Peter Beinart’s House of Straw
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Peter Beinart, talking about his book
The Good Fight begins with a meta-argument: that reviving liberalism requires better understanding our intellectual history. Put another way, we have trouble defining what we believe because we don t know enough about what we once believed. Liberal activists these days want to banish the political consultants, and elect conviction politicians who say what they really think. Which sounds good to me, except that I m not sure most liberals really know what they think not clearly enough to put it on an index card especially about foreign policy.
Here’s the thing: the liberal party – the Democratic party – is essentially in consensus about what it believes our foreign policy should be. The party has had this discussion before in the pre and post Vietnam war eras, and the agreement has been pretty universal. To go into combat we subject the incident to a number of things: Is there a threat? What’s the goal? What’s the exit strategy? Numerous foreign policy incursions by Dems have met this test: Bosnia, Haiti, etc. Afghanistan surely met the test, while Iraq clearly failed (there was no threat and no exit strategy). The left was in agreement, save for publications like Beinart’s New Republic and more than the right amount of Democratic senators who voted out of sync with their own constitutents. The consensus was there, it was just ignored.
So why did Beinart apparently feel the need to fill a whole book with this stuff? Because he, like so many other members of the left, get their view of what liberals believe not by actually talking to actual liberals amongst the great unwashed masses of America, but rather come to their beliefs by what people are saying in DC and in the elitist circles of the press and amongst politicians. Of course you’re going to get a distorted view of reality if your primary source is the gilded set, and Beinart no doubt thinks he’s doing a service by railing against what looks like a battle of ideas to him — but he’s just fighting against a straw construct that doesn’t exist.
18 Responses to “Peter Beinart’s House of Straw”
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© 2000-2011 Oliver Willis
The “exit strategy” for the first Persian Gulf War was to win, Mr Willis, with a specific set of criteria to define winning: Iraqi troops being expelled from Kuwait. It is unfortunate that the definition of victory didn’t include continuing on to Baghdad and deposing the Ba’ath Party then and there.
Sorry?
Haiti was a threat? Bosnia was a threat?
Iraq, no threat? Of those three countries, which one’s leader actually made overt threats to this country?
Ollie that just doesn’t pass the smell test buddy.
Our esteemed host wrote:
You are? Really?
Even leaving aside the foreign policy positions of one of your few wise politicians, Senator Lieberman, y’all are bitterly divided as to whether we should pull out of Iraq tomorrow, six months from tomorrow, or that we have a duty to stay and see the job finished as well as possible, even if you don’t want to be in Iraq. Talk about things like economic globalization, and you get a whole range of positions from the Democrats.
Mr Beinart is, of course, expressing his opinions of where he believes the Democratic Party ought to be on foreign policy; surely you don’t believe he has no right to do so, and just as surely (one would hope) you don’t believe he has no right to try to persuade liberals and Democrats to adopt his positions?
But the biggest problem that I see with what you wrote is the condition, “What s the exit strategy?” The term “exit strategy” means: how do we get our sorry asses out if we lose. If you are planning for an “exit strategy,” you are planning to lose! You plan to win, Mr Willis, and if you don’t plan on winning, then don’t go at all.
Haiti was just off our southern peninsula, Bosnia was in Europe and near to our allies. Neither incident was as tough as Iraq, but both had a clear mission and an exit strategy. A four year old can make threats to America, we’re not going to invade his school.
We had an exit strategy in the first Gulf War (The Powell Doctrine), and in WWII (the Marhsall Plan)- both wars we won. It was those conflicts without an exit strategy – Vietnam, Iraq – were we lose.
Visit your local library, read some selections from the History section, or watch a few hours of the History channel.
So Dana, if we win, we get to stay there forever?
Oh, so threat is defined as geographic proximity to us? Not the willingness to use force against us? Not the ability to launch long range missiles?
Great, by the liberal bastion Ollie Willis’ own “consensus”, we have the right, ney, the RESPONSIBILITY to invade Mexico!
QED
Remind me again what the exit strategy for Bosnia was/is. Since WE’RE STILL THERE!
Yes, in most cases exit strategy = win but that includes more than saying “Victory! Win! Victory!” as is currently the plan in Iraq. And I failed to notice the 130,000+ US troops still under hostile fire in occupied Europe, using that tired useless line of “logic” you’ve got there.
Oh, and four year olds weren’t responsible for over 300000 deaths, thousands due to chemical weapons either ollie….
I don’t think Bosnia is a fair comparison, as those troops stationed there at time aren’t in the same danger. Much fewer insurgents, if any at all.
And none at all in the countries of Western Europe affected by the Marshall Plan.
If I’m not mistaken, the reason that US troops are still in Germany has more to do with NATO.
Not the willingness to use force against us? Not the ability to launch long range missiles?
Saddam didn’t have the capability or ability to do either. As far as Haiti, you do understand that its not good for American policy to have instability in the Carribean, right?
And you know, where was that GOP compassion for dead people when Reagan was supporting terrorists and dictators? I was always for somehow deposing Hussein but not via an occupation for the exact reasons we’re seeing now. Our concern? The guy who killed 3,000 people… in NEW YORK.
As Sundown says, hows that Bosnian insurgency going? Oh, there isn’t one.
“And how is it good for the US to have instability in the middle east where most of our oil come from Einstein?”
And invading Iraq created a more stable Middle East?
hellooooo….Ollie?
I got the shovel……
From our standpoint it has already….in a big way. In time I believe it will be more stable from everyone’s standpoint.
Not the ability to launch long range missiles?
fucking laughable.
drpedro Says:
In time I believe it will be more stable from everyone s standpoint.
The families/friends of dead soldiers and dead Iraqis are very reassured by drpedro’s personal beliefs.
Oliver: You’re using ‘left’ and ‘liberal’ and ‘Democratic party’ as if they were all the same thing. ‘The left’ isn’t necessarily ‘liberal,’ and the Democrats aren’t necessarily ‘lefty’ or ‘liberal.’
The article you cite sticks to one thing: Liberalism. It says that for a liberalism to re-emerge in the US, that liberalism has to be based in consensus. Right now, ‘liberal’ is a word used by reactionary right-wingers to create an artificial dichotomy. There’s little consensus among ‘liberals’ in that sense, because it’s defined as everyone who isn’t a reactionary right-winger!
People from *all* political persuasions, from all over the political spectrum, opposed the Iraq war. It wasn’t just liberals, despite what the freepers said. People from all over the political spectrum have much more sane ideas about military engagement in general, as well. And people from all over the political spectrum view foreign policy as decoupled from military action (which you can’t seem to do; your rebuttal conflates foreign policy with military strategy).
I mean, look: You started off trying to make the point that liberals are in consensus, but then gave the military example. So now your comment thread is about the military justification (or lack thereof) for the Iraq war, and is not a bunch of liberals saying, “Yeah, we’re all in total consensus, Oliver.”