Europe vs. The Washington Post's War Agenda

Fred Hiatt and his crew have published an unsigned editorial, chastising NATO countries for failing to spend enough money on their military forces. I'll outsource in part to Dan Larison's preemptive strike:

It may be obvious, but Gates’ two examples of non-U.S. NATO failings have nothing to do with European defense. Certainly, the limitations of European military power show that their governments remain dependent on the U.S. for security, but there are few worse ways to persuade European governments and publics that they have the wrong priorities than to lecture them on their insufficient support for Afghanistan and Libya....

As for Libya, it is important to remember that the governments that have contributed nothing to the war never wanted to attack Libya, and they wanted to keep NATO out of it all together. Gates directed his ire at several of these governments the other day, as if Germany, Poland, and Turkey should be expected to pitch in to support a military campaign they explicitly opposed. These are not the governments that wanted the U.S. to engage in combat missions in Libya, because they didn’t want any outside government taking military action in Libya. What Gates should have acknowledged when faced with the refusal of German, Polish, and Turkish governments to participate in bombing Libya is that Libya is not properly a matter for NATO and should never have been a NATO mission.

Hiatt's crew complains,

As [Gates] made clear, this country can no longer afford to do a disproportionate share of NATO’s fighting and pay a disproportionate share of its bills while Europe slashes its defense budgets and free-rides on the collective security benefits.

And Gates has different priorities than the nations of Europe, who see significant benefit in "free riding". For that matter, I don't recall Hiatt and his crew coming out against austerity measures in Europe. Even if we ignore how popular it would be for European nations to announce tens of billions in new military spending as they slash domestic programs, the question arises: how is increasing military spending consistent with austerity? As Hiatt knows from his own paper, Britain's austerity measures include significant cuts in military spending.

Hiatt's crew complains that Europe places too many restrictions on the rules of engagement when it commits troops to NATO ventures, and that Libya should be more important to Europe than it is to the U.S., presumably because it's closer? They also complain that the nations involved in the bombing of Libya don't have the resources to carry out a perpetual campaign:

Even fully participating members have failed to train enough targeting specialists to keep all of their planes flying sorties or to buy enough munitions to sustain a bombing campaign much beyond the present 11 weeks.

That should frighten every defense ministry in Europe. What if they had to fight a more formidable enemy than Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s fractured dictatorship?

Can we be honest for a moment? The fact that the European nations who wanted to participate in the Libyan adventure cannot sustain a 12 week bombing campaign against a nation in North Africa does not mean that they cannot defend themselves. The fact that they impose strict rules of engagement on their troops when deployed for NATO missions in Africa or Asia does not mean that, if faced with military invasion, they would apply those same rules. The fact that nobody is talking about using nuclear weapons in Libya does not mean that, when Europe faced an actual and potentially imminent existential threat, the probable use of nuclear weapons in its defense was not taken for granted.

I also expect that if the nations of Europe did perceive a growing, potentially existential threat, they would buy some additional planes and bombs in response. One reason not to do so is that, used or not, the ongoing cost of training, support and maintenance is significant. Another reason not to do so is out of recognition that when you have greater military capacity there's always somebody, within the state or on the outside, who wants you to use it. When President McCain says, "It's time to invade... Iran", it's easier to respond, "We can't" than "We won't."

In specific relation to Libya, the priorities here have less to do with Europe's ability to defend itself from proximate or imminent threats, and more to do with its unwillingness to pour huge amounts of money into overseas adventurism. Yes, sometimes threats do arise in other continents, and under some circumstances it may make sense to take military action in those nations as a matter of self-defense. But humanitarian missions, as the Libyan adventure was initially described, are not a matter of self-defense. And as should be obvious to anybody who has paid even slight attention to world history, past or present, military interventions often do not go as planned and often carry serious repurcussions. George W. Bush and Tony Blair presented Gadafi as proof positive of the success of the "War on Terror", and now he's a poster child for the evil despots of the world who must be removed at any cost... which in a sense takes us back to Reagan's time, except that Reagan put a pretty low ceiling on the cost he was willing to incur to depose Gadafi. How is this mission vital to Europe's interests?

What Would Be a "Successful" Outcome in Libya

Many people have observed that the coalition going into Libya has not articulated what "success" would look like. You can find optimistic recitations of what might constitute success from people like Juan Cole, but there are no publicly stated official goals or benchmarks beyond addressing immediate humanitarian concerns.

That silence leaves me uncharacteristically cynical.¹ That is, it was not at all long ago that Qaddafi was being fêted by the leaders [added: and would-be leaders] of nations that now want him ousted. He was a poster child for "victory in the war on terror", a rehabilitated character who was opening his country up to foreign investment. But really, he was the same old Qaddafi and everybody knew it (and he was happy to provide occasional reminders "just in case"). I heard a war crimes prosecutor explaining why Qaddafi hadn't been charged along with Charles Taylor for war crimes in Sierra Leone. Qaddafi's public rehabilitation was a leading factor. Qaddafi's mistake, perhaps understandable given how much he had been able to get away with since having been declared "reformed", was that the embarrassment brought about by his actions would again make him persona non grata and subject to removal by military force.

For the engineers of the intervention, what do I believe an unstated "acceptable outcome", perhaps even "preferred outcome" of this intervention to be? For somebody within Qaddafi's regime to oust him (whether by convincing him to go into exile or through "wet work"), and to promise to the west that Libya's new leadership will honor its contracts with western companies, tone down the embarrassing behavior, and add a few layers of velvet to its iron fisted domestic rule. If in six months the new leader has kept the first two promises, I expect the response to be a shrug, "Well, two out of three ain't bad."
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1. Yes, I know, it's not uncharacteristic. Let's call that sentence an exercise in poetic licence.

The Bush-Blair "Freedom Agenda"

Charles Krauthammer bloviates,

Today, everyone and his cousin supports the "freedom agenda." Of course, yesterday it was just George W. Bush, Tony Blair and a band of neocons with unusual hypnotic powers who dared challenge the received wisdom of Arab exceptionalism - the notion that Arabs, as opposed to East Asians, Latin Americans, Europeans and Africans, were uniquely allergic to democracy.

To the extent that Krauthammer is arguing that Tony Blair personifies the G.W. Bush "freedom agenda", and how it relates to Egypt, I agree completely.

Tony Blair has described Hosni Mubarak, the beleaguered Egyptian leader, as "immensely courageous and a force for good" and warned against a rush to elections that could bring the Muslim Brotherhood to power.

The former prime minister, now an envoy to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, praised Mubarak over his role in the negotiations and said the west was right to back him despite his authoritarian regime because he had maintained peace with Israel.

Yes, when G.W., Tony Blair and their merry "band of neocons" stood for freedom they stood squarely behind people like Mubarak. And they stood in the way of Arab democracy not because they didn't believe it would be embraced, but because those pesky Arabs might have elected the wrong people.

And that pretty much sums up the rest of Krauthammer's column - the Arab world needs democracy, so for now we should prop up dictators and hope that they start creating the necessary institutions and opportunities such that elections can take place once the Arab world is no longer Islamic.

Is George Bush Stupid?

In the sense of having a low IQ? Of course not. Yet he chose a public persona that, going on two years after he left office, still has his former buddies defending him. Jamelle Bouie quotes Tony Blair's biography,

One of the most ludicrous caricatures of George is that he was a dumb idiot who stumbled into the presidency. No one stumbles into that job, and the history of American presidential campaigns is littered with the corpses of those who were supposed to be brilliant but who nonetheless failed because brilliance is not enough. [...]

To succeed in US politics, of that of the UK, you have to be more than clever. You have to be able to connect and you have to be able to articulate that connection in plain language. The plainness of the language then leads people to look past the brainpower involved. Reagan was clever. Thatcher was clever. And sometimes the very plainness touches something else: a simplicity that is the product of a decisive nature.

Bouie argues,

... decades from now, when the history of the Bush administration has been written, we'll find that George W. Bush suffered from passivity, indifference and incompetence, not stupidity or ignorance.

I can agree with that, except for the "ignorance" part. Bush ran his first campaign on an "ignorance is a virtue" platform. Recall that he didn't know who led Pakistan (or India), as if such an issue could have any real world relevance. He was going to delegate the egghead tasks to a bevy of highly qualified subordinates. His ignorance was pitched as something close to a virtue, making him a beer buddy as opposed to a pointy-headed whatever like Al Gore.

During his early years in office he developed a reputation as agreeing with the last person with whom he spoke. He was into his second term before he broke with those who helped form his early policies and opinions. Which is why people like John Bolton view his first term as a wondrous success and his second term as so problematic - Bush was smart enough to recognize that he had been led down the primrose path, and appears to have shut people like Bolton, Cheney and the neocons out of his decision-making process.

But enough of ignorance - we're talking intelligence here. And as I suggested several years ago, Bush had a carefully cultivated public persona that contributed to perceptions that he was stupid. Right down to the 'ranch' he purchased right before he started his campaign, and sold the moment he left office. Once you're retired, it seems that you're no longer have to pretend to like driving around in a pickup truck or cutting brush.

If there is one word that sums up George Bush's public persona, it's "nuclear". He consistently pronounced the word "nucular". His father knew how to pronounce the word, as did his brother. As did his advisers, Vice President, and speechwriters. And his mispronunciation of the word was a frequent subject of jokes. Even if you believe he didn't know how to pronounce the word, at a certain point you have to recognize he would have been aware of his mispronunciation. At that point was it arrogance - a refusal to admit that he could make a mistake - that kept him from correcting himself? Or was it because, all along, he knew the proper pronunciation but it was part of a carefully calculated public image?

Part of the issue here is that Bush never came across as what one would call a quick, accurate thinker. A typical leader of a political party in a parliamentary system must be a quick, accurate thinker, or he won't rise to the top of the party, let alone survive question period. But it is possible to be highly intelligent and to be a slow thinker. Think of a computer playing chess - how much time it can take for the computer to sift through every possible future move before picking the one most likely to lead to victory. An intelligent person can spend a lot of time identifying and sorting through possibilities. Sometimes, if you want quick decisions, it pays to be either less intelligent or (in Bush's case) less reflective.

Blair's comments about intelligence say something about that - he perceives himself as clever, but seems to concede that Gordon Brown was significantly smarter than he was - just not very clever. Blair benefited from our perception of an Brit who speaks the Queen's English - of course he's intelligent, just listen to him. This is the opposite side of the coin from Bush - of course he's a mediocre intellect, just listen to him. Truth be told, they probably operate at about the same intellectual level - in both cases significantly above average but significantly below genius. And yes, as a mutual admiration society, I'm sure they both enjoyed discussing their cleverness.

Blair's comments remind me of my sister's childhood taunt that she was "street smart" while I was "book smart". My sister is smarter than she gave herself credit for, but by the same token she was not what an outside observer would have deemed "street smart". But really, she was suggesting that she was somehow more clever than I was, and I'll grant that in some ways it was true. I'll similarly grant Blair's point that intelligence isn't enough for somebody to become President, and perhaps it can even be a detriment. Whether Bush came up with his persona by himself or in collaboration with Karl Rove, it was a clever gambit. But no matter how you slice it, Bush (like so many other people on Capital Hill) personifies the lament, "How can somebody so smart be so stupid?"

(Bush fans take note: At present the same question can be asked of Barack Obama.)

The Real Scandal

When you find out that one of the sensational claims that were used to justify the Iraq war came from a taxi driver,

An Iraqi taxi driver who overheard two military commanders talking about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction was allegedly the “intelligence sub-source” quoted in the Government’s dossier to prove that chemical missiles could be fired in 45 minutes, according to a report by a Tory MP.

Isn't the real scandal that Thomas Friedman wasn't the first to break the story?

Blair Must Be Thankful That He Had Better Writers

I imagine that, save for George Bush and maybe one or two others, people would find it more than a bit painful to have Michael Gerson put words into their mouths. Speaking of the "American kickoff of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation", Gerson's word-insertions start almost immediately:

At an event designed to further mutual religious sympathy, two of the panelists - including the president of Yale University, Richard Levin - casually asserted that religious Americans who support pro-life restrictions on international family planning aid are as doctrinaire and exclusionary as Saudi extremists. Pro-life Catholics and evangelicals? Wahhabi extremists? What's the difference?

Gerson share's Tony Blair's reaction to his spin, as,

Speaking to me after the event, Blair was patient, arguing that that "could not be what they intended."

It sounds like Tony Blair was trying to tell Gerson that he got it wrong. But Gerson didn't provide a quote for the statements that supposedly constituted the casual assertion, nor did he even deign to quote Blair's full sentence. But Gerson wants to tell us what people said, not show us, and we're supposed to take him at his word that he's getting things right.

But Blair is also critical of an "aggressive secularization," which, he told me, makes it easier to "forget a higher calling than the fulfillment of our own desires." Religious faith, at its best, not only encourages idealism, it provides an explanation and foundation for human rights and dignity, "an inalienable principle, rising above relativism and expediency." This does not "eliminate the painful compromises of political existence," Blair recognizes. But it does mean that "not everything can be considered in a utilitarian way." Blair defends a pluralism without relativism, a tolerance consistent with a belief in religious and moral truth - indeed, a tolerance that arises from within those convictions.

The worst thinking, of course, falls outside of the quotation marks. For example, the idea that religion, and by implication religion alone (and perhaps only the particular Christian beliefs of Gerson... and Blair?), "provides an explanation and foundation for human rights and dignity". Yet it's pretty simple to find and articulate entirely secular explanations of, and foundations for, human rights and dignity. Just as it's pretty simple to find examples of religion, not "at its best", undermining both.

On top of that, to put it mildly, neither the administration led by Blair nor the administration exalted by Gerson, can justly claim to have expanded the "foundation for human rights and dignity", either at home or abroad. Their anti-terror security rules at home pared back domestic liberties. Support for indefinite incarceration without charges, denial of habeas corpus rights, mistreatment of prisoners, use of techniques such as waterboarding that have been traditionally classified as torture, and rendition of prisoners to other nations that will use torture? But it's all worth it if in a decade or two, or four, or ten, Iraq becomes a somewhat non-repressive Shiite-dominated authoritarian democracy of some sort? Is all of this one of the "painful compromises of political existence"?

To speak of "pluralism without relativism, a tolerance consistent with a belief in religious and moral truth" seems misguided. Is this Gerson's way of saying, "My particular religious and moral beliefs are superior to yours, but enable me to tolerate your inferior beliefs"? Or, "As long as you respect the superiority of my beliefs, pluralism is great"? How can you hold those beliefs and sincerely believe that you support a pluralistic society? For the leadership of a state to champion its own religious beliefs while branding others as inferior is the opposite of pluralism. Even assuming it's what he said, Blair's certainly smart enough to see the inconsistency.

But his main argument is public and visionary. Religion, Blair argues, is not going away, as secularists have expected and predicated for centuries.

This game again - okay, Michael - name names. Which specific "secularists" are you referencing? But beyond that, isn't it far more accurate to say that religious leaders have feared for centuries that secular elements of society will cause religion to wither and die? Isn't the gist of your very column that religion is at a disadvantage in what you see as "a faithless world"?

Exporting Culture

In The Human Community, defending Tony Blair's legacy, David "Babbling" Brooks strikes again:

Over the past three years, people on the left and right have moved away from Blair and toward Huntington. There has been a sharp rise in the number of people who think it’s insane to try to export our values into alien cultures. Instead of emphasizing our common community, people are more likely to emphasize the distances and conflicts between cultures. Whether the subject is immigration, trade or foreign affairs, there is a greater desire to build separation fences because differences in values seem deeply rooted and impossible to erase.

Oh, come on. As if we're truly talking about "exporting culture". The wacky leftist weirdos in Hollywood (and their wacky, right-wing parent companies) have had no problem exporting American culture, and profiting handsomely at the same time. Every indicator is that they would like to increase this trade. We sell, they buy. A Starbucks on every corner worldwide, right across from the McDonalds.

What Brooks is talking about is "export" at the point of a gun. Even if you interpret Iraq sympathetically, assuming that Tony Blair truly did believe the "We'll be greeted as liberators, and showered with flowers and candy" line, surely that would raise some concern in your mind - destroying a foreign nation's government and much of its infrastructure as a first step in transforming it into a progressive democracy? Imposing neoliberalism, privatization, a flat tax, and other western constructs at the outset, without even examining if those constructs are consistent with what we would do at home, let alone how they would be received by those subjected to the "reforms"? (We're now exporting not our culture, as such, but what certain right-wing elements would prefer our culture to be?) And then we get to the fact that the occupation and "reconstruction" has been botched in a manner that many war proponents now concede has all-but-doomed the project to failure.

History will not be kind to either Tony Blair or George Bush in relation to the Iraq war. If the project cannot be salvaged, they will be blamed for getting us into Iraq. If the project can be salvaged, their successors will be credited with fixing the current mess.

To the extent that those who joined with Bush and Blair in a video game fantasy war which, not surprisingly, turned out to be a lot more complicated than they had anticipated? Their increased skepticism of similar interventionism can only be regarded as a good thing. To the extent that the Iraq war makes it harder to intervene in a nation where intervention could truly be helpful? That's not the fault of those now reacting to the mistakes of Bush and Blair - it is the fault of Bush and Blair.

We want our political leaders to tell the truth...

But will we let them? The Guardian suggests that, as a whole, we won't:

And so, in the eighth year of [Prime Minister Blair's] premiership, this legendary truth-teller was asked whether he agreed with the warning against mortgages given by Britain's leading banker. The reply was utterly standard Westminster dead-bat: not sure he actually said that, need to look at what the words actually were, important not to take out of context, and so on.

For anyone who remembers Blair as a young politician, trying, at least within the limits of Westminster and journalistic conviction, to be candid, this was a distressing sight. The idea that all politicians are liars is a cheap jibe promoted by those who dislike politics, but there is actually a deeper truth in it. A culture has evolved in which our leaders must evade and paraphrase to their voters, keeping the truth for the ghost-writers.

Strange Bedfellows....

The following events, of course, have nothing to do with the upcoming election campaign... unless you have a brain in your head and can see the obvious:

• Bush went to Florida to set off a NASCAR race. ("The White House described Bush's overnight trip to Florida as non-political, meaning that taxpayers - not Bush's reelection campaign - will pick up the tab.")


• Tony Blair is planning a trip to Washington for a series of photo ops with Bush.

That second story.... what to make of it? Tony Blair "modernized" Britain's Labor Party, dragging it kicking and screaming into the political center, and in the process marginalizing the stalwart Conservative Party. But at least as he has historically expressed them, whatever you make of his support for the war in Iraq, his politics are far removed from those of Bush.

At the same time he plans his own trip to Washington, Blair is reportedly discomfited by contacts between John Kerry and Gordon Brown, a Member of Parliament and Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Tony Blair last week said that he had "learned enough... not to interfere in the American presidential election".

Nevertheless, Mr Blair is bound to become embroiled in the re-election effort of his ally in the Iraq war during a planned visit to Washington later this year.

Meanwhile, Brown supporters are quietly offering help and advice to the campaign team of the man seeking to unseat Mr Bush.

Like Bush, Blair's popularity has taken a beating in recent months, and he legitimately fears a leadership convention. He apparently believes that the reelection of Bush will strengthen his position as leader of the party, and thus permit him to stay on as Prime Minister. (For those of you not familiar with the process, in a parliamentary system the leader of the majority party is Prime Minister - and if the leadership changes as the result of a party convention, the new leader becomes Prime Minister.) Brown may be anticipating a leadership challenge, perhaps leading to the selection of Michael Howard as the new leader. (Or perhaps somebody else?)

More than ever, Tony Blair's future seems to be tied to that of President Bush. To the extent that Blair ever sincerely held a particular set of political values, like so many politicians before him he seems willing to sacrifice them all in order to cling to power.

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