Neoconservatism is for dreamers.
A bunch of bloggers noted today that the knives have suddenly out for Iran. Via Kevin Drum, Niall Ferguson tells our recent history looking back from 2012:
As in the 1930s, too, the West fell back on wishful thinking. Perhaps, some said, Ahmadinejad was only sabre-rattling because his domestic position was so weak. Perhaps his political rivals in the Iranian clergy were on the point of getting rid of him. In that case, the last thing the West should do was to take a tough line; that would only bolster Ahmadinejad by inflaming Iranian popular feeling. So in Washington and in London people crossed their fingers, hoping for the deus ex machina of a home-grown regime change in Teheran.
...Yet the historian is bound to ask whether or not the true significance of the 2007-2011 war was to vindicate the Bush administration's original principle of pre-emption. For, if that principle had been adhered to in 2006, Iran's nuclear bid might have been thwarted at minimal cost. And the Great Gulf War might never have happened.
I don't mean to suggest that liberals never indulge in this sort of thing; Richard Clarke and James Fallows, for instance, both have written fictitious histories for The Atlantic relatively recently. But, judging from my reading of blogs, the counterfactual-history and possible-dark-future motifs seem to be especially appealing to those on the right. Ferguson's op-ed is sort of like the serious, intellectual version of Liberalty for All. (Well, not exactly, but give it a few months. At least see if Netanyahu actually wins the Israeli election.)
Why is that I wonder? Is it a yearning, in our integrated, media-saturated world, for the mysteries of yesteryear, for the flickering shadows and hints of what lay behind the Iron Curtain? It is a calculated, crass attempt to stir up partisan emotions of fear and/or victimhood? (If so, it's a bit ironic that Condi "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud" Rice is the Chamberlainian villain of Ferguson's fantasy.) Is it a natural product of the neoconservative viewpoint, which holds the world too stark, too fantastic, to conform to our narrowly understood, mundane, declining-conflict post-Soviet existence?
I don't know. Another thing I don't know is what exactly would be entailed in this four year war Ferguson imagines. The very real danger is that Iran will build some nukes and target them at the West, starting with Israel. But once those nukes are used up in this hypothetical "war", Iran is going to be in a lot of trouble, isn't it? What have they got in the way of a conventional army with conventional weapons? They'd be crushed by Western armies if they weren't nuked off the face of the earth. None of this is pleasant to imagine, but "hot" nuclear war can't last four full years. At best, after that first exchange, it would immediately bog down into a standoff between various powers, involving lots of dreary old diplomacy. And Ferguson would be right back to grinding his teeth and writhing in anticipation of the elusive showdown that brings us to The End of History.
As in the 1930s, too, the West fell back on wishful thinking. Perhaps, some said, Ahmadinejad was only sabre-rattling because his domestic position was so weak. Perhaps his political rivals in the Iranian clergy were on the point of getting rid of him. In that case, the last thing the West should do was to take a tough line; that would only bolster Ahmadinejad by inflaming Iranian popular feeling. So in Washington and in London people crossed their fingers, hoping for the deus ex machina of a home-grown regime change in Teheran.
...Yet the historian is bound to ask whether or not the true significance of the 2007-2011 war was to vindicate the Bush administration's original principle of pre-emption. For, if that principle had been adhered to in 2006, Iran's nuclear bid might have been thwarted at minimal cost. And the Great Gulf War might never have happened.
I don't mean to suggest that liberals never indulge in this sort of thing; Richard Clarke and James Fallows, for instance, both have written fictitious histories for The Atlantic relatively recently. But, judging from my reading of blogs, the counterfactual-history and possible-dark-future motifs seem to be especially appealing to those on the right. Ferguson's op-ed is sort of like the serious, intellectual version of Liberalty for All. (Well, not exactly, but give it a few months. At least see if Netanyahu actually wins the Israeli election.)
Why is that I wonder? Is it a yearning, in our integrated, media-saturated world, for the mysteries of yesteryear, for the flickering shadows and hints of what lay behind the Iron Curtain? It is a calculated, crass attempt to stir up partisan emotions of fear and/or victimhood? (If so, it's a bit ironic that Condi "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud" Rice is the Chamberlainian villain of Ferguson's fantasy.) Is it a natural product of the neoconservative viewpoint, which holds the world too stark, too fantastic, to conform to our narrowly understood, mundane, declining-conflict post-Soviet existence?
I don't know. Another thing I don't know is what exactly would be entailed in this four year war Ferguson imagines. The very real danger is that Iran will build some nukes and target them at the West, starting with Israel. But once those nukes are used up in this hypothetical "war", Iran is going to be in a lot of trouble, isn't it? What have they got in the way of a conventional army with conventional weapons? They'd be crushed by Western armies if they weren't nuked off the face of the earth. None of this is pleasant to imagine, but "hot" nuclear war can't last four full years. At best, after that first exchange, it would immediately bog down into a standoff between various powers, involving lots of dreary old diplomacy. And Ferguson would be right back to grinding his teeth and writhing in anticipation of the elusive showdown that brings us to The End of History.
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