Wow. I would like to second Matthew Yglesias' recommendation of a piece ("The Neoconservative Moment" by Fukuyama on Krauthammer's foreign policy (where Krauthammer is clearly a representative of the larger neoconservative movement). As Yglesias points out, this piece really comes from the inside of the movement, and so is written with a kind of sympathy that neither Yglesias nor I could ever muster. And yet for all that, underlying the sympathy is a fairly brutal analysis of Krauthammer's deficiencies as a thinker. I certainly wouldn't endorse everything Fukuyama says, especially regarding Israel, but there is still a lot of good sense in it.
Alas, the piece is not freely available online, but if you have institutional access to it you really should click through to Yglesias' site to check it out.
I've said several times before that I can really respect the humanitarian argument for the Iraq War. I think it fell apart on careful inspection, but I have also always felt that to learn about Iraq under Saddam Hussein was to experience a powerful desire to see Iraq rid of Saddam Hussein. And I confess: this was a desire which nearly overpowered me on several occasions. I have never had any such respect for the prudential argument, which always struck me as monstrously stupid. This is, I think, the final irony for people like Krauthammer. Krauthammer clearly believes that if he understands anything, he understands power. But he does not understand power, really, at least within the global context that American power functions. In this context, he does not understand how it works, how to get it, or how it might be lost.
Posted by Chris at August 16, 2004 01:20 PMI'm no fan of Krauthammer, but your attitude towards him raises an issue that has long frustrated me.
You write as if the war could only have been justified by the exclusive disjunction of a humanitarian argument or a prudential argument. You assume, that is, that we have two (generic) arguments -- humanitarian and prudential -- leading toward the conclusion that war is or was justified, and that the only way to support the war is to endorse one of these arguments. One can think they're both good arguments, of course, in which case one would think the war especially well supported. But if one thinks that neither argument is good -- i.e. that neither makes a conclusive case -- then one must reject the conclusion and oppose the war.
This set-up strikes me as too restrictive. I never thought either argument gave conclusive grounds, yet (last year before I saw how it was being waged) I did support the war. I supported the war because I viewed the 'prudential' concerns -- which included concerns about noncooperation with UNSC resolutions -- in light of the humanitarian concerns, and vice versa.
The latter perspective was crucial, I thought. Yes, the humanitarian argument "fell apart on careful inspection" if one viewed it entirely on its own. But it was much more compelling when viewed in the light of Saddam's history of risky aggression. That isn't to say that the argument was any better in its own terms within this larger context. It's to say that the larger context lowered the threshold such that an argument that was inconclusive in its own terms could figure as part of larger conclusive argument. Of course, the sub-arguments can't simply be combined. But it doesn't follow that they can't be commensurated and weighed together.
Isn't political judgment always a matter of commensurating hard-to-commensurate sub-deliberations? You seem -- both here and in your earlier discussion (though perhaps I missed something) -- to be insisting that the sub-deliberations (about humanitarian issues, about 'prudential' issues) be kept separate. But then political judgment is impossible. Whatever one thought of them, these arguments did raise live issues. And the question 'So what do we do?' calls out for univocal response. Political judgment cannot avoid commensuration.
Posted by: Ted H. at August 17, 2004 10:21 AMTed, I think that is an excellent point.
I have indeed slipped into the habit of treating prudential and moral argumnents as though they had little to do with one another. This despite my actual position that the alledged tension between morality and prudence is vastly overrated (Indeed, I taught an entire course with this point of view in mind). Also, I have fallen into the habit of treating each consideration as though it had to be either sufficient or irrelevant. But of course that's silly.
I've gotten into this habit because it's a convenient device if you're trying to sort through the various considerations. But after you've sorted, you've got to put everything together again. And although I have a subjective impression that I've done that just fine, I know that I haven't really done it on the blog.
But this really calls for a full thought out post, which I will try to pull together sometime. Been lazy lately, though.
Posted by: Chris at August 17, 2004 12:18 PM