The American Conservative

It would be naive to say, as some hard core non-interventionists have, that the United States has no interest in what is taking place in Iran.  Even though a victory by the so-called reformers would not end Iran’s nuclear program and would not stop the country’s rivalry with the United States in the Persian Gulf region, a government that would tone down the level of confrontation would be very welcome.  It is amazing to watch how the neocons, who were prepared to incinerate Iran two weeks ago, have suddenly found that there exist millions of good democrats who have to be supported with blood and treasure.  Someone else’s blood and treasure, to be sure.

It should be taken as a given that no one among the Sunday morning pundits really understands what is going on in Iran, so perhaps they as a group should step back from the fray and stop giving advice.  Which wisdom I will immediately ignore:  leave Iran alone.  Everyone knows that the US would like to see the reformers triumph, so how does it help to say so?  Saying so only gives the conservatives the moral edge, being able to claim that the reform movement is some kind of western conspiracy.  Acts of Congress, with only Ron Paul dissenting, pledging support for the reformers will have only negative consequences.  Pastel revolutions don’t work.  Real change only takes place when internal forces in the country demand it, otherwise it is the wrong kind of change, empowering one group of rascals over another.  It is also just possible that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won in a reasonably fair poll, largely because of fear of the United States and its allies.

Nota bene, Iran held an election and the clerics clearly understand that their legitimacy rests on a popular mandate.  Some day they will be gone, but it might not be tomorrow.  Meanwhile, the United States has no horse in this race.  Washington has to talk to whomever is in power in Tehran and it is in our national interest to make those talks as effective as possible by avoiding posturing beforehand.  I might add that after the dust settles on the election it would also be in our interest to stop efforts to overthrow the Iranian regime using dissident Kurds, Baluchis, and Arabs as surrogates.  It doesn’t help and, in the long run, will only make the inevitable and necessary accomodation between Washington and Tehran harder to achieve.

The unpopularity of more military invasions in the Middle East hasn’t quelled calls from the governing intelligentsia for intervention in Iran. But this time it’s a kind of soft intervention, cloaked in “democratic values” that at first glance sound more reasonable. But when placed under scrutiny, it turns out to be rooted in the same misguided notions that America can and should remake the world.

At least two prominent op-eds this week suggest that America should pursue a soft intervention in Iran. David Brooks concludes his argument for intrusion by trotting out a now tired and naive argument: the success of liberal democracies isn’t dependent on historical context and circumstances.

Recently, many people thought it was clever to say that elections on their own don’t make democracies. But election campaigns stoke the mind and fraudulent elections outrage the soul. The Iranian elections have stirred a whirlwind that will lead, someday, to the regime’s collapse. Hastening that day is now the central goal.

Brooks perpetuates the idea that liberal democracy is deeply compatible with our human nature, thus “outraging the soul” when it goes awry. Of course many in Iran are outraged—but isn’t it really mass society, the handmaid of liberal democracy, which affects the soul so negatively? Drawing on even more concrete experience, who can seriously say that the average American election—with its dirty attack ads and pep rally-style conventions—really “stokes the mind”?  (And “whirlwinds” of democracy?  That sounds familiar.)

In a post at The New Republic, political philosopher Michael Walzer also argues for soft intervention in Iran:

The dissidents are the people we should be supporting, whose stories we should be telling. And we should be talking to them about the kind of support they want and need. They and we are aiming at, and have every right to aim at, regime change. Organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, though they can’t acknowledge it, aim at regime change whenever they condemn the practices of tyrannical regimes; and so should union members and democrats of every sort, and religious moderates committed to freedom, and faculty members and students who believe in the integrity of the university. Regime change (it used to be called revolution) is our business, and we should embrace it.

The case for an activist academy is again on the table, and this time it seems rooted in a strange combination of American exceptionalism and cosmopolitanism-lite (one that evokes John McCain’s “We’re all Georgians now” remark). The revolutionary campus spirit of the ’60s will be taken on world tour—not with tanks, but with the kinder, gentler approach of NGOs. Michael Walzer and other cheerleaders for soft intervention are ready to send America’s best and brightest abroad to remake Iran. On second thought, maybe they prefer to just twitter some suggestions.

On Dec. 14, 1825, following the death of Alexander I — who had seen off Napoleon — his brother, the grand duke, who had just taken the oath as Czar Nicholas I, was confronted by mutinous troops and rebels in Senate Square before the Winter Palace.

For hours, the czar stood at the end of the square as the crowd shouted for a constitution or for Nicholas’ brother Constantine to take the throne. Shots were exchanged.

As darkness fell, a czarist general rode up to Nicholas and said, “Sire, clean the square with gunfire — or abdicate.”

The cannons belched — and Nicholas reigned for 30 years.

Most autocratic regimes face such moments.

After Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953, East German workers rebelled, and were crushed. Rather than let the Hungarian Revolution triumph, in November 1956 Nikita Khrushchev ordered in the tanks. In August 1968, Leonid Brezhnev sent in tanks again to crush Prague Spring. In 1981, Moscow ordered Gen. Jaruzelski to smash Solidarity. Those communists did not shrink from massacre to keep what they worshipped: power. Read More…

The nu-media marketing guys must be loving it: Everybody talking about “the Twitter revolution” in Iran; the dark-age Ayatollahs having their reactionary powers zapped from them by the button-clicking masses; the hip Iranian “Millenials” proving that freedom is aflame through social networking interface platforms. Middle East 2.0.

Well, sorry to cry humbug at everybody’s online party, but isn’t this condescending guff? The western response has been: wow, we didn’t realize Iran was so vibrant, so modern, so like us. Keep it up, guys: We’ll tweet you all the way to secular democracy.

Unlike the poor protestors on the streets of Tehran, though, we don’t have to get our heads kicked in by security forces. We just tune into the revolution from the gym, or gorp at videos of the violence on our IPhones.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s wonderful that new technologies can help dissent against oppression. It’s great that Iranians can, to use the phrase, by-pass traditional media to show that their country is not the neocon caricature of a monstrous theocracy.

But there is something fraudulent in our online admiration for those battling on freedom’s behalf in Iran; our virtual participation, even, in their struggle through the global communion of the world wide web. It’s as if we are vicariously living out fantasies of courageous rebellion against the oppressor on our laptops and cellular devices. But we don’t get blood on our keypads.

Maybe, but don’t expect Western-style liberal democracy, writes Leon Hadar.

    Yesterday’s Daily Telegraph,  the red conservative rag,  has a story which may be of interest to Amcon readers. The Prince of Wales, Charles U.K, has just got himself into another spat with Lord Rogers and the architecture community. This time their rage may be justifiable.

   Lord Rogers had just designed a one billion pound plan for the redevelopment of the old Chelsea Barracks.  The Emir of Quatar ,who owns the plot, was going to pick up the tab for the most expensive building project ever in the UK which would have provided much needed jobs for our beleaguered building industry: in the last year, architects claiming unemployment benefit have risen from 150 to 1290 persons. In the current climate it would have certainly been passed by the planning authorities, however hideous it may be.  

   Prince Charles, realising that the case of the action group against the project would not be won by open debate in the UK, has written to the prime minister of Quatar, a cousin of the Emir, to complain, and hit the jackpot. The Emir has agreed to withdraw the plan, and to include the Prince’s Foundation for the Built environment  in plans for a future design.   Thus, for another year, the traffic of central London will not be blocked up with happy builder’s vans trundling back and forth, and 1290 architects will have to remain on the dole. I am interested in what American Conservatives may make of this story. (a) are such parochial uk matters of no interest (b) does it offend the American Republican spirit to have two princes arranging matters of public interest through private letters or (c) does the Thoreauan principle of “one man more right than his neighbours constitutes a majority of one” apply?

Who’s up for another two minutes, or perhaps a two weeks, hate? The Onion has a not very nice American Voices item about the ridiculously overblown Palin/Letterman flap. This could go on all summer.

Secession is in the air. In Texas, a Republican governor has dared breathe the word. Vermont has an active and growing secessionist movement. Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia already call themselves Cascadia. Last weekend’s Wall Street Journal led off with a piece on secession. The author, Paul Starobin, wrote that

The present-day American Goliath may turn out to be a freak of a waning age of politics and economics as conducted on a super-sized scale – too large to make any rational sense…

Is this all mere fancy, another amusing idea with which to wile away the summer? Fourth Generation theory suggests there is more to it than that. The crisis of legitimacy of the state has not passed America by. Washington pretends to offer “democracy,” but both parties are largely one party, the Establishment party. Its game is remaining the Establishment and enjoying the pleasures thereof, not governing the country. The only politics that count are court politics; America outside the beltway exists only as an annoying distraction. As both the economy and the culture crash, the Establishment says, “What is that to us?” Read More…

On the surface, the tangle between David Lettermen and Sarah Palin may seem like celebrity tripe. But it has more substance than just a tabloid feud because it reveals a possible strategy Palin will adopt if she decides to run for president.

That’s why I don’t think this “dispute” over a dirty joke Letterman told about Palin’s family just “happened.” It was something that fell into Team Palin’s lap and they exploited it for full effect. The strategy is to make Palin a victim of someone who is part of the media’s elite, i.e., Letterman, right from his New York City studio, and then claim martyr status for her and what she supposedly represents, i.e., “the base.”

Other comedians have told jokes about Palin’s family and have gotten away with it, but this has more to do with timing. As governor of Alaska, she faces daunting logistical challenges in running for president, the first of which is the distance between the state and the media centers of the country. She had been out of the news cycle for the past seven months and her recent trip out east was designed to put her back into the spotlight. Indeed, Letterman’s joke was a godsend for her. Before he shot off his mouth, Palin was being dismissed in many GOP circles in Washington and was in fact accused of plagiarizing Newt Gingrich in a speech (if such as thing is even possible).

Then Letterman comes along with his crude joke and all of that is swept aside and Palin the Martyr takes center stage, vicitimized by the cruel and snarky eastern media elites. Ranks begin to close. Letterman becomes a target and is attacked by the whole party. He eventually is made to apologize but instead of doing so right away, he waits, allowing Palin to soak up as much of the spotlight as possible. Thus Letterman allows himself to be used to further Palin’s prospects and it’s too late to do anything about it.

This little dust-up should be a word of warning to all those who wish to critique the governor of Alaska. If such critiques are to be made they must be made on the substantive side, for it is on that side Palin has done little to burnish her image. Her handlers are on the lookout for any kind of statement or joke or anything said in a personal nature they can use to rally “the base” to Palin’s side under the strategy of victimization, because they know it is an easy way to draw attention to her and an easy to build up support.

It sure beats coming up with a 15-page proposal for dealing with health care.

Senator Kent Conrad (D-North Dakota) is stirring up his fellow Democrats by suggesting that perhaps Washington shouldn’t grant itself a monopoly on providing health insurance. Conrad proposes that the inevitable health care reform set up a system of nonprofit insurance cooperatives (co-ops). It is thus far sketchy on details, but according to an outline released to the press,

the “consumer health cooperatives (co-ops)” would operate “at the state level or regionally” to “provide a non-profit, non-government, consumer-driven coverage option in every state to deliver maximum value for consumers.” “The democratic nature of co-ops could encourage increased quality and appropriate utilization and could help foster care integration and other delivery system reforms,” [...]

• Co-ops would be required to be non-profit
• Co-ops would provide a coverage option for individuals and micro-businesses (< 10 employees)
• All exchange rules and state laws that apply to other plans also would apply to co-ops
• Strong governance standards would be required to ensure a strong consumer focus and democratic structure.

When I hear the word cooperative, I imagine myself banding together with my neighbors to create a community-based solution.  But Conrad’s approach is not the kind of organically emerging network of local civil society organizations that many conservatives could endorse.  Such a decentralist approach to filling the gaps in health care could never come from a top down Washington plan that requires “strong governance standards” (and most likely a large regulatory bureaucracy).  Conrad envisions co-ops of at least a half-million people.  This seems far too large for a genuinely “democratic structure,” for example far exceeding the number of “consumers” provided for by another (albeit tax funded) locally controlled institution, the average local school board.

But while Conrad’s version of health co-ops would likely result in heavily regulated companies chartered by Congress (along the lines of Fannie Mae), his proposal is useful in shifting the debate away from plans resembling single payer. This has caused most of the Left to denounce Conrad’s plan as a “cop out,” and “more like capitulation than compromise.”  This crackup among the Democrats—a distraction from their long planned Washington takeover of the health care sector—creates an opening for the Right. Conservatives should articulate that state control of health care is only the exchange of one monopoly for another, and encourage policy that enables both individuals and local communities to create flexible and effective solutions for increasing access to health care.