Confident Optimism in Foreign Policy

My friend Jack Farrell blogs today about what should be a central question in any McCain-Obama town hall or debate or tea party or sing-along or whatever: Suppose the Israelis launch a preemptive attack against Iran -- what does the United States do?

There are two fundamental schools of thought on foreign policy, the optimistic and the pessimistic. The latter is what we'll call the Dick Cheney outlook: Our enemies are fearfully strong, the thinking goes, and democracy, with its emphasis on things like openness, checks-and-balances and collective decision-making are too weak to operate on a global stage.

Farrell adopts the optimistic view:

Is hope too risky?

We Americans invented nuclear weapons; used them, and had a brief atomic monopoly. There was a time, in the late 1940s, when we could have attacked the USSR before the Soviets got the bomb, as some of our military leaders suggested. But U.S. presidents recognized that, with or without our atomic arsenal, we would ultimately, inevitably lose that war. Napoleon and Hitler proved that the Russians are just too big and tough and proud a people to enslave. And even if, for a time, we succeeded, we would not recognize the America we had become.

So we adopted a policy of deterrence, put faith in our ideals, and waited the Soviets out. From Harry Truman to Ronald Reagan, we talked and talked and talked with our foes, and let freedom speak for itself. And, yes, for much of that time Americans lived under an existential threat. We do today.

But in the end, guess what: freedom won.

Jack's good, but the optimistic, secure view of foreign policy has been stated with more eloquence -- 45 years ago today, in fact. As I note at U.S. News & World Report, today was the anniversary of John F. Kennedy's great speech on peace, which he delivered at American University in 1963.

Americans should not take "a distorted and desperate view of the other side," Kennedy warned, not "see conflict as inevitable, accommodation as impossible, and communication as nothing more than an exchange of threats."

Communicating beyond merely exchanging threats? What -- without preconditions? That's just crazy talk.

Comments

[batguano]

"Of all the enemies of true liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manner and of morals, engendered in both. No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare" .........cont

--James Madison

[batguano]

............."War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. In war, a physical force is to be created; and it is the executive will, which is to direct it. In war, the public treasuries are to be unlocked; and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them. In war, the honors and emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed; and it is the executive brow they are to encircle. The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast; ambition, avarice, vanity, the honorable or venal love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace".

--James Madison

[batguano]

"Men acquainted with the battlefield will not be found among the numbers that glibly talk of another war. Many people think I glorify war, but I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity. In fact war is no longer a lively adventure or expedition into romance, matching man against man in the test of the stouthearted. Instead, it is aimed against the cities mankind has built. Its goal is their total destruction and devastation. And although I have lead many into battle I have come to the realization that next to the loss of freedom, war is the ultimate, which can befall a nation. It is so horrible that imagination cannot grasp it in all its hideous aspects".
http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/speeches/19460602%20Address%20to%20Reserve%20Officers%20Association%20Chicago%20Illinois.htm

--Dwight David Eisenhower

[batguano]

"In this spring of 1953 the free world weighs one question above all others: the chance for a just peace for all peoples.
The way chosen by the United States was plainly marked by a few clear precepts, which govern its conduct in world affairs.

First: No people on earth can be held, as a people, to be enemy, for all humanity shares the common hunger for peace and fellowship and justice.

Second: No nation's security and well-being can be lastingly achieved in isolation but only in effective cooperation with fellow-nations.

Third: Any nation's right to form of government and an economic system of its own choosing is inalienable.

Fourth: Any nation's attempt to dictate to other nations their form of government is indefensible.

And fifth: A nation's hope of lasting peace cannot be firmly based upon any race in armaments but rather upon just relations and honest understanding with all other nations.

......."Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms in not spending money alone.

It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children".

.......These words are from a Republican president of knowledge,experience and wisdom: Dwight David Eisenhower

[Schrodingerscat]

Unfortunately the comparison does not hold, because the Soviet Union and threats we face today predominantly from the Middle East are not analogous. The signifignat difference between Cruzchev and Ahmadinejad is that Cruzchev didn't want mutial anhilation any more than Kennedy.
Muslim extremists today have just as little disregrard for their own lives as they do for ours. All else equal, I would much rather be sitting across the table from Gorbichov than Ahmadinejad, knowing that the latter ended a speech to the UN with a prayer that he help hasten the Apocolypse.
I'm not saying that war is ever the best option, but it seems to me that the idea we can accomplish anything substantial by simply talking to someone who calls our country "The Great Satan" is as "a distorted and desperate view of the other side" as any.

[batguano]

I guess the evangelical view that Armageddon is a good thing in that Jesus will come back and fix everything and should be hastened is not analogous to your comment. In the same line us calling Iran and others an "Axis of Evil" is not the same as them calling us the "Great Satan"? Your argument that one man in Iran and his comments (by your thesis that "wants mutual annihilation") is justification enough to support any Israeli or Bush/Neocon led pre-emptive attack that could end in the deaths of millions of innocent Iranians (and Americans and others) is lacking in basic understanding, common sense and morality...........unless none of the millions are innocent in your world view. You seem to lump all Muslims in the "extremist" category. We have had quite enough war for Zionist paranoia and arrogant expansionism and Neocon hubris and bigotry "in the name of god"! Your comment is indeed "a distorted and desperate view of the other side"....unless people of good conscience talk instead of make war we are all lost.

[Schrodingerscat]

My intention was NOT to justify a preemptive attack under any conditions. I meant to use the president of Iran as a pulic and well known example to show that the mindset of the enemy America faces now is a far different one from the one the USSR and thusly, making a comparison between the two about how foreign policy should be carred out is to do so under a false premise. (I apologize for that terribly long sentence)
Also, I in know way intended to imply that all Muslims hate America or any such claim. Furthermore, I agree with your premise that "unless people of good conscience talk instead of make war we are all lost." Though as I believe I made it clear, I do not see Ahmadinejad as a person of good conscience.

[arvay]

If we had a foreign policy that made sense, we'd warn them that if they launch such a strike, all US aid would immediately cease and no arms, supplies or ammunition would be shipped to Israel to deal with the inevitable aftermath. Of course, if we were enforcing our treaty limitations with them, we'd have forced them to forgo their 150 nuclear weapons, and iran would have no reason to develop them.

[courtb]

Iran has no reason to develop them. Period. To blame Israel for the actions of others insults our intelligence. Iran would seek nuclear weapons with or without Israel. I would also like to point out two things. First of all, Israel has never, ever, threatened to use their nuclear weapons. It's specifically there as a deterrent to the many many people who would love to see the nation and it's Jewish population get obliterated. Second of all, no one wants Iran to get nukes, including the majority of the Arab/Muslim world. Israel has had rumored nuclear weapons for years upon years and yet there hasn't been a nuclear arms race in the Middle East...until potentially now. Why is that?

[outnow]

Dick Cheney realizes that to be an imperial power we must be a police state at home. That in a nut shell is the hypocrisy of the idea of spreading democracy. His one percent doctrine according to Ron Suskind is that we should shoot first and ask questions later. Would you want to be on a hunting trip with that man? Ask Dick Whittington who took a load of buckshot in the face from Cheney's shotgun. A trigger-happy man who control the flow of information and gathers power in a unified executive office beyond the scrutiny of the normal check and balances is a dangerous man to any democracy. Hypocrisy, not democracy is what I see there. The reason is that Cheney has profited personally in increasing his fortune while advancing his world view. In the first Gulf War, Cheney took control of the media in the war zone. The last thing we are doing is spreading democracy. maybe we are advancing the New World Order as envisioned by Bush 41but it is a brave new world more Orwell than Jefferson.

[DoninJoisey]

The premise: "preemptive attack against Iran " is false. It would be an act of aggression and theUS should condemn it.

We need to reverse our Yosemite Sam foreign policy. I do not blame Iran for wanting Nukes. Our history with them - installing and propping up the Shah, arming Iraq against them, calling them part of an axis of evil - we occupy 2 countries that border Iran - all that is pushing Iran to get something - anything - to deter a US invasion.

[oldpotsmuggler]

I read just yesterday that the Saudis are keeping several hundred thousand barrels per day of oil production available to add to world supply just to be able to make up some of the difference for what Iran will cut back if it gets hit by Israel. It will only relieve a per centage of the shortfall caused and the full consequences of such a cowboy are really mind boggling.

We need a President who will get very serious about talking through this situation very quickly.