David Adesnik on the power of rhetoric
David Adesnik notes that many pundits who opposed the war in Iraq are now barely registering happiness over the prospect of more freedom in Lebanon. Particularly noting these Kissingerian quotes from Matt Yglesias.
There’s no really clear sense in which the Syrian sphere of influence in Lebanon is bad for the United States of America. [Emphasis in original]
And that:
There simply doesn’t seem to me to be any major geopolitical windfall we could possibly reap from any outcomes in Lebanon.
I’ve always leaned towards the Hitchens position that Paul Wolfowitz was something of an anti-Kissinger. The fact that Hitchens is the world authority when it comes to the evilness of Kissinger helps to confirm this opinion for myself. I’ve always expected that those who disagree with this just have different ideas of alternatives to Kissinger, not that they actually share his views.
Adesnik continues:
So now, with things in the Middle East as they are, even the very smartest liberals have lost touch with their core ideals. Which is not to say that Matt or Josh or Kevin or Ed opposed good things happening in the Middle East. But they have lost they ability to get excited about those good things because they redound to George Bush’s credit.
Now imagine if John Kerry were President today and the election had gone of well in Iraq, Mubarak promised elections and Syria was on the defensive in Lebanon. Wouldn’t almost every liberal pundit talk about how getting rid of that noxious Bush fellow led to a sudden revitalization of reform and pro-American sentiment in the Middle East?
Adesnik also has >a href=”http://oxblog.blogspot.com/2005_02_27_oxblog_archive.html#111005677427912232″>a post which begins with a link to a great WaPo piece on reversing the authoritarian trend in Russia to note some insights from his own research into the past use and results of pro-democracy rhetoric from Washington:
Sestanovich’s argument touches on something I’ve been thinking about as a result of my research. Consistent pro-democracy messages from Washington help lay the groundwork for reform, but their most important role is to increase the odds of a democratic outcome when an unexpected crisis erupts.
Lebanon is the obvious example of such a process at the moment. I wouldn’t say we did much ground work in advance, but the election in Iraq achieved the same objective indirectly.
Compelling examples of similar events from the 1980s include the democratic revolutions in the Philippines and in South Korea in 1986 and 1987, respectively. The Salvadoran elections of 1984 and Nicaraguan elections of 1990 also fit into this pattern, but not as neatly.