals get in the way of sound U.S. foreign policy. Today, I can’t help wondering what “realpolitikers” like Henry Kissinger think of the President’s second inaugural address.

But what should liberals think when the President claims the United States is at its best when it leads with its ideals and that the pursuit of freedom and democracy around the world is a worthwhile endeavor?

It is all too easy for liberals to dismiss wholesale whatever the President says today. As Shayna notes, it is difficult to judge from a clean slate the President’s idealistic vision of a world free from tyranny. That’s not why we invaded Iraq. Or, if it is, the President and his advisors misled us about the true reason.

But liberals are coming dangerously close to sounding like they oppose idealistic foreign policies, or that they don’t believe in spreading freedom and democracy overseas. Instead of knee-jerk nay-saying, liberals should recognize that there is some good in the President’s “vision”. Indeed, we can take a great deal of credit for this vision. For decades, liberals have argued the United States shouldn’t be afraid to have its principles and ideals influence its foreign policy. And, more specifically, liberals have argued that “intervention” (in places like Bosnia) will ultimately make the United States a safer place because chaos there often leads to insecurity here. That’s what makes the neo-conservatives “neo”: they have finally embraced many of the things we have been telling them for years.

But the President’s program – more so than his stated principles – deserves to be criticized. Now that the conservatives appear to be guided by unbounded idealism, it’s time for the liberals to serve as the realistic counterweight in U.S. foreign policy. What follows are a few dashes of realism from a budding Neo-Liberal.

First, is intervention in the name of liberty a principle we are really willing to follow? Roughly seven score and four years ago, the government openly permitted slavery. I, of course, don’t think much of that practice, but I also don’t like the idea of a foreign country, say Canada or France, invading the United States to liberate African-Americans. Slavery was our problem, and I’m glad we solved it ourselves, even though the solution took too long in coming and involved the loss of many American lives in a civil war. What would our country be like today if we had never addressed slavery ourselves, because France beat us to it?

And, even today, what if the rest of the industrialized world – which views capital punishment as barbaric and pig-headed – decided to invade the United States to end this “un-Christian” practice? Even if you (like me) are fundamentally opposed to capital punishment, I doubt you favor a foreign invasion.

All of this suggests, to me at least, that the principle of sovereignty is still a good one and needs to be balanced against the desire to rid the world of “evil” in a crusade in the name of freedom and democracy.

Second, what do we mean by freedom anyway? I happen to believe, fundamentally, that people should be free to end their lives when they choose, with the assistance of a physician if necessary (at least where there is absolutely no doubt that that is the longstanding wish of the patient). But many in this country – including, I suspect, the President and plenty in his party – don’t believe in the principle of freedom there. The same can be said of laws against consensual sodomy. Conservatives often argue that laws against such freedoms are necessary to protect the “social fabric” of our nation. Okay, but doesn’t that sound an awful lot like the argument of an Islamic fundamentalist who opposes the spread of freedom and wants to keep his wife covered in a burka?

Third, how effective can a country, even one as powerful as the United States, be in transplanting its ideals to a foreign culture? We cannot assume that the world will understand and respond to democracy and freedom the way we do.

Fourth, the neo-conservatives (and many liberals) favor the pursuit of freedom abroad largely because they believe it is in our own national interest. Democratic nations are generally much less belligerent than tyrannical ones, it is true. But is this true in countries where the most popular name for baby boys is “Osama”? In the very, very long run, it may be. But over the next two or three generations?

This gets to a point that The Economist made recently: “democracy is unlikely to promote peace if it is coupled with a burning sense of unresolved justice.” The Muslim “street” – those who we want to empower in a democratic world – are, at best, deeply suspicious of the United States, for a variety of reasons. One extremely important reason is our policy toward Israel and Palestine. Would it be wrong for a Muslim to think the United States sometimes seems indifferent to the plight of the Palestinians? (Obviously, a full discussion of the Israel-Palestine issue is beyond the scope of this post, and I will be the first to admit that I have a lot to learn about the issue. But I also know that almost every American fails to understand the importance of this issue in the minds of the Muslim street.) The President and his advisors often cite Natan Sharansky’s book for vindication of their foreign policy. Natan Sharansky is a right-leaning member in Ariel Sharon’s right-leaning cabinet. Can we blame the Muslim street for being a bit skeptical of our intentions in these circumstances?

Finally, there is the mundane but extremely important issue of cost – in terms of American lives, dollars, diplomatic capital, and goodwill. Even if it is true that the United States will be safer if we can spread freedom and democracy to the Muslim world, is the present program the most cost-effective way of doing so and, ultimately, of making the United States safer? Are there less costly ways of achieving the same purpose?

Even if Iraq were to become a bastion of freedom, democracy, and pacifism tomorrow, the United States has lost well over a thousand lives and $300 billion in the adventure. (The cost in dollars roughly translates into $1,000 for every man, woman, and child in the United States, and doesn’t include the cost of higher oil and gasoline prices.) The invasion has also unnecessarily cost us a great deal of diplomatic capital, not to mention goodwill with the people of countries as far flung as Turkey, Russia, and even Australia. As Shayna has pointed out, other nations too often try to work around the United States, instead of treating it as an indispensable participant in international institutions and affairs.

That’s on the cost side, but what about the benefits? According to the CIA, the invasion of Iraq may very well breed more terrorists than it eliminates. (Let’s not forget how Al-Qaeda got its start: with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.) In the minds of many Muslims, the invasion of Iraq only proves that Osama bin Laden is right about “imperial” America; that means his group and others like it may receive more in funding and in suicidal bodies in the coming years. So, the benefits of spreading “freedom” in Iraq are, at best, speculative and will only be realized, if at all, at some point in the distant future.

In short, now that the conservatives have embraced many “liberal” principles of foreign policy, it’s time for the liberals to develop some of the healthy skepticism and realism of the old conservatives. But let’s not go blindly overboard with blanket opposition – opposition to some of the principles that originated in the liberal camp.