[ot] A dose of realism
pluto
Aug 23, 2005
A dose of realism
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - Is realism finally, definitively, back in the driver's seat of
US foreign policy?
That's the conclusion featured last week on the op-ed page of the nation's
most influential newspaper, the New York Times, in a column by the managing
editor of the nation's most influential foreign-policy journal, Foreign
Affairs, published by the nation's most influential foreign-policy think
tank, the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations. It's hard to get
more official than that.
"Seven months into George W Bush's second term, it is clear that whatever
his expansive second inaugural address may have promised, American foreign
policy has taken a decidedly pragmatic turn," wrote Gideon Rose in a column
entitled "Get Real".
While personnel changes, and notably the resurrection of the State
Department as a dominant bureaucratic player, and the departure of top
Pentagon neo-conservatives Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, help explain
the shift, "the real story is simpler," according to Rose. "The Bush
doctrine has collapsed, and the administration has consequently embraced
realism, American foreign policy's perennial hangover cure [for
enthusiastic idealism]."
Rose, who depicts the change as the latest shift in a post-World War II
historical cycle whereby periods of idealistic adventurism that result in
over-extension alternate with periods of cautious realism, argues that the
second Bush administration is unlikely to abandon the general goals of the
first incarnation, but rather to pursue a "calmer and more measured path
toward the same ones".
"They still believe in American power and the global spread of liberal
democratic capitalism," he writes. "But they seek legitimate authority
rather than mere material dominance, favor cost-benefit analyses, rather
than ideological litmus tests, and prize good results over good
intentions."
While realists - and their European fellow-travelers - have repeatedly
predicted or proclaimed the final demise of the unilateralist and
neo-conservative forces since they first gained dominance over foreign
policy in the wake of the September 11 attacks, only to be proved dead
wrong, many observers now believe that the balance of power within the
administration has indeed shifted decisively in favor of the realists.
"I think Gideon has it essentially correct," says Sherle Schwenninger, a
foreign-policy analyst at the World Policy Institute. "Periods of
hyper-idealism - in this case neo-imperialism - are followed by periods of
more sober commonsense."
Schwenninger also agrees that while changes in personnel at key posts
throughout the administration have certainly reduced the clout of the
ideologues, "a lot of [the shift] is purely dictated by the reality that
the US is over-extended in Iraq and doesn't have good options in either
Iran or North Korea. It's reached a number of constraints, both financially
and militarily."
That is also the assessment of Anatol Lieven of the New America Foundation,
who noted a similar historical cycle in his recent book, America Right or
Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism.
"I think there definitely has been a change," he told Inter Press Service.
"The American system after all is not an insane one, and that's true even
of the Bush administration. If the price of another war is going to be the
reintroduction of the draft in America - whose likely consequence is the
loss of elections - they're going to become more cautious; they have to
become more cautious. They don't have the troops; they don't have the
money."
While the pro-democracy rhetoric, particularly as regards Iraq and the
Middle East, continues to dominate official discourse, particularly that of
Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the evidence of realist
dominance is indeed very clear, especially regarding the two surviving
members of Bush's original "axis of evil".
US backing, if grudging, for the efforts of the European Three (EU-3) -
Germany, Britain and France - to achieve an agreement with Iran over its
nuclear program was an early sign of change that was subsequently bolstered
by the relaxation - long resisted by Vice President Dick Cheney - of US
procedural conditions for engaging North Korea in the context of the
now-resumed six-party talks.
Similarly, the administration's efforts at tamping down rising anti-Chinese
sentiment in Congress, as well as its apparent determination to remain on
friendly terms with what Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld once contemptuously
dismissed as "Old Europe", suggests a new appreciation for diplomacy at the
very least, if not a new understanding that Washington is, after all, not
immune from traditional balance of power politics and must indeed take the
interests of other great powers into account.
While it is clear that these perceptions are centered in the State
Department, and are most strongly promoted by Rice's team of Deputy
Secretary Robert Zoellick, Under Secretary for Policy Nicholas Burns and
Counselor Philip Zelikow - realists all - it appears that they have become
shared by National Security Adviser Steven Hadley as well, who, unlike Rice
during her tenure in that post, is apparently willing to weigh in with his
own views at critical moments.
In addition, no one should discount the influence of another heavyweight
who has tied her fortunes to Rice's - Bush confidante, Karen Hughes, the
State Department's new public diplomacy chief.
There is even evidence that Rumsfeld, despite an irresistible tendency to
beat the drums against Iran, in particular, has also moved closer to the
realist camp, if only to prevent an all-out mutiny by a military officer
corps haunted by its Vietnam-like nightmare of an unwinnable conflict and
rapidly declining public support.
His backing for the brass' recent efforts to re-brand the "global war on
terror" with the less martial-sounding "global struggle against violent
extremism" and to suggest that Washington will begin a substantial
withdrawal from Iraq beginning next spring, come what may, has drawn
outraged calls for his departure from neo-conservatives, but, as noted by
Lieven, "If you're actually in charge of the US armed forces, there are
certain realities you have to take into account."
While Rose depicts the realist resurgence as something in the nature of an
historical inevitability, others are not so willing to count out the hawks,
particularly in the event of another major terrorist attack on US territory
or the collapse of negotiations on North Korea or, more particularly, Iran,
which remains public enemy number one for both neo-conservatives and the
aggressive nationalists led by Cheney.
"Cheney has not necessarily lost on Iran," according to Schwenninger. "He
may calculate that, as long as we're not helpful, the EU-3 talks are going
to fail, and we will therefore show the Europeans that soft power doesn't
work and what Iran's true intentions are."
In his view, Cheney and the hawks have made a tactical retreat to secure
greater international support for imposing sanctions that could destabilize
the government or justify either US or Israeli military strikes in late
2006 or 2007.
"When something happens to justify their interventionist attitudes,"
according to Lieven of the coalition of neo-conservatives and aggressive
nationalists in the administration, "they'll be ready to press their
advantage as they did after 9/11."
Moreover, while the realists are now on top, according to Lieven, the
administration as a whole has "nailed itself to positions that will be
difficult to shift, particularly on Iran and Israel".
"If the US would agree to negotiate directly with Iran, that would really
mark the ascendancy of the realists, but how far the new realism can go in
terms of changing specific policies remains unclear," he said.
(Inter Press Service)
==========================================================
cheers
pluto