Tag: Shadi

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A Daily Dish reader asks an excellent question, one that I suspect puts liberals in an awkward position:

One of the main arguments against an American pullback or pullout is the likelihood of a genocidal and brutal civil war that would "force" the U.S. to come in to stop the slaughter. I think it is appropriate to assume that there would be massive killing. I've heard arguments to the contrary and I've heard arguments that Syria/Iran, etc. would not permit it, but assuming that it would not take place is as foolish as assuming that everything will be just fine. So we should assume that there will be incredible slaughter, religious dislocation and depravity - at least in the non-Kurdish areas - if we get out.

Query: Do we have the discipline to stay out and to be presented night after night with scenes of uniminaginable slaughter that we will be accused of being "responsible for"?

What's the "progressive" response to this? If we have strong reason to believe that there will be genocidal slaughter if/after American forces withdraw, then it seems to me that simply leaving Iraq - and leaving it at that - is a morally untenable position to take. Perhaps realists can stomach the slaughter of non-Americans (as is their wont), but those of us who claim to be liberals should aspire for a higher standard of conduct. The question, of course, is whether there would in fact be massive ethnic cleansing (on a scale demonstrably worse than what is currently occuring) if America fully withdraws. If the answer is yes (and I'm not so sure that it is), then I don't know how we can advocate immediate/full withdrawal in good conscience. We simply cannot. This is something liberals must grapple with. Andrew Sullivan's response troubles me:

The great drawback of my own position is that it requires the United States to stand back as genocide takes place. The great drawback of the president's position is that we are already policing and enabling a genocide at a slower pace but comparable scale. History suggests that Americans can leave a place to hell. America was tough enough to watch the Vietnamese boat people. But of course it makes me pause. It should. The choices before us are all dreadful. But sometimes the best decision is the least palatable in the short term.

There are, however, other options besides "leaving" and "staying." Which is why I think Fareed Zakaria's partial drawdown/rapid-reaction force proposal is a third way out that puts the needed pressure on the Maliki government (by reducing troop levels), while reserving the American right to intervene in the case of genocidal slaughter.

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The failure of the Iraq "experiment" will have dire repercussions far beyond the immediate matters of waging a war (and losing it). Particularly in recent weeks, I have sensed an increased frustration from friends about "the Arabs." Why can't they get their act together? Why are they killing each other not only in Iraq, but also in Palestine and Lebanon? These do, indeed, bear the appearance of a largely internal problem and in some ways they are. But I worry that we are being led to a kind of revised essentialism - that Arabs do not deserve democracy because the three country-polities that seemed most democratic (in, say, 2005) are either in the midst of civil war or on the brink of one. So we hear more and more that (maybe) Arabs aren't really cut out for the ideological compromise and give-and-take of modern democratic politics. For example, although John Burns doesn't say it outright, that seems to be the implication of what he said to Tim Russert in a recent interview:

My guess is that history will say that the forces that we liberated by invading Iraq were so powerful and so uncontrollable that virtually nothing the United States might have done, except to impose its own repressive state with half a million troops, which might have had to last ten years or more, nothing we could have done would have effectively prevented this disintegration that is now occurring.

Keep in mind that John Burns, despite his admirable reporting skills, seems to know very little about Islam or the history of the Middle East. This is someone who after spending several years in Baghdad wasn't aware that Muslims had something called the "shahada" (see here for more). I've also noticed Andrew Sullivan's changing tone. And then there's Tom Friedman.

The problem is that Arabs are not and cannot be "inherently" anything. I'm not a big fan of what one might call "Arab political culture" either, but we have to ask whether this culture is, itself, the problem or a symptom of another, bigger problem (in social science, the indepedent vs. the dependent variable). It is most certainly the latter. There's nothing static about culture as even the most cursory knowledge of Arab history would suggest. Culture can indeed be altered, for better or worse. In the 1950s and 60s, Arab society was overwhelmingly secular, to the point where the word "Islamism" would have had no meaning - because it simply didn't exist beyond a very tiny minority. 

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Friend 1: Obama's the great black hope
Me: He's the great white hope
Friend 2: Well, I think he's the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Friends and I ponder the possiblity.

Friend 1: Well (pause), if Jesus ever did come back, I don't think it would be far off to think that he'd be sort of like Barack Obama...

We probably weren't the first ones to wonder and, now, there's reason to think we won't be the last...there's a new Slate feature called "the Obama Messiah Watch" - introducing a periodic feature considering evidence that Obama is the son of God. You gotta love their first entry from the LA Times:

In [political science professor Roger] Boesche's European politics class, [classmate Ken] Sulzer said he was impressed at how few notes [italics mine] Obama took. "Where I had five pages, Barry had probably a paragraph of the pithiest, tightest prose you'd ever see. … It was very short, very sweet. Obviously somebody almost Clintonesque in being able to sum a whole lot of concepts and place them into a succinct written style."

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I'm kind of curious how "progressive Muslims" (or "conservative" ones for that matter) are feeling about the surge? Indulge me in the comments section. I've been blogging about my own struggles figuring out where I stand on my home site Democracy Arsenal. Here are some highlights from my first post:

The surge is, first and foremost, a pretty good example of “too little, too late.” So I would say that I’m technically against it. However, I fully realize that being against the surge does not constitute a policy, nor does it necessarily answer the question being asked. Jonah Goldberg (and many others) want “us” to take sides and declare our intentions. Easier said than done. The problem is that I’m personally invested in a cause which continues to die a slow, dispiriting death. As I’ve said before, I was beginning, in the early months of 2005, to revise my original opposition to the war, because for me it was no longer a question of whether the war was legal, just, or necessary. The war happened and to be against something that had already happened no longer seemed a logically consistent position, or even if it was, it failed to take into account what to me was always the larger issue – the welfare of millions of Iraqis, whose lives, hopes, and futures hung in the balance.

To state the obvious, I am an "idealist," meaning that while I do fully realize that the awful reality of the Iraq situation, I am hesitant to   defer to that reality, for that is exactly what we have done for the last five decades in the Middle East, and at great consequence. I am particularly worried that if we leave Iraq, then there will be nothing left holding the Maliki-Sadr coalition from engaging in a campaign of massive ethnic cleansing of the Sunni population. While some seem to think that the situation in Iraq can’t get any worse, I suspect it can, and, if we don’t take some kind of decisive action, will. The Arab world has a way of defying expectations. At the end of the day, the American presence – and the intermittent American and international pressure to disband the Sadrist killing squads – provide a much-needed check against the excesses of the Iraqi government. It is not nearly enough. But it is something.

If your idea of fun is grilling a kabob out of James Baker, then I suggest you read it in full. Ok, that was sort of a teaser. Let me say more in the way of actual policy prescriptions: The surge, like almost everything else the Bush administration comes up with, fails to address in any serious way what seems to me the fundamental problem – the utter incompetence and intransigence of the Maliki government, a government which turns a blind eye to terrorizing and murdering its opponents and a government which shows little to no interest in reaching out to Sunnis, moderate or otherwise. Maliki is an unfortunate creature, as he – by his very existence – presents the most compelling argument against electoral democracy. Of course, I imagine Spencer Ackerman will jump up and down upon hearing this, and say I told you so. Not quite. If the Iraqi people elected Maliki (and I guess you could argue whether they really did), then they have to live with that stupid decision (sort of like how we voted for Bush not once but twice). Democracy, at its essence, is the right to do the wrong thing – and taking responsibility for it afterwards.

I am quite pleased to welcome Shadi Hamid as an Eteraz Expert. His area of concentration is American Foreign Policy. With Dr. Hisham Hellyer, our European Islam expert, and Dr. Fadel, our Islamic Law expert, I think it's safe to say that the Egyptians have taken over. It is a notable moment when an Egyptian takes over anything. Anyway, here's Shadi's bio: