08 January 2004
Soft-Line Idealogues
Beware of glib argument – it is not necessarily compelling.
In their OpEd article in the 7 January 2004 Wall Street Journal, David Frum and Richard Perle use unconvincing cases to “prove” their point that institutions and collaborative tactics are unrealistic and ineffective tools for pursuing the country’s foreign policy goals. First, they dismiss calls for “dialogue” with Iran as willful ignorance of the mullahs’ repression and deception. Are Frum and Perle advocating not talking to them at all, perhaps in a gratuitous show of outrage?
In the case of Pakistan, Frum and Perle seem to be calling for imposing democracy by force in order to satisfy that society’s yearning for freedom. How realistic is the expectation that America can open up a dictatorship in a state little prepared for popular governance?
They attribute the demise of the “road map” to peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority to the mistaken belief that Yasser Arafat will ever sign an agreement permitting Israel to live in peace. What is mistaken is that it is up to the Palestinian Authority to guarantee peace for Israel. Israel is the creation of Western liberal democracies, their allies and client states, and the organization they established to preserve the rule of their law at the end of WWII, the United Nations. Its existence will always have to be imposed and paid for by that coalition. Only an ideologue (or theologian) can insist that Israel has a natural (or divine) right to security.
Beware of glib argument – it is not necessarily compelling.
In their OpEd article in the 7 January 2004 Wall Street Journal, David Frum and Richard Perle use unconvincing cases to “prove” their point that institutions and collaborative tactics are unrealistic and ineffective tools for pursuing the country’s foreign policy goals. First, they dismiss calls for “dialogue” with Iran as willful ignorance of the mullahs’ repression and deception. Are Frum and Perle advocating not talking to them at all, perhaps in a gratuitous show of outrage?
In the case of Pakistan, Frum and Perle seem to be calling for imposing democracy by force in order to satisfy that society’s yearning for freedom. How realistic is the expectation that America can open up a dictatorship in a state little prepared for popular governance?
They attribute the demise of the “road map” to peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority to the mistaken belief that Yasser Arafat will ever sign an agreement permitting Israel to live in peace. What is mistaken is that it is up to the Palestinian Authority to guarantee peace for Israel. Israel is the creation of Western liberal democracies, their allies and client states, and the organization they established to preserve the rule of their law at the end of WWII, the United Nations. Its existence will always have to be imposed and paid for by that coalition. Only an ideologue (or theologian) can insist that Israel has a natural (or divine) right to security.
