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The
9/11 attacks made Bush take a new approach to foreign
policy.
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Sorting
out the various schools of thought about American foreign policy is
difficult for Americans, so it must be pretty confusing to foreign
observers. To decipher our debates requires knowing their
background. The roots of the various positions are found in earlier
arguments going back to World War II. Therefore, I will offer a
historical description covering four periods: the Cold War; the
period between the end of the Cold War and the attacks of 9/11; the
beginning of the war in Iraq; and the situation today.
1.
The Cold War
During
the earliest days of the Cold War, the main divide was between
isolationists and internationalists. The internationalists believed
that the two world wars had proven that we could not separate our
own fate from the state of the world around us. The isolationists
preferred that we mind our own business. But the aggressiveness of
Soviet expansion in 1945 through 1948, coming on the heels of the
world war, wiped out the isolationist camp. So, from 1948 until
around 1968, Americans were pretty much of one mind about foreign
policy.
The
Vietnam war divided us again. Americans split over whether we should
be in Vietnam. Opponents of the war mostly came to believe that the
war was not just a single mistake, but rather the outcome of an
overall approach to the world that was too militantly
anti-Communist. As President Jimmy Carter put it, we were guilty of
an “inordinate fear of Communism.”
From
the peak of the Vietnam war until the end of the Cold War, the main
dividing line in US foreign policy debates was between “hawks”
and “doves” or “hard-liners” and “soft-liners.”
The
Vietnam debate was between liberal hawks and liberal doves.
There were very few conservative intellectuals. |
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It
was in this context, in the 1970s, that “neo-conservatism”
arose. The debate between hawks and doves was not, for the most
part, a debate between conservatives and liberals, but rather a
debate between liberal hawks and liberal doves. This was because
foreign policy is almost always a secondary concern in American
politics, and the labels “liberal” and “conservative” were
mostly determined by domestic issues: Liberals tended to favor more
government programs and help for the poor whereas conservatives
tended to favor smaller government and lower taxes. In those times,
there were very few conservative intellectuals.
As
the debates between the liberal doves and the liberal hawks grew
intense, the doves invented the term “neo-conservative” to
describe the hawks. It was intended as an insult, and, at first, the
liberal hawks (of whom I was one) rejected it angrily. But
eventually we accepted the label.
Neo-cons
were sometimes more hawkish than traditional conservatives. Why?
Because traditional conservatives had historically been
isolationists. Although they had turned away from isolationism in
the late 1940s along with most other Americans, they continued to
worry that America might reach too far.
The
traditional conservatives, in other words, were “realists” in
foreign policy, i.e., they wanted America to only become involved in
places and ways that affected very clear American interests. The
neo-cons, in contrast, were “idealists,” i.e., they wanted
America to exert itself for moral or ideological reasons and, also,
they believed that America’s interests were enmeshed with the
interests of many other states and could not easily be disentangled.
Thus,
although both conservatives and neo-conservatives tended to be
hawkish about the Cold War, the conservatives usually saw it in
"great power" terms, as a struggle between Russia and
America, while the neo-conservatives usually saw it ideologically,
as a struggle between Communism and freedom.
2.
Between the Cold-War and 9/11
During
the war in Bosnia, neo-cons demanded US military intervention
in favor of Bosnia's Muslims. |
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After
the Cold War, the term “neo-conservative” largely disappeared.
After all, it was the Cold War that had defined
“neo-conservatism,” and the Cold War was over. But in the course
of the debates about the war in Bosnia, from 1992 through 1995, it
became apparent that there continued to be a distinctive mindset on
the part of those who had been neo-cons during the Cold War. As the
Serbs carried on their bloody campaign of “ethnic cleansing”
against Bosnian Muslims, and American presidents — first George H.
W. Bush and then Bill Clinton —refused to do anything effective to
stop it, a movement grew up demanding intervention in Bosnia. It
consisted mostly of neo-cons. Why? Traditional conservatives
believed that America had no interests at stake in Bosnia; what was
going on there could be seen as a tragedy or even an outrage, but it
was not our problem and therefore we should not spend our own lives
or treasure over there, they said. Liberals believed that Bosnia was
a problem that deserved our attention and even our money but they
were reluctant to use force, and they preferred to see the problem
handled by the UN.
Neo-cons
shared the moral concerns of the liberals about the wanton abuse of
Bosnian Muslims' human rights. They also believed, in contrast to
the traditional conservatives, that America did indeed have a
concrete self-interest in stopping the slaughter, namely that, if
this kind of violent aggression was allowed to go on, the whole
world would become more lawless and dangerous. Where neo-cons parted
company with liberals was that they believed that the UN could never
be counted on to act effectively, and that the only way to stop the
Serbs would be for America to use force.
Thus
by the end of the 1990s, one could distinguish three main camps: the
liberals, who tended to be idealists but generally reluctant to use
force or act outside of the UN; the conservatives, who had no use
for the UN and no reluctance to use force, but were “realists,”
defining American interests in a narrow way; and finally the
neo-cons, who were idealists like the liberals, but, like the
conservatives, were not reluctant to use force and saw little value
in the UN.
3.
From 9/11 Through the Iraq War
Some
of Bush's post-9/11 policies have a distinct neo-con ring to
them. |
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When
George W. Bush ran for president, and during his first months in
office, he seemed very much the traditional conservative. He showed
little interest in foreign policy, focusing instead on domestic
issues like cutting taxes. When he did address foreign policy, he
sounded like a realist, even a bit of an isolationist, criticizing
his predecessor Bill Clinton for having gotten America involved in
too many places, such as Bosnia. But 9/11 changed everything,
especially Bush himself, who took a new interest in foreign policy
and a new approach to it.
At
first 9/11 pulled the country together, and there were few
differences among Americans. This continued through our invasion of
Afghanistan, which harbored the terrorist group that had attacked
us; ousting the Taliban was supported by all camps in America. But
Bush’s decision to turn next to Iraq, and also some of the
president’s belligerent rhetoric, created divisions — although
at first these were muted. Most citizens, commentators, and members
of Congress supported the war. But the divisions grew wider and
deeper.
Among
liberals, there were critics who objected to Bush’s willingness to
go ahead without the approval of the UN; they were unhappy about
going to war and sometimes with Bush’s provocative rhetoric.
Among
conservatives, there were doubts about fighting some place as
distant as Iraq and even larger doubts about the president’s
declared mission of fostering democracy in the Middle East, which
they believed was unrealistic.
Neo-cons,
in contrast, were strongly in Bush’s corner. From this came the
widespread notion that Bush’s administration had somehow been
taken over by neo-cons. But this impression, while understandable,
was false. There just weren’t many neo-cons in the Bush
administration, and none of the top people — Bush, Cheney, Powell,
Rumsfeld, Rice — were neo-cons. It is true that, after 9/11, Bush
went through a metamorphosis from a position of traditional
conservatism, and that he adopted policies that had a distinct
neo-con ring to them. But we will have to wait until he leaves
office and writes memoirs to understand how this transformation
occurred.
4.
The Situation Today
Francis
Fukuyama, who has announced his split with neo-conservatism,
believes that the US "overreacted" to 9/11. |
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As
America has found itself in a much deeper thicket in Iraq than
Americans anticipated, the war has naturally grown more unpopular
and new divisions have appeared.
There
are some voices, like Congressman John Murtha’s — but not many
— calling for the United States to withdraw from Iraq now. But
most of the strong critics of Bush’s policy agree that, if we
pulled out now, we would likely pave the way for a bloodbath in Iraq
along sectarian lines. Moreover, it is widely perceived that Iraq
has become a showdown between America and jihadism, and that
allowing the likes of Zarqawi to drive us out would have powerful
repercussions.
On
the other hand, the widespread disillusionment with the war has led
to a variety of calls for setting a future deadline for US
withdrawal or for other formulas to hasten our departure.
It
has also led to a lot of criticism of the Bush administration. Some
comes from conservatives, who were always doubtful about the mission
of democratizing the Middle East, and some from liberals, who were
all along opposed to using force without the UN’s authorization.
It
also comes from Francis Fukuyama, a onetime neo-con who has
announced his split with neo-conservatism; he believes that we
“overreacted” to 9/11.
There
are also many neo-cons, such as William Kristol, the editor of the Weekly
Standard, who supported the war and still support it, but who
have criticized the administration for various of its tactical
decisions, especially not sending enough troops to provide security
and seal Iraq’s borders, and perhaps also the decision to disband
the Iraqi army.
In
contrast, there are still some neo-cons, like the writer Victor
Davis Hanson, who argue that the troubles we are having in Iraq are
the kinds of troubles to be expected in warfare, and that it will
all turn out all right if we don’t panic and retreat.
Every
major war has rearranged our foreign policy alignments. By the time
the war in Iraq is over, for better or worse, they will have been
rearranged again. Such is the natural flow of policy debate in a
democracy.
