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Washington Post yesterday reported that Brent Scowcroft,
impresario of foreign policy in Bush I, is quietly logging occasional
calls to Condi Rice and others in the Bush administration, urging
patience.
Please, Condi
— stop taking his calls.
Scowcroft's
patience appears to be impervious to any shock, even this, the most
catastrophic attack on the American homeland ever. For Scowcroft
and other hyper-realists like him, patience is more than just a
temperament, it involves a view of American power and the world.
The key to
Scowcroft's worldview is the notion that conflict among states is
inevitable. The goal of foreign policy should be to minimize it
through focusing on considerations of power, rather than on distracting
and potentially destabilizing attempts to influence the internal
politics of other nations.
There is much
to be said for this view, for the essentially conservative way it
views reality (as difficult to change and full of lurking unintended
consequences) and the way it steers the U.S. clear of purposeless
international do-goodism.
But in Scowcroft's
mind this view has frozen into an ideology that values stability
over all else, so his response to the September 11 massacres is
to advocate more of the same: the same Taliban regime in Afghanistan,
the same Saddam in Iraq, the same attempts to cozy up to Iran, and
the same efforts to constrain Israel.
If The Onion
were to write a parody of the Scowcroft/Baker/Bush I response to
this crisis this would be it. Here's the Post's rendition
of Scowcroft's views:
He believes
that overthrowing Saddam Hussein is not feasible. His reluctance
to engage in regime change extends to Afghanistan, where he says
it would be simpler diplomatically to send U.S. forces in to snatch
bin Laden. Scowcroft also favors building a strong coalition of
Arab nations, even if that means applying more pressure on Israel
to exert restraint in its conflict with the Palestinians. And
he believes the United States should make every effort to reestablish
a constructive relationship with Iran, arguing that the United
States should not be simultaneously at odds with the two most
populous Persian Gulf states.
For Scowcroft,
like Candide, this is the best of all possible worlds, and any attempt
to change a regime must inevitably create an even worse regime.
So, American policy must be resigned to the sheer immovability of
the current lineup of foreign governments.
But the application
of American power can turn the world quite plastic — the Taliban
is collapsing before our eyes just from the threat of American
strikes. Sure, American power has its limits. We can't end, say,
ethnic hatred in the Balkans for all time, but surely we are capable
of establishing the kind of autocratic, but pro-Western governments
that have existed in the Middle East in the past.
This, of course,
would require regime change, which makes Scowcroft's palms sweaty
with anxiety. Imagine the instability. But some things are
worse than instability. And there are regimes so nasty — the
Taliban, the Baathists in Iraq — that they are worth ousting
at almost any cost.
Yes, this will
involve making value judgments about these regimes, and invoking
moralistic rhetoric about both their external and internal politics.
But this shouldn't be confused with indiscriminate international
do-goodism. It would represent idealism tethered firmly to a strategic
goal: ending some (and the scaring the hell out of other) state
sponsors of terror.
Scowcroft and
people who think like him don't understand that values are an indispensable
support of American power, and trying to wield it without resort
to them is unrealistic indeed. In the case of Afghanistan, the tents
and food packages with American flags on them may be as important,
in their way, as our smart bombs.
Scowcroft's
views may seem a sidelight in the current crisis, but if the Bush
administration pulls up short in the war on terrorism it will certainly
be on Scowcroftian grounds. May its patience be limited.
Friedman
Unleashed
I've never been a fan of Thomas Friedman, but he has really risen
to the occasion in the current crisis, including his
current number contrasting the strength and spirit of American
society to the desolate vision of Islamic radicals.
Operation
Let's Roll
"Operation Infinite Justice" was an utter failure as a
name. "Operation Enduring Freedom" is better, but not
by much — bloodless somehow, with a distinctly bureaucratic
ring. Why not call it "Operation Let's Roll," commemorating
the first American action against the terrorists over Pennsylvania
and capturing the can-do spirit that should characterize our fight?
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