By Steve Hynd
Jeffrey Goldberg's headlining piece at The Atlantic today says there's a "better than 50 percent chance that Israel will launch a strike by next July". The whole thing smacks rather strongly of Goldberg's writing prior to Bush's attack on Iraq and Gareth Porter has already pointed to the real reason for the slew of such articles recently, of which Goldberg's is only the latest:
What is important to understand about this campaign is that the aim ... is to support an attack by Israel so that the United States can be drawn into direct, full-scale war with Iran.
That has long been the Israeli strategy for Iran, because Israel cannot fight a war with Iran without full U.S. involvement. Israel needs to know that the United States will finish the war that Israel wants to start.
The best analysis and criticism of Goldberg's essay itself comes from Steve Clemons. The following paragraphs are especially interesting:
Goldberg's slice of the pie�that he has taken in both places�is credible, though he�s careful to acknowledge that what may really drive Israel to strike is its lack of confidence in Obama's will to do so. Obama's team knows that the world sees Israel as a client state of the United States and simply won't believe that Israel acted alone, thus compelling the US to consider serious war options�even if, as Goldberg writes�Obama doesn't want the initiation of a third war in the Middle East to define his foreign policy legacy.
The quandary in trying to divine what Obama would and wouldn't really do to try and forestall Iran's nuclear pretensions is that while Obama is holding out an open hand and trying to encourage a constructive dialogue with Iran, he is also allowing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to play her �coercive diplomacy� cards in high-pitched speeches that come close to John McCain's view of Iran. The White House wants the world, and Iran, and Jeffrey Goldberg to think it could bomb, and may bomb, if other options don't work�but Goldberg's interlocutors seem to be demanding a binary, all in or all out, deal from the White House and fundamentally don't trust the President's non-military track.
I've written about this form of "strategic ambiguity" before, noting that it's conventional wisdom for U.S. policymakers that the waters of international diplomacy should be muddied so that they can "keep their options open". It's a policy of deliberately muddying the waters about Israeli and American intentions so as to pressure Iran in its negotiations with the West by ensuring it fears an attack if it doesn't play ball. As Clemons notes, Clinton has been the primary vehicle for the "fear factor" stuff. (And Adam Weinstein suggests that's exactly what's been happening with Gen. Odierno's many statements about agreements with Iraq for withdrawal being unilaterally changeable too.)
I'm incredibly uncomfortable with such ambiguity, essentialy lying so as to pretend you might do what you've no intention of doing, as a tool of diplomacy - and especially when it is practised by the U.S. It very much sends the wrong message, one that's ultimately acting against America's long-term interests.
Way back in 2005, a young Adam Weinstein wrote a paper on Just War Theory that's well worth a read, but from which two key phrases jump out at me - "the bleak fact that justice is what states make of it." and "expanding the 'we'". I'd characterise those two phrases as encapsulating what I call the "Crooked Cop" problem: America needs to become the world's "good" cop instead of a "bad" (i.e. short-termist, self-interested) cop.
Only the bad guys object to an honest, impartial and hard-working policeman for whom �protect and serve� is more than just a slogan. A good cop is an asset to his community and puts everyone else�s interests before his own, which ends up serving his own interests - respect, affection, and a mostly peaceable community to live in. But no-one likes a cop who has his own interests at heart first and foremost - who�s usually looking for a �take�, is never there when you need him and applies the law only when it suits him while looking the other way when his pals commit crimes. A bad cop should get out of the law enforcement business because he only makes his neighborhood worse.
What pisses me off about the hawks of both left and right is that their policy prescriptions too often begin as their own short-termist conception of American national interest informed by hearty helpings of militarism and American exceptionalism which are then overlain with a thin veneer of pablum about humanitarian considerations, freedom, democracy and "we're the world's policeman" BS to sugar-coat their origins with something more palatable to US voters. No-one in the rest of the world buys it for a second.
My own longer term conception of US national interest is that it would, indeed, be better off as a truly impartial, self-sacrificing but respected cop rather than one pretending to do the job while feathering its own nest. Acting as an honest broker pays much bigger dividends than couching self-interest in hyperbole about freedom and democracy. Like a huge number of non-Americans, I�ve no objection to America being the world�s policeman if America will be an honest cop, a �protect and serve� cop. No-one else is big enough for the job at present (although in future the US and others should look to reform the UN for the job). But better no cop at all than a cop on the take. To be a good cop, America must realize that its national interest lies exactly in not aggressively pursuing its national interest.
However, if you're going to set yourself up as the world's policeman then strategic ambiguity of the kind being employed to pressure Iran is exactly the wrong tack to take. Being the world's policeman and acting in your own short-term national interest seem to me to be too often mutually exclusive. It's one or the other, so decide and then be up front about it.
All this, although in my own unsubtle rhetorical style, seems to me to be in accord with Robert Wright's 2006 expositions of "progressive realism" as a foreign policy:
The national interest can be served by constraints on America�s behavior when they constrain other nations as well. This logic covers the spectrum of international governance, from global warming (we�ll cut carbon dioxide emissions if you will) to war (we�ll refrain from it if you will).
This doesn�t mean joining the deepest devotees of international law and vowing never to fight a war that lacks backing by the United Nations Security Council. But it does mean that, in the case of Iraq, ignoring the Security Council and international opinion had excessive costs: (1) eroding the norm against invasions not justified by self-defense or imminent threat; (2) throwing away a golden post-9/11 opportunity to strengthen the United Nations� power as a weapons inspector. The last message we needed to send is the one President Bush sent: countries that succumb to pressure to admit weapons inspectors will be invaded anyway. Peacefully blunting the threats posed by nuclear technologies in North Korea and Iran would be tricky in any event, but this message has made it trickier. (Ever wonder why Iran wants �security guarantees�?)
...That domestic security depends increasingly on popular sentiment abroad makes it important for America to be seen as a good global citizen � respecting international laws and norms and sensing the needs of neighbors. ... America�s fortunes are growing more closely correlated with the fortunes of people far away; fewer games have simple win-lose outcomes, and more have either win-win or lose-lose outcomes.
This principle lies at the heart of progressive realism. A correlation of fortunes � being in the same boat with other nations in matters of economics, environment, security � is what makes international governance serve national interest. It is also what makes enlightened self-interest de facto humanitarian. Progressive realists see that America can best flourish if others flourish � if African states cohere, if the world�s Muslims feel they benefit from the world order, if personal and environmental health are nurtured, if economic inequities abroad are muted so that young democracies can be stable and strong. More and more, doing well means doing good.
And, simply, strategic ambiguity that involves the threat of aggressive warfare (as defined by the Nuremberg Court) is never "doing good".
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