When I first read this (via HNN), I was going to just let it go.  Why bother with yet another article that demonstrated such appalling lack of understanding of the rest of the world?  After all, life is short, I have other things to do and there is no chance that anything I say here will stop the author in question from producing more of the same.  Yet there is something so wrong with it that I feel compelled to make a few remarks.  To begin, here is Hanson:

Turkey is democratic, a NATO ally, and a recipient of substantial American military aid. Yet it reveals the highest level of anti-Americanism of any country polled — 83 percent express an unfavorable view of the U. S. Perhaps that enmity is due to our support for Kurdistan and the resentments of Ankara’s own Islamist government. In any case, so much for the ballyhooed American efforts to bolster Turkey’s bid to join the E.U. In theory, if we opposed Turkish membership, or suggested that Ankara leave NATO, would our image then improve? Again, something is terribly wrong when four out of five “allied” Turks feel so unfavorably toward the United States.
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Apologists, of course, will cite our policies in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Israel as catalysts for Middle East hatred. But clearly there is some preexisting venom involved that makes the Muslim Street ignore all the good we have done, and focus only on what is considered bad.

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But who really cares to calibrate all the reasons why the Germans hated us when Ronald Reagan deployed Pershing missiles to protect them, or why the Greeks hated us when Madeline Albright tried to stop Balkan genocide, or why the French hated us for ending the once lucrative Baathist regime in Iraq? Instead, at some point Americans should ask themselves how they can continue to be allied militarily with countries whose populations have a more negative view of us than do our supposed rivals in Russia (48 percent unfavorable) and China (57 percent).

Hanson allows the idea that policies in the Near East might be cited as reasons for the appalling collapse in our reputation in these countries only to dismiss this as the claim of “apologists.”  Yet the massive discontent of the Turkish public with the United States can be traced directly to the invasion of Iraq, and to a lesser extent the American acquiescence in the bombing of Lebanon.  The invasion turned the Turks against us so completely that it is difficult to exaggerate the importance of the policy in pushing the population of Turkey into an “anti-American” mood.  Of course, if I am an apologist for Turkey then Hanson is the Pope.

Hanson refers vaguely to the “resentments” of Ankara’s Islamist government–the same government his ideological confreres are so eager to see join the councils of the EU–when the current Turkish government has, for the most part, far fewer reasons to be hostile to Washington than its predecessor, which was the one in power when the war began.  U.S. support for the main Kurdish parties in the KRG is not the main thing that bothers Ankara, but rather the effective protection afforded to the PKK inside Kurdistan.  Erdogan has made a point of improving treatment of the Kurds in his neo-Ottomanist solidarity with fellow Muslims.  The PKK has become a point of contention between the U.S. and the Turkish government, but the outrage of the Turkish public began long before that.  Hanson writes as if he is surprised that U.S. support for a quasi-democratic regime in which the military plays a considerable role does not buy public affection for the United States, yet it is the pattern across the globe that the most pro-American and dependent governments are the ones most out of step with their own populations in their attitudes towards the U.S.

Greek hostility to intervention in the Balkans is not and was not hard to understand.  On the Greek left, there is residual resentment from U.S. support for the Colonels during the ’67-’74 junta, and across the spectrum in Greece there was strong resentment against American vilification of a traditional Greek ally in Serbia.  Historians should be interested in understanding these things, because they involve the application of an understanding of history to the affairs of the present day.  Predictable warmongering pundits are, naturally, not interested.

Familiarity breeds contempt, as the saying goes.  One of the reasons why the populations of allied states view the U.S. government and its policies so negatively is that they have come to expect more from Americans and can remember a time, or at least have read about a time, when Americans were not so incorrigible.  Other populations in allied states live under rather restrictive regimes whose existence we help perpetuate, for good or ill, and so they necessarily have a dim view of us.  Someone who does not “care” to understand this should stop writing about foreign affairs.  If Hanson believes that America’s strategic position would be strengthened by increasing our ties with Ghana and dissolving them with the Turks, he should say so.  Otherwise, it is entirely unclear what the point of his observations is, except that it is a chance for him to whine that millions upon millions of people around the world find the policies that he supports to be hateful and wrong.

The GQ profile on Obama has some amazing details that probably would, by all rights and normally, relegate him to the world of the laughable also-rans.  For instance, there is this item:

We stopped at a picturesque redbrick general store—“America’s oldest”—to photograph Obama and his family as they bought sandwiches and fudge and played with a puppy. As Obama stood at the counter paying, he looked quizzically at a display of trailer-hitch covers dressed in the guise of moose and turkeys. Turning to the phalanx of cameramen and reporters, Obama bravely wondered, “Who knows what a hitch ball is? This is a hitch-ball cover. We don’t know what a hitch ball is. Anybody know?” A cameraman politely explained that it’s the silver thing on the back of a truck used to tow a trailer. “Oh, I see,” Obama said, looking as if he was doing a mental calculation about whether this was one of those moments the press would use to make it seem like he’s out of touch. It wasn’t exactly President George H. W. Bush marveling over a checkout scanner, but still.

Make it seem like he’s out of touch?  There’s no need for the press to make him seem like anything–he is out of touch.  No one would confuse me with someone who is extremely familiar with pickup trucks, but even I know what this is.  It’s not some piece of arcane cultural knowledge that you acquire only after years of dwelling in deepest Oklahoma or Arkansas.  It is something that you learn when you come across a pickup truck.  No wonder “downscale” Democratic voters don’t relate to Obama–it seems as if he doesn’t even know how to speak their language or understand their world.

“One of the things that I’m going to do when I’m in there,” Obama says with the extreme politeness he turns on when saying something that won’t fully please his interlocutor, “is to look at this faith-based initiative and see how it’s worked and where the money is going. What you don’t want it to be used for is a way of advancing someone’s political agenda and rewarding friends and not rewarding enemies. Know what I mean?” The reverend tightens his lips, nods his head, and gives Obama a fairly unconvincing “mm-hmm.” ~GQ

Of course, what this pastor probably wanted to hear was less of Obama’s transcendent unity piffle and more promises that Obama will be directing more of the rewards to his friends–that is, people such as the pastor and the other “right kinds” of people.  The article describes this as Obama taking an “easy pander” and making it an occasion to tell a “hard truth,” but the trouble Obama seems to be having in this race is that he likes to tell a lot of “hard truths” to voters who haven’t yet committed to supporting him without doing much of the “pandering” first.  (His advocacy for merit pay in the lion’s den of the NEA is typical.)  He wants voters to respect that he has a sense of integrity, but many of the voters first want to hear that he will be looking after their interests in the most mercenary sense.  He wants to campaign as a “change” candidate, but one constant problem with “change” candidates is that most voters actually don’t want their candidates to campaign in this above-it-all, supposedly meritocratic, reformist style.  They want candidates who can deliver the goods to them, while Obama tries to project the appearance of someone who finds the act of doling out the goods offensive and beneath him.  This doling out of rewards is “small” politics, but it is the sort of politics to which most voters respond.  Having asked, “What are you going to do for me?” they don’t want to hear a high-minded answer that we should direct our resources where they are most needed.  They want to hear that their needs are the most important, whether or not this is true, and that their needs have priority over everyone else’s.  The truly cunning campaigner is the one who is able to say this to numerous, mutually antagonistic groups without anyone being able to notice the contradiction.  Obama may want to change some of the things in the current system, but at the rate he’s going he will certainly not be doing it from the White House.

One way to describe Obama is that underneath the inspirational leader who wants to change politics—and upon whom desperate Democrats, Independents, and not a few Republicans are projecting their hopes—is an ambitious, prickly, and occasionally ruthless politician. But underneath that guy is another one, an Obama who’s keenly aware that presidential politics is about timing, and that at this extremely low moment in American political life, there is a need for someone—and he firmly believes that someone is him—to lift up the nation in a way no politician has in nearly half a century. ~GQ

Via Michael Crowley

In other words, underneath the megalomaniac is a con-man, and underneath the con-man is the guy with the delusions of grandeur.  Sounds like a great combination.

How surprising.  Ryan Sager makes another tired pitch for the Giuliani campaign while bashing the rubes of Iowa.  That is so very interest….zzz.

“All for Jesus. All for Jesus. All for Jesus. All for Jesus,” – Sam Brownback’s stump speech in Iowa.  And some say I exaggerate the sectarian nature of the GOP base. ~Andrew Sullivan

Since Brownback won all of 15% in an unrepresentative straw poll in a state with a fairly sizeable population of very activist evangelicals, you could argue that even if Brownback were the embodiment of the “sectarian” and “fundamentalist” stereotype that Sullivan has laid out in his book and on his blog the significance of such supposedly fundamentalist sectaries for understanding the politics of the “GOP base” is minimal.  Against Brownback’s 15%, you have 31% who voted for a Mormon (the bete noire of the sectarians among us), almost 10% who voted for the decidedly non-sectarian, non-fundamentalist Ron Paul, 13% for Tancredo and 7% for Tommy Thompson–that’s 61% of poll voters who did not join up with the two most explicitly religious conservative candidates at Ames.  In this straw poll, it is fair to assume that the people who respond to Brownback’s rhetorical style are considerably overrepresented when compared with the party at large.  Given that Brownback is one of the least effective and weakest candidates in the field beyond his natural base of support, fundamentalist sectarianism is probably not on the verge of dominating the GOP.

Viewed another way, the quote has nothing to do with so-called “Christianism.”  What should Brownback have said?  “Nothing for Jesus”?  “A tiny bit for Jesus, provided that it falls within the safely defined parameters of the Wall of Separation”?  “Some for Jesus, the rest for me”?  “Jesus is all right, but I am entirely secular and therefore will say nothing unduly religious during this stump speech”?  Perhaps Brownback’s remarks here, like so many things the man says, need some qualification or elaboration, but what do Christians believe except that we should, as one of the prayers in the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom says, dedicate ourselves and “all our lives unto Christ our God”?  For Brownback to say this makes him as “sectarian” as any believing Christian, which is to say that he actually believes Christ’s teachings to be true and compelling.  I generally have no time for Brownback on many policy questions, but this criticism, like Sullivan’s entire categorisation of the Republicans as a “religious party,” is excessive and unfounded.  Perhaps if the GOP actually were something like a religious party, it would not, as an organisation, tolerate nearly so many atrocious policies.  On the contrary, we have something of the worst of both worlds: a thin patina of religiosity masking an agenda of corruption and violence.  This is not the fault of any “Christianism,” but the result of thoroughly secular operatives understanding how to play on the fears and hopes of conservative Christians to win their support and who then proceed to abandon everything these Christians hope to achieve in the political realm.  The proper criticism to be leveled at many Christian conservative leaders and politicians today is not so much that they are grasping or willing to compromise the Faith for power (although some may), but that they are incorrigibly gullible and willing to put their trust in princes who have no use for what Christian conservatives believe except in an election year.

In the end, Romney got 31%, and I guessed he would get 30%, so I’m fairly pleased with the outcome and the prediction as far as that goes.  Huckabee and Brownback both fared better than I expected, racking up the results that I had assigned to Paul and Thompson.  I underestimated Tancredo and ignored poll numbers that suggested he would be a contender here, while I gave too much credit to chatter that Ron Paul might pull off a major coup and Tommy Thompson’s delusions of grandeur.  Thompson will soon be gone, and Hunter’s candidacy has ceased to have much rationale.  John McCain came in next to last, but only because John Cox received fewer votes.  Giuliani was beaten by the non-candidate Fred, both of whom lost to Tommy Thompson.  Romney’s win here isn’t that valuable for him, but considering how miserably the other “major” candidates have been doing it may still be enough to put him over the edge come January.

Isaac Chotiner doesn’t find much to like in the Kaplan article on the Partition, and points us to Pankaj Mishra’s piece in The New Yorker.  Chotiner notes Mishra’s description of Churchill as dyed-in-the-wool imperialist with harsh attitudes towards Indians and says:

Mishra’s more serious point is that by playing up religious divisions, Churchill actively encouraged the rise of political Islam in what is now Pakistan. One could say that this counts as an irony at the expense of those who mention his name every time an “appeaser” questions the Bush administration’s foreign policy.

It would be more ironic, I suppose, if the U.S. government had not been instrumental in promoting political Islam in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the 1980s and in facilitating the close relations between Pakistani intelligence and the Taliban back when Washington still believed it was more important to be smashing the Northern Alliance and expanding our influence in Central Asia.  Still, I suppose it is a bit ironic that Mr. Bush et al. invoke Churchill, who was always keen to exploit religious differences, since they prefer to lump every potential foe into one, indistinct mass of Islamofascism.

For the class I will be teaching this fall, I was recently reading one of the books I intend to assign that touches directly on the reflections on the Partition and on the Putnam research on diversity described here (TACeven gets a brief mention in the article).  The book, Twice A Stranger,is an account of the history surrounding the Treaty of Lausanne, the population exchanges of 1923-24 and the experiences of the people who were uprooted as a result (as partly related by still-living survivors of the exchange).  In this book, Bruce Clark challenges the standard liberal anti-Lausanne argument (after having similarly critiqued the nationalist account):

The liberal anti-nationalist myth often suggests that relations were perfectly warm and harmonious and would have remained so if the population exchange had not been imposed as an artificial exercise in segregation.  In fact, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.  As anyone who is familiar with rural society in the Balkans or the Caucasus can testify, things are never that simple.  Warm and cordial business relationships, and personal friendships, can transcend the intercommunal division in surprising ways; but that does not abolish the division–or alter the fact that in the event of a general conflagration, almost everybody tends to seek security behind the walls of his or her own community [italics mine-DL], and life becomes  uncomfortable for those who try to occupy the middle ground. (p. 172)

The connection is that people with whom you identify, whom you consider your “own,” are the people you trust and will rely on in the worst situations.  Armed conflict adds an additional dimension of the pressure to actively side and identify with your community, as well as simultaneously seek shelter and protection from that community.  It occurs to me that this is how it is possible that rampant, violent sectarianism could spring from a pre-invasion Iraq that had relatively decent intercommunal relations, friendships and intermarriages.  Sectarian labels mattered little when conflict did not force people to choose sides, and the lines of the communities were not nearly so sharp when your position on one side or the other was not so significant.  When the chips are down, however, and having people you can trust becomes a matter of survival, sticking with your own is not only the natural, instinctive move but also the one that is actually the most rational under the circumstances.  Self-serving jingo “discoveries” of the damaged social fabric of pre-invasion Iraq have sought to discredit the idea that the source of sectarian violence in Iraq is the spark of the invasion itself, when it was the transformation of the country into a war zone that precipitated the bloodletting that has followed. 

This also highlights the flaws, or at least the limits, of Putnam’s proposed “solution.”  He wants to encourage “more encompassing identities” and a “new, more capacious sense of ‘we’,” which is just swell.  The problem with “more encompassing identities” is that they are usually weaker, more brittle and usually not founded in the natural affinities that would reinforce them.  Being an Iraqi is “more encompassing,” but it is consequently that much less meaningful.  It is “capacious” at the expense of being valued.  The more encompassing an identity becomes, the easier it is for that identity to collapse in on itself.