TBR: The Good Fight
Let me start with full disclosure: I went to college with Peter Beinart, the author of The Good Fight: Why Liberals — and Only Liberals — Can Win The War on Terror and Make America Great Again. We were friendly acquaintances, but not close, and I didn’t stay in touch with him. I heard about him, of course, when he was named editor at the New Republic just six years after graduation and have followed his career from afar with a combination of wonder, admiration and envy. And then last week, with his book in my bag, I ran into him waiting for an elevator. Go figure.
The Good Fight is a frustrating book. In the acknowledgements, Beinart thanks Marty Peretz who "saved me from an unpromising academic career." In the first third of the book, he seems to have disinterred all the research he had done and tried to put it to good use. He argues that liberals need to reclaim the strong international outlook they had in the late 1940s and 50s, the legacy of the anti-communist Democrats who founded Americans for Democratic Action. Unfortunately, these chapters are pretty dull going. Beinart tells the story of the founding of the ADA, how its values came to dominate the Democratic party and then declined, in chronological order, getting bogged down in more detail than is needed, but not enough to bring the huge cast of characters to life.
What makes this frustrating is that I think Beinart’s basic idea is right. He argues that Democrats need to articulate a vision for foreign policy that is neither knee-jerk isolationist nor Republican-lite. Without such a vision, what we wind up with is muddled messes like Kerry’s attempt to explain why he voted for the war before he voted against it (or was it the other way around)? The anti-war wing of the party has an easier job articulating its position, but doesn’t stand up effectively against the evil of the world. Beinart argues that Democrats are so (justifiably) furious about the way that Bush has abused the idea of a war on terror that they often seem to forget that there really is a terrorist threat that needs to be combated.
I’m not entirely convinced by Beinart’s overall theory of the righteous war (his ideal war seems to be a cross between the first Iraq war and the intervention in Kosovo) but his articulation of what’s wrong with the Bush approach — and how we could do better — is far better than I’ve heard from any elected official:
"George W. Bush has faithfully carried out the great conservative project. He has strippped away the restraints on American power, in an effort to show the world that we are not weak. And in the process, he has made American power illegitimate, which has made us weak. He has denied America’s capacity for evil, in an effort to bolster America’s faith in itself. And, in the process, America has committed terrible misdeeds, which have sapped the world’s faith in us — and ultimately, our faith in ourslelves."
July 19th, 2006 at 7:29 am
Thanks, I’ve been sort of thinking I ought to read this book. I am the sort of voter he thinks the Dems need – a fallen-away national Dem, in line with much of the Dem domestic project but don’t think they have shown themselves able or willing to defend the nation. Lately, I vote for local and state Dems but for national Reeps – not all that comfortable a situation.
July 19th, 2006 at 10:45 am
Beinart has a peculiar view that the 60s and 70s liberals were primarily concerned with anti-anti-communism, when they were really concerned with racism and the war. The broad liberal opposition to the war wasn’t about fighting anti-communism. It was about not personally dying (or having your friends and family die) in a stupid war of choice. Muscular foreign policy proponents want a small, short, romantic WWII on the cheap (in blood and treasure). Instead, we get Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Somalia, Haiti, Iraq 2, etc. Politics seems hard, messy and capricious. It’s nice to think that we can sidestep them and unilaterally muscle the world into a more pleasing shape. You strike me as normally unlikely to take the easy way out. Is foreign policy different for you than other issues?
Did you mean active, engaged foreign policy by means other than wars (loans, trade, diplomacy, peacekeeping)?
July 19th, 2006 at 4:53 pm
I have heard alot of advertising for this book on Air America radio and after your comments and excerpt will pick it up. I really agree with the excerpt regarding the denial of America’s own misdeeds. Republicans and conservatives stigmatize any philosphical look at our own motives and deeds as outdated academia, but I think it is simply an excuse to continue with their mission. I think Dems and Reps are both outdated in their ideology. Alot of writers, political analysts, etc. discuss Dems returning to FDR or the 60’s – can’t we think to the future with new thought? Reps are trying the same thing with a push for Reagan conservatism. The world has changed so drastically – terrorists are not the same enemies as during past wars. I think both Dems and Reps are fighting new wars with old tactics. As in everything in corporate America, politicians are repackaging old ideas into new rhetoric.
July 19th, 2006 at 8:45 pm
I mean active foreign policy by all means. That certainly includes trade and diplomacy and foreign aid and sanctions. And it also includes military force, at times, and with international support. Precisely because I agree that politics and fighting are both hard, messy, and capricious, I don’t think you can draw nice clean lines between war and peacekeeping missions. If we sent US soldiers on “peacekeeping” missions to the Sudan or to Lebanon right now, they’d get shot at, and would defend themselves, and it wouldn’t look all that different from war.
Beinart argues, and I think he’s right, that the Right’s version of isolationism is “let’s not risk American lives to help people on the other side of the earth” and the Left’s version is “we can’t do anything without risking collateral damage, so let’s stay out and keep our hands clean.”
July 20th, 2006 at 11:02 am
Ok, then what are your goals that justify military intervention? Are economic interests enough? Is promoting democracy enough? Fighting terrorists? Ending an ethnic cleansing (relocation or genocide)? Ending a civil war? Ending a war between states?
I’m not trying to bait you or anything. I just don’t get the impression that you would have the same goals/justifications as Beinart, and I’m more interested in yours.
In your last paragraph in your last comment, did you mean to imply that setting a very high bar (or outright opposing) the use of military force is the same as isolationism? Even with aggressive use of alternative foreign policy vehicles?
July 20th, 2006 at 4:44 pm
This is going to sound extremely naive, but I feel the need to write this. Although the U.N. is political and unbalanced (the richest countries still hold most of the power over decisions that affect everyone on this planet) wouldn’t it be wise for them to take a firmer stance on all international violence simply by outlawing any form of violence against an ethnic group (domestic genocide) or countries (war)? Ofcourse, anti-globalization groups would be against this and whose cultural values would the U.N. adopt since there are extreme differences internationally. Could this be a more effective way to fight terrorism? The only reason I write this is because we are headed that way anyway. Doubtfully in my lifetime, but maybe in the next century. If there are international business practices, why not advance towards a centralized stance on war and violence. Ofcourse, that means the U.S. could not commit pre-emptive war and would face some type of sanction. Although I enjoy life in the U.S., it bothers me that the wealthiest countries place sanctions on others as punishment with no retribution for their own self-interest decisions.
July 21st, 2006 at 10:13 am
Christine,
Would the UN acting as the world’s police jeopardize it’s other roles? If the UN outlawed any form of violence against an ethnic group (domestic genocide) or countries (war), how would the UN enforce the law?