What the Neocons Don't Get about Freedom

The neocons are rising, zombie-like, from the grave American voters dug for them in the last election. Untroubled by regret, much less shame, they're already whetting their knives for the Obama administration, exploiting challenging events abroad -- whether in Iran or Honduras -- to rewrite their own history, on the one hand, and start to write Barack Obama's, on the other.

At the moment, it's about freedom and the right role for democracy in Obama's foreign policy -- fitting, given that democracy became the ostensible purpose of America's foreign policy after President Bush's second inaugural address in January 2005, when he said that "the calling of our time" was "the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world."

Against such a bracing call, neocons are already attacking Obama for failing to live up to Bush's dreams. Witness the intellectual spasm this week by Jonah Goldberg in USA Today. Goldberg, the author of Liberal Fascism (a sales target-title in search of a nonfiction book, if ever there was one) argued that President Barack Obama has abandoned democracy promotion as "ideology," for the sake of a purportedly undemocratic "pragmatism."

Goldberg attacks Obama for a "cynical" policy in Iran and, in Honduras, for having "no problem with meddling when a left-wing agenda is advanced," and concludes, "It sure seems like Obama has an ideological problem with democracy."

It's understandable that the neocons are confused. Like the Neanderthals wandering a human world in Jean Auel's novels, they're dangerously out of date. What Goldberg doesn't understand is that a new, more modern goal underlies Obama's more sophisticated effort to achieve democracy around the world -- constitutionalism.

A study just released by Freedom House showed that the Obama administration has actually increased funding for democracy by $234 million -- by 9% in an overall democracy and human rights budget of almost $3 billion.

Obama has begun to build a new paradigm for democracy promotion on the smoldering ruins of the neocons' failures. Joshua Muravchik -- who Goldberg cites approvingly -- once wrote a book titled Exporting Democracy. The subtitle? "Fulfilling America's Destiny." Charles Krauthammer wrote an article in The National Interest titled "Universal Dominion: Toward a Unipolar World." In these neocons' visions, democracy was bound up with American hegemony and domination. It was about power.

Obama has a different worldview. Instead of a weapon in the hands of a bully, Obama sees democracy as a rallying cry for a natural leader leading a crowd away from a cliff. It's not democracy that is the goal. It is constitutionalism -- a self-governing culture that enables democracy to continually strengthen, rather than slip into a self-destructive cycle of demagoguery, instability, and violence -- that is freedom's Holy Grail.

My recent book Demagogue: The Fight to Save Democracy from Its Worst Enemies defines constitutionalism as a robust civic culture of republican values, both internal and external. Internally, people regard themselves as citizens, with all the rights and obligations thereto. Externally, they hold leaders on a short leash, cutting down any leaders who threaten authoritarian tendencies.

A key aspect of constitutionalism is that it begins and ends with the people, rather than rhetoric, institutions, or leaders. Thus the genius of Obama's policy of actual democracy promotion. He believes American foreign policy should interact with ordinary people living their day-to-day lives to begin to shift them toward an appreciation of the relative benefits of freedom and citizenship, of the fortunate aspects of keeping authoritarians on a short leash.

The new policy of engagement is already bearing fruit. As Matt Duss recently observed, Muslim extremists like the Saudi sheikh Abd al-Aziz al-Julayyil have written that Obama's engagement is "extremely dangerous" because it is "weakening [Muslims'] enmity toward America and makes them more positively inclined toward her future policies. It is numbing them, reducing their hatred toward infidels, and making them stop fighting."

This was the point of Obama's Nowruz address to the Iranian people -- to communicate directly with them and share America's democracy. This was the goal of his recent speech in Cairo -- to work directly with millions of moderate Muslims to stir the desire for freedom within their culture. And it's the ambition of his Iranian policy; through restraint, nuance, and pressure, he hopes to allow and encourage reformers to agitate for reform without exposing them to the regime's reflexive anti-Americanism.

And this is the point of the administration's democracy funding requests, which increased funding for civil society from $593 million to $608 million and requested substantial increases for the Near East Regional Democracy Fund and democracy programming in Afghanistan and Pakistan: programs that focus on cultivating constitutional values among peoples through educational programs, training, and institutional support.

It's about constitutionalism -- not just democracy -- and the president is on the right track. Leave it to the neocons to ignore the facts of the Obama policy. But then that should be no surprise. It's been a fact-free world for them for a long, long time.

Comments

[been2there]

Democracy is a learned, and difficult, skill. "Exporting democracy" is rather like expecting a 2-year-old to play violin after hearing a Stradivarius played. It does not work that way!

[davism97]

The best way to defeat an enemy is to make him your friend. This is not weakness. The neocon approach to foreign policy is like trying to eliminate a bunch of powder kegs by blowing them up. Obama would rather just diffuse the kegs.

[firstrax]

Ron paul is no neo con. He is much more libertarian. Huge difference88

[beckpod1]

Neocons had a sure thing with Ron Paul...the only decent man with dignity and the brains to debate anyone..including Obama...he had a grass-roots following(still does)!
Instead they flushed alot of money down the toilet with McCain and Supreme leader Palin.
These old brains of the GOP have missed the turn....they keep going right in a political suicide circle!
They eat their young...so there are no new faces....And they think we can't see them for what they are....padding their congressional pockets....they should be tarred n feathered!

[redsongia]

McCain clearly agreed to sell out to the machine in the end. I guess when it was finally his moment, he didn't have any faith in himself to really do the job. I'm sure if Paul had agreed to sell out, he would have been elevated instead.

[Nudalhade]

Sheesh! Some lefties still don't get it! We aren't in the business of exporting "democracy" or "constitutionalism(?)". We are in the business of looking out for our nation's economic and military interests. Our alliances are based on this, as it should be. All else is secondary. If our actions prove beneficial to some nations, it is purely serendipitous.

[KillgoreTrout43]

I suggest you read up on the Project for a New American Century. It is all about spreading democracy throughout the middle east, through military means.

[been2there]

Our nation's interests are served by strengthening other nations. Jesus had it right--building is better.

[tbonehead]

as the world grows up, we find that our challenges cannot be solved by one nation, by power mongers,
by military complexes. How is power/military going to solve the worlds fresh water shortage, how many nuclear bombs will it take to stop the over population that is crunching this planet like a peanut shell;
how many nations do we destroy until we have zero economic trading partners; which border secures us from the viruses that want to reclaim the world from humans, how much time is left before the US will not be #1 and will we be happier when it doesn't have to be?

[WIpatriot]

And you believe the means justifies the ends. It doesn't. When will YOU get it?

[crickets]

[redsongia]

Yeah, good lookin' out. You've done a fantastic job.

[dynwitch]

Will the Cold Warriors ever wake up to reality? They continue to live in the past, even though our own military leaders have been trying to push them into the present again and again. They keep playing the same old drum from the 1950s: communism!! socialism!!! fascism!! scary black people!!! They're like zombies who don't know when they're dead. Someone beat them into the grave, please.

[LeftRight]

A question for all those who think that we need to spread democracy throughout the world: Which democracies have stood the test of time?? The answer is simple. Those which were created from within and allowed to grow on their own. NO democracy imposed on a nation by an outside force has long stood!!

[S1m0n]

Neo-cons have no greater commitment to democracy than the present administration does. It was the neo-cons in the Bush administration, for instance, who encouraged Mahmoud Abbas to launch his coup against the winners of the last Palestinian election. To be a champion of democracy, you have to for it even when you don't like the winner. That's not the case for the neo-cons or for the present administration. It is no conincidence that the United States' best allies in the middle east (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kazakstan...) are frequently the least democratic nations among their peers.

[Mugzi]

Did you read the article????