I had a bad moment yesterday morning when I found myself agreeing with things John Bolton and other neo-cons said in a New York Times report. However, there were only a couple of points I agreed with – that elections in Pakistan may produce instability, that sanctions won’t work against Iran and that the Bush administration has been somewhat tamed by the bureaucracy in Washington. I might agree with some neo-con fears, but I doubt I’d agree with any of their solutions.
It is certainly clear that Bush has been somewhat ‘Yes Ministered’ by seven years in DC – he has lost some hardliners, he picked up and revived what was effectively a Clinton solution to the North Korean problem, and hasn’t bombed Iran – yet anyway. How far this is due to the gradual wearing down of the Bush team by the bureaucracy is debatable – I’d suggest that getting whipped in mid-term elections has something to do with it as well.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to predict that the fundamentalists will do well in elections in Pakistan, if they contest them. Once again, the US has backed a loser while the state sinks out from under him. The Neo-cons cling instinctively to a ‘realist’ view of foreign policy, in which the guy in the Presidential palace speaks for the state and can always win a ‘victory’ over the opposition. Unfortunately, there are many places in the real world where that simply doesn’t apply, and Pakistan is one of those. Geographically, there are provinces where the writ of central government has never been more than nominal. Culturally, there are sections of the population who have never identified themselves with the idea of a “modern” Pakistan (much as in Turkey, or Afghanistan, in greater or lesser measure). Elections there are not just about electing a government, with the losers accepting the result in an agreed political reality. Elections in states like Pakistan are about the nature of a deeply contested political space. In 2000, after the 31 days in Florida, Al Gore accepted the result and went on to other projects. In many states, the losers don’t do that.
Bolton is also right about Iran and sanctions, even if his alternative, the use of force, isn’t necessarily correct. The list of states that have been compelled to fall into line with international treaties by sanctions is like the list of states which the US has bombed into democracy – none. I cannot think of any major crisis in history, not just since 1945 but going back through the League of Nations and before, where a major state has been forced to back down by sanctions. In fact, most chases where sanctions were used – against UDI in Rhodesia, or against Italy over Abyssinia, failed. The sanctions in every case were broken by someone who was willing to smuggle or openly trade with the sanctioned state. The government which was the target of the sanctions used them to whip up support both domestically and internationally. Even where sanctions mostly worked, states under sanction simply worked harder to replace the services and good which were cut off. (I’m quite willing to be corrected on he details of this argument, but I think the principle will stand scrutiny)
I usually don’t agree with anything a neo-con says, so I was surprised to find a few points of agreement. They were all limited to analysis of the situation, and don’t extend to sharing their prescriptions for the solution. If I think that maybe one can talk to neo-cons and possibly build something useful out of limited points of agreement, am I being overly optimistic?
Leave a Reply