Soccer Dad

You give realism a bad name

Given the apparent failure of President Bush's attempt to democratize the Middle East, the foreign policy flavor of the day, month and year is realism.

Realists are supposed to look at foreign policy rationally, without any emotional attachment and make cold assessments of American interests without sentimentality.

Professor's Walt and Mearsheimer who wrote the Israel Lobby have been called realists. Their critique that supporting Israel has hurt American interests has been discussed for some months now. Given that their paper was riddled with all sorts of innacuracies its hard to say what was realistic about the paper.

Martin Kramer recently, took a different tack in rejecting the Walt Mearsheimer argument in The American Interest. In short Kramer argues

My answer, to anticipate my conclusion, is this: U.S. support for Israel is not primarily the result of Holocaust guilt or shared democratic values; nor is it produced by the machinations of the "Israel Lobby." American support for Israel--indeed, the illusion of its unconditionality--underpins the Pax Americana in the eastern Mediterranean. It has compelled Israel's key Arab neighbors to reach peace with Israel and to enter the American orbit. The fact that there has not been a general Arab-Israeli war since 1973 is proof that this Pax Americana, based on the U.S.-Israel alliance, has been a success. From a realist point of view, supporting Israel has been a low-cost way of keeping order in part of the Middle East, managed by the United States from offshore and without the commitment of any force. It is, simply, the ideal realist alliance.

Another proponent of realism is incoming shadow Secretary of State, James Baker whose Iraq study group is expected to recommend that the United States withdraw its troops from Iraq and that the United States engage Syria and Iran in covering for it as it withdraws. But Charles Krauthammer in "Is this Realism?" ( or here) takes exception to the view that it's necessary to engage those two countries whose interests are diametrically opposed to America's.

Perhaps in some long-term future they will want a stable Iraq as a tame client state of the Syria-Iran axis. For now they want chaos. What in God's name will a negotiation with them yield?

At best they might give us a few months to withdraw. But why do we need their help to do that? We can do our withdrawing very well without them. And in return for non-help in a non-solution that is essentially a surrender, Syria would demand to be given a free hand once again in Lebanon -- just as, when the United States needed help in Iraq before the Persian Gulf War, then-Secretary of State James Baker gave Lebanon over to Syria as a quid pro quo.

And Iran will demand a free hand with its nuclear weapons project, which will turn it into the regional superpower dominating the Gulf Arabs and their oil.

If that would save Iraq for us, there might at least be an argument for such a swap. But just to cover an American retreat? This is sacrificing one interest without even securing another. It's enough to give realism a bad name.

Earlier on he makes the important point that - WMD or not - there was a solid "realist" reason for invading Iraq and deposing Saddam.

If we really had been in the grip of "idealism," we'd be deep in Chad and Burma and Darfur. We are not. We are instead trying to sustain fragile democracies in three strategically important countries -- Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon -- that form the geographic parentheses around the principal threat to Western interests in the region, the Syria-Iran axis.

We are trying to bring democracy to Iraq in particular because a pro-Western government enjoying legitimacy and popular support would have been the most enduring means of securing our interests there. Deposing Saddam & Sons was essential because they posed a permanent strategic threat to the region and to U.S. interests. But their successor -- the popularly elected Maliki government -- has failed.

Between Kramer and Krauthammer there's enough reason to quesiton whether what is commonly called "realism" is really in America's best interest.

Blogdigger Tags: Foreign Policy, Realism, Walt and Mearsheimer, Charles Krauthammer, Martin Kramer.