Realism is just idealism stretched over time
Thomas Barnett is an international strategist with a growing fan base.
He recently commented on an article by Henry Kissinger about negotiating with Iran. He agrees that to a great extent, “all the talks need to do is buy us time and a forum for starting what will inevitably be a long-term forum for regional security discussion, much like the The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
…No, this forum won’t magically make our rapid departure from Iraq possible, and no, it won’t stop Iran from getting the bomb. The regional forum concept is not designed for magical outcomes, but slowly building the collective will for permanent security regimes to arise in the region that settle the endemic conflicts and allow enough political stability for economic connectivity to ensue, which in turn will fuel social change already underway and political change that seethes just below the surface (the great fears of the despots).”
“Realism is just idealism stretched over time. It is a belief in inevitabilities that prefers inaction to action and cynicism to morality. But such delays do not constitute diversions much less defeats.
…To me, the outcome will never be in doubt, just the timing.”
The Democratic leadership is often accused of having no plan for Iraq other than backing the Baker Hamilton Report. Perhaps it is time to take a stand behind a conceptual and paradigm shift to a new regional collaboration that can provide a fresh context for the inevitabilities of mutual cooperation to unfold.
18 Responses to “Realism is just idealism stretched over time”
I would love to hear a truly credible idea on Iran. It seems to me that any argument that claims it’s solution will prevent The Bomb is naive.
One side claims that we can’t give in an inch and that we should simply demand that Iran stop it’s peaceful (yeah right!) nuclear program or else. Or else what? We invade? Yeah, us and what army? Oh yeah, the army we already have in two other countries. We can’t even handle Iraq, Iran simply cannot be handled at the present time, it’s much larger, with a disciplined army that will not melt on contact and very serious weaponry. Iran knows this, so they snub their noses at our threats.
Likewise, the idea that if we just talk gently to them as if they were rebellious children, they will see the error of their ways and decide they don’t need a bomb is almost cute. This is the EU approach and manages to be even more maddening in it’s naivety.
Looks to me like Iran is going to get The Bomb, so I think we should stop talking about how to prevent it and start talking about how to make it so by the time it has the bomb, the political/economic climate within the Middle East won’t allow it to USE the bomb. How to do that? I have no clue, but then I’m not, nor will I ever be, in charge, so I humbly wait for those smarter than I to get us out of this situation.
Germany has suggested an OSCE for the Greater Middle East since the early 90s, but various US governments never liked the idea. They saw it as a threat to US dominance in the region and/or considered it as wishful thinking that such an organization would effectively deal with conflicts.
Sorry, but perhaps it is time to bring up the Churchill quote: “America always does the right thing — once all other options have been tried.”
This proposal sounds pretty much insane. I am not an international strategist, but I do know the Sunni-Shia split is a fundamental and radical division in the region.
It has been deepened by the 1980s Iran-Iraq war. I know guys who fought in that war (on the Iranian side) and their views of Sunni Iraqis are unprintable.
Every day we see in the news another Shia shrine in Iraq bombed or attacked by Sunni insurgents.
It seems obvious, if ironic, that the only thing preventing a massacre of the minority Sunnis is the presence of the US forces.
In reading this, one is reminded of those various western proposals for multicultural states in the former Yugoslavia…that reflected more the liberal West’s love of multiculturalism rather than the realities of deep and abiding ethnic hatreds on the ground.
To clarify: By “insane” I meant “wildly idealistic”.
Consider the passage below. The thought of regional despots collaborating to ease conflict and ensure stability, leading to social change and their eventual overthrow sounds…well…pie in the sky.
Plus, why would Iran wants stability? Iran wants to increase its power. Syria wants to increase its power over Lebanon. Why would they want stability? Instability is increasing their power.
“The regional forum concept is not designed for magical outcomes, but slowly building the collective will for permanent security regimes to arise in the region that settle the endemic conflicts and allow enough political stability for economic connectivity to ensue, which in turn will fuel social change already underway and political change that seethes just below the surface (the great fears of the despots).”
Marlowecan,
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head: we need to stop pretending that other countries’ leaders necessarily want what we think they want, or what we would want if we were in their shoes. Ahmadinejad has stated clearly what he wants and it is not stability. The question is, will we listen to what he says when he is expressing his real goals or what he says when he tells the Western media what it wants to hear?
It is not -our- stability. That is different than desiring instability.
You aren’t proposing that he desires a world in which is own life and his own country and his own region is beyond his control, right?
egrubs,
It’s hard to know whether he wants to teeter on the brink of controlling chaos in his region (in the style of many secular despots), or if we should take him more literally. In his speeches, he repeatedly refers to the coming of the twelfth imam. This radical Shiite doctrine promotes the idea that faithful Muslims should promote violence and chaos because these conditions will help usher in the era of the return of the twelfth imam (who is something akin to a Messiah). Their belief is not only that this will happen, but that the actions of people can bring it on. So, either we take Ahmadinejad at his word, that this is his goal, or we believe that he is inciting people to bring chaos so that he can be the political benefactor by being the one to restore order. Either way, I don’t see much room for interpreting him with peaceful intentions and I think we are foolish to think that he only wants nuclear weapons for self defense.
Here’s an interesting article which looks at these possible interpretations.
Oh, I have no doubt his intentions aren’t to our best interests. I wouldn’t call them peaceful. Nor would I call our responses to his actions peaceful. This isn’t moral relativism, but looking at a complex situation for what it is.
In a purely pragmatic sense, we limit our scope of thinking and our possible responses when we pigeon-hole people into simple, anti-US motives. While there must be people who do seek, as their primary goal, our destruction, we should not be so naive as to categorize in that group all people whose interests are in direct opposition to ours.
We can bargain with people with whom we have nothing in common. The key is to realize that most politicians, no matter their beliefs, do not wish to die by their own Jyhad. It always for future generations to bear the brunt.
egrubs,
I don’t disagree with you in principle (that Ahmedinejad probably doesn’t want to be a martyr for jihad, and that diplomacy is about finding ways to bargain with those with whom we have nothing in common. But think about this in terms of the following quote from the post:
Do you see my point, that this is foolish thinking by putting Western motivations on those who don’t share those values? What I’m saying is that we tend to assume that everyone in the middle east really wants peace and stability, and that leaders always want their people to prosper economically. The fact is that many leaders in that region have their power and political clout precisely because of instability and lousy economic conditions, and they are not going to negotiate in good faith in order to change those conditions because that actually goes against their own self interest.
We shouldn’t assign to them our motivations, yes. We cannot know exactly the individual motive of each leader. (On the whole, most people want to wake up, earn there living, love their loved ones, escape the pains of mortality, and go to sleep again.) Still, we shouldn’t insist on assigning to them our values either.
The difficult task of diplomacy in this situation is to keep communications open with the government where you can sit across from each other at a table, disagree, and perhaps make no progress. We must support the government, as a legitimate body, and its right to exist without propping it up to survive without our support. We must negotiate the change we want without doing so in a manner that forces the opposition to save face by publicly defying us.
It is no surprise that we have done well with China, and that they have done well with us. We should use that interacting as an example of what we might hope to accomplish elsewhere.
The purpose of a regional forum is as much style as it is substance.
Discussion and agreement is certainly important but as part of the process so is the public relations value of giving voice and hope to all the moderates in the region.
egrubs, C Stanley, Ahmedinejad wants stability, but only on his terms. The motives of the Iranians are to be the guiding Shiite power that other Shiites follow; in Beirut, Iraq, or anywhere else there are significant numbers of Shiites.
They will act as patrons for Hezbollah and other groups to secure their primacy in the region and religion. What they feel insecure about is the designs the US has against them, by putting them on the “Axis of Evil� list we have given them notice that we are working towards the destruction of their regime. For Iran “stability� means that they have regional client states and political groups that can come to their aid when the US moves against them.
Exactly. But when we simplify it into some category of “He hates our freedom” or “He wants instability” (not sticking these words in anyone’s mouth, but we have some very simplistic political discourse, these days), we do ourself the disservice of eliminating a wide range of tennable options.
Iran sees us as a threat to its own destruction. Okay. What’s our next step? If it’s more name-calling and banner-waving, then we accomplish nothing.
egrubs
“What’s our next step?�
That is the big question isn‘t it, no matter what we say they will be suspicious of our intentions. The damage has been done and I think it will take a very long time, if ever, to totally undo it. They have also made statements that make us mistrust them, so the feeling goes both ways. The nuke issue just further complicates things. In a perverse way being forced to deal with them over Iraq might lead us to a better understanding of each other.
Therein lies the problem, IMO. This may give hope to moderates but it is a false hope. If we recognize that there is no room for negotiation with Ahmedinejad, then there is no point in putting on a show for moderates and pretending that we are going to acheive anything by negotiating with him.
Yes grog, but what are his terms and is there any possible way that we could live with them? From what I hear of his speeches, his terms are that stability will come once he is the leader of a Caliphate stretching across the Middle East and eventually the world, and of course along the way he nukes Israel out of existence. Where exactly can we find common ground with this?
That’s a perspective that I find confusing.
We have made statements that he cannot possibly accept. He has made statements than we cannot possibly accept.
How is that not the perfect starting point for negotiations?
egrubs,
I don’t know, you and I see this from completely different perspectives, I think. If each party has already come to the conclusion that the party on the other side of the table is unwilling to negotiate on a key point that is untenable to their own side, then it makes no sense to me to hold talks. What will the talks be about? Is it simply to formally come to the same conclusion, that the two sides hold beliefs and goals that are mutually exclusive? Or is it that we are supposed to be willing to accept things that are unacceptable to us in the hopes that the other side will do the same?
That’s a big ‘if’. I hope we have not come to that conclusion on our side (though I fear we have). We have little to no knowledge if Iran has come to that conclusion (though we do our best to back them into a one-option corner).
If we refuse to negotiate even the smallest point, then we fail. We are weak. We are children. And until we try to negotiate with those with whom we fear we have no common ground, we are arrogant and ignorant. The ‘if’ is on our side. We can control our actions. We don’t have to accept everything an opponent wants, or even most things, or even one thing. But until you sit down and try to work things out with respect, it’s all just childish ranting at the complexity of a grey world when we want it to be black and white.
Negotiations can be used to control the inevitable. Some situations you can win. Some situations you can minimize losses.
But at any point do we see anything resembling this approach? Or do we offer empty threats and childish demands while Russia and China step into a complex situation with answers that secure their stability, like smart states should.