"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal
Michael Gerson scolds critics of “President Bush’s democracy agenda” (he doesn’t mean Bush’s commitment to transparency and accountability here at home, by the way) and manages to write an entire column without mentioning the means supported by proponents of the “democracy agenda,” namely maiming and killing large numbers of people in foreign countries.
See here for a less snarky response to this kind of thinking.
Your assessment is not fair, let alone accurate.
(1) As a conservative who didn’t support the war, I think Gerson makes a good point that is not particularly based on any particular means. He is, rather, attacking a strong trend in certain conservatives’ writings–George Will, for instance–of saying that the problem with the Iraq War wasn’t so much the war, but the nation-building that followed it. Gerson is arguing principles that are divorced from the means. You make a note of this, but seem to have missed the point of his argument completely, taking it as an argument for war, which I don’t think it is. It’s an argument for the principle of spreading democracy abroad, as opposed to the realpolitik of many traditional conservatives.
(2) I don’t remember seeing cluster bombs dropped in the Ukraine, in Iran, in Syria, in Egypt, in North Korea, nor in Venezuela, where Chavez has been stripping people of a number of their rights. Maybe you can point me to some links that document this occurrence?
(3) Gerson doesn’t scold anyone. Notice that he refers to traditional conservatives and not to “paleoconservatives”. Speaking of George Will, have you read anything he’s written on the war? Even though he makes a number of excellent points, it’s hard not to detect a sneer in his voice whenever he starts on it. I don’t see that in Gerson’s article. What exactly makes it a “scold” for you, the fact that you disgaree with him and his former boss on the issue? The fact that he doesn’t use snarky language, but a civil tongue? I’m really confused.
My problem with Gerson’s article is that he’s either attacking a strawman or saying things that nobody would actually disagree with. Who would deny that some traditions are “rotten and wormy” and need to be changed? Who’s in favor of the sex trade, slavery, torture (oops – well maybe some folks), and oppression?
The fact that Gerson (admittedly in a throwaway line) accuses liberals of “argu[ing] against the expansion of social and political liberalism in oppressive parts of the world” indicates to me that he’s either missing the point or willfully obscuring it. No one of any influence is arguing against the spread of liberal democracy – they’re arguing against doing it by means of invading and occupying other countries. If Gerson thinks that these principles are separable from the means of war then I don’t see who he’s really disagreeing with, so why write the article?
Perhaps there are conservatives like George Will who think that democracy-promotion should form no part of American foreign policy (and I’m not even sure Will would go that far), but are they numerous or influential? For what it’s worth my impression of Will’s view of the war (I’ve read a number of his writings since the war, but not everything) is that nation-building isn’t something that can be done by an outside power, at least in the case of Iraq. That’s an empirical claim that may or may not be true, but Gerson hasn’t refuted it.
And the fact that there aren’t bombs falling on several of the places you mention is hardly for lack of trying on the part of many of the most vocal proponents of “democracy promotion” in and around the Administration. Fortunately circumstances or sheer prudence have resulted in restraint so far.
I actually agree with Gerson that you need a moral standard which transcends tradition. So, in that case, I’m with him in his critique of traditionalist conservatism, but none of the stuff about the “democracy agenda” follows from that without further argument.
Actually, a lot of people are in favor of the sex trade, judging by fact that they engage in it. I recall some news articles a few years ago of how the UN’s blue helmets had acquired a bad reputation in the Balkans for that sort of thing.
Still, that’s not his point. It’s not a matter of being in favor of it, but of being quite happy to tolerate as a necessary evil. A great number of people who opposed slavery were nevertheless happy to tolerate it as long as it meant avoiding war.
Gerson claims that a lot of conservatives are expressing doubt in the entire democracy-spreading enterprise. I do have that distinct impression from some conservatives I’ve read, and I’m not a professional reader of opinions. Even many of those who do advocate the spread of democracy state that we should do so because it is in our national interest, and if it were not in our natinal interest then we should not worry about it. (Krauthammer and Goldberg spring to mind, the latter repeatedly characterizing democracy as the ability of 51% of the people to give the other 49% a permanent wedgie.) It was certainly a historical aspect of conservatism, which (from what I’ve read) even during the Cold War was not anti-communist so much because it wanted to spread democracy, but because it wanted to resist the spread of communism. And, of course, the paleoconservatives (Buchanan, as a more famous and, perhaps, less savory example) are known for an isolationism that resists any involvement in the world at large unless we are attacked.
These aren’t straw men at all.
I’m not particularly inclined to defend Goldberg and Krauthammer, but presumably they’re not opposed to democracy flourishing in other parts of the world? Maybe they are for all I know; I have heard some conservatives say that Arab democracy would actually be a bad thing.
But as far as democracy promotion goes, it all comes down to what you think is an acceptable cost for bringing that state of affairs about (assuming it’s even in our power to do so!). Other things being equal, I don’t think it’s worth going to war to bring democracy to another country, but that doesn’t mean I have to oppose other, less costly means of promoting it. Contra Gerson I don’t know that there’s any general obligation to try and bring democracy to other countries.
I will admit that I find more than one theory of War plausible. I find some good points made by both Old Right thinkers who would say we’ve only been involved in two Just Wars ever, and Objectivists who say we aren’t being harsh enough.
But humanitarian war is out of the question for both groups. It’s like using a gun to get people to go to therapy. If there is a proper use of a gun, it is self defense. People can argue about what constitutes proper self defense. But I would say the line is there.
For our people, I would want to see a pre 9/11 world. I’m not sure if I would back this up, but one writer I read proposed threatening countries in the Middle East that we would attack harshly if we suffered again, and could trace it back to their countries. They would then be free to sort this out making whatever regime changes they saw necessary, or leaving anything in place they thought had nothing to do with the problem. Then if anything happened, they would be held responsible.
It would be free of the paternalism in our current policy. It would allow those who understood that part of the world make the appropriate decisions. It would allow people in our country to go back to living like we did before the crisis.
It may also be very wrong. But in contrast to what we are doing, it appears to be an improvement.
The goal isn’t to spread freedom. That is a neocon lie.
The goal is simply to smite Israel’s enemies just so long as they are Israel’s enemies.
We are Israel’s bodyguard, and we have taken up Israel’s endless fight.
No end in sight.
9/11 was a pretext.
Sorry, gsg, I don’t buy that monocausal explanation; I don’t think that tail’s big enough to wag that dog.
I’ll concede that the “Israel lobby” (which includes many evangelical Christians) exercises a disproportionate influence on US Middle East policy, but I don’t believe that’s not the main reason we’re so heavily involved in the region.
A Thinking Reed 
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