Bambi Meets Godzilla In The Middle East

[Valin]

Via Meadia:

Walter Russell Mead

8/18/13

 

President Obama has had a rude awakening in the Middle East. The region he thought existed was an illusion built on American progressive assumptions about the way the world works. In the dream Middle East, democracy at least of a sort was just around the corner. Moderate Islamists would engage with the democratic process, and the experience would lead them to ever more moderate behavior. If America got itself on the right side of history, and supported this hopeful development, both Americas values and its interests would be served. Our relationships with the peoples of the Middle East would improve as they saw Washington supporting the emergence of democracy in the region, and Al Qaeda and the other violent groups would lose influence as moderate Islamist parties guided their countries to prosperity and democracy.

 

(Snip)

 

Unfortunately, much of our political and policy class, both on the left and the right, shares an unfounded confidence that liberal capitalism is going to triumph tomorrow. They are the secular, liberal counterparts of Christian fundamentalists waiting for the Rapture, a near-magical translation to a better world. This is what most American policy makers believed about Russia in the heady years after the Soviet collapse. President George W. Bush bet the ranch on the imminent democratization of the Middle East. So did President Obama.

 

(Snip)

 

What Americans often miss is that while democratic liberal capitalism may be where humanity is heading, not everybody is going to get there tomorrow. This is not simply because some leaders selfishly seek their own power or because evil ideologies take root in unhappy lands. It is also because while liberal capitalist democracy may well be the best way to order human societies from an abstract point of view, not every human society is ready and able to walk that road now. Some arent ready because like Haiti they face such crippling problems that having a government, any government, that effectively enforces the law and provides basic services across the country is beyond their grasp. Some arent ready because religious or ethnic tensions would rip a particular country apart and cause civil war. Some arent ready because the gap between the values, social structures and culture of a particular society make various aspects of liberal capitalism either distasteful or impractical. In many places, the fact that liberal democratic capitalism is historically associated with western imperialism and arrogance has poisoned the well. People simply do not believe that this foreign system will work for them, and they blame many of the problems they face on the countries in Europe and North America who so loudly proclaim the superiority of a system that many people in the global South feel has victimized them.

 

(Snip)

 

History...History...History!

Now it may seem that that the USSR collapsed a long time ago, in reality (thinking historically) it was yesterday afternoon, the 6 Day War, was yesterday Morning...if you know what I'm saying.

/Rant

[SrWoodchuck]

Excellent post, @Valin! Mirrors somewhat, what I think our shortfall has become in foreign policy......dopey-changey on the left & the right.

 

We assumed that in Iraq, we would be welcomed as liberators & our world view of self-determination was a one size fits all......and now by the Obamunists, thinking we all want to march to the big gubmint one world order....because they've pre-determined that it's where all of correct thinking humanity is focused.

[Valin]

Excellent post, @Valin! Mirrors somewhat, what I think our shortfall has become in foreign policy......dopey-changey on the left & the right.

 

We assumed that in Iraq, we would be welcomed as liberators & our world view of self-determination was a one size fits all......and now by the Obamunists, thinking we all want to march to the big gubmint one world order....because they've pre-determined that it's where all of correct thinking humanity is focused.

Actually we were welcomed as liberators

 

 

 

The problem was there really was not a lot of thought put into what to do after Saddam and his gang of thugs were gone.

 

I kept pointing to people at FR, that Iraq was Iowa and never would be. If that was what people expected they were doomed to be disappointed.

[SrWoodchuck]

See....if we still believed in 'Rule by Conquest' they would already be a failed 59th state in the Obamunist Republik....

[Valin]

See....if we still believed in 'Rule by Conquest' they would already be a failed 59th state in the Obamunist Republik....

 

For goodness sake, Don't Give Him Any ideas!!!