September 29, 2007
Books essay: The war on error
It is now clear that America’s decision to invade Iraq was a grave mistake. The US is searching for a way out of the war and a presidential election is in the offing. Under the circumstances, one might expect a passionate and informed debate to be taking place about America’s role in the world.
In fact, the foreign policy argument in the US is rather disappointing. It sometimes looks as if Americans are so shell-shocked by the debacle of Iraq that they are unable to think clearly or boldly. The presidential election campaign seems actually to be inhibiting debate, as candidates cautiously manoeuvre for position – and seek to avoid making politically costly errors.
The complete review for the three books below can be read here and comments can be made below.
The Silence of the Rational Center: Why American Foreign Policy is Failing
By Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke
Containment: Rebuilding a Strategy against Global Terror
By Ian Shapiro
Winning the Right War: The Path to Security for America and the World
By Philip Gordon
Mr Rachman,
Please elaborate: Why would the junta in Burma cooperate if their were no sticks, only carrots? - They would take away any carrot and cede no ground. And what kind of signal would this be sending to murderous regimes everywhere, if there were no visceral reaction after such atrocities?
Your ideas for dealing with Burma are uncannily similar to those on Iran. If we were to follow your line, the World would soon become truly unruly.
Elegant prose as always, but no cigar.
Posted by: Paco Labani | October 1st, 2007 at 11:42 pm | Report this commentMuch as I continue to enjoy this blog enormously, I think that the first sentence of this post (and of the article linked to) is a bit of a blunder.
Maybe America’s decision to invade Iraq was a grave mistake. And probably it is clear that grave mistakes have been made in America’s recent policy towards Iraq. However it is completely implausible to ascribe clarity to the fact that the decision to invade *in and of itself* was a mistake (grave or otherwise): it is simply very hard to tell whether or not the invasion could have succeeded had lots of other decisions etc. been different.
Posted by: Anonymous | October 2nd, 2007 at 11:26 am | Report this commentLet’s see, we have gone 6 years now without a major terrorist attack in the US. Al-Queda’s leadership is in complete disarray. A unstable dictator holding weapons grade Uranium and a fancy for making weapon is removed from power, with minimal US caualties. We now have some borderline French and German support for maintaining a Pax-NATO type of foreign policy.
And Mr. Rachman tells us “It is now clear that America’s decision to invade Iraq was a grave mistake”
If such accomplishments are mistakes, I would hate to see success.
JBP
Posted by: John Powers | October 4th, 2007 at 5:53 pm | Report this commentPeople like Mohammed Atta and Timothy McVeigh have reduced reality to the point where it has become an epic between the pure and good young heroes and the old evil establishment that must be destroyed. It’s a paranoia that has nothing to do with a political message and everything with psychology and the incredible power that modern technology can bestow upon the dangerously paranoid individual or group.
The great danger I believe is to start trying to find a political message in the deeds of people like Atta and McVeigh. McVeigh used methamphetamine and was associated with the belief that the UN was planning to take over the United States. According to testimony at the Motassadeq trial in Hamburg, Atta believed in a global Jewish conspiracy centered in NYC which was “enemy number one” and that motivated him to do what he participated in. These are paranoid theories. And yet countless millions of people have tried to make sense of the madness and said “if only” and all these mad acts might have been prevented.
It’s important for oneself to ask the question if the extremely destructive paranoia of the McVeighs and Atta’s of this world should be anything but a psychological and social lesson. Isn’t one of the key solutions to terror in engaging the cultures of ignorance and racism through education and debate? Isn’t it our unwillingness as educated and ethical people individually to engage ignorance and racism that has allowed the Attas and McVeighs to form their destructive theories uncorrected? McVeigh is from NY state, Atta lived in Hamburg for 9 years of his life. Even though we are now fully aware of the danger of allowing people to radicalize to such extremes, you and me as individuals still fail to engage them and try to keep them within the boundaries of civil debate and respect for others. That’s how Theo van Gogh died, at the hands of a young man who we all failed to engage intellectually in so many ways. We know the path they go down and we let them go down it unopposed and without a helping, critical, challenging, intellectually engaging hand. They were all young people who craved to be heard, once.
It’s easy to blame Bush or Blair when really it is me and you and our jaded society are to blame for failing to prevent it as much if not more.
As for the media generally yes they are culpable for packaging information as sausages; every story must be constrained to a few minutes, and day in day out the intangibility and complexity of reality is reduced into a he says she says 5 minute clip that too often is the ego vehicle for the reporting journalist. One reason why the Economist’s format is so successful is that it dares take a stand, it engages the complexity and leaves the individual journalist out. One reason why people like Paxman want the BBC gone is their sticking to the moronic format when they could be so much better, like we all could be.
Posted by: Felix Drost | October 5th, 2007 at 2:00 am | Report this comment