FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Tech Central describes how we can create a democratic Iraq in the peaceful parts (most of the country) while isolating the no-go zones as "unorganized territories," abrogating the right to freedom of motion within the country for the time being. It's up to Allawi, of course: this is Iraqis' country and they should decide, though we have a say in whether a given strategy merits the deployment of US troops. If we pursue this strategy, we would have to hope for, and would probably get, more Sunni Triangle inhabitants to turn against foreign Arabs and terrorists like Zarqawi.

Both John Kerry and pro-war pundits like Andrew Sullivan and Tom Friedman are now saying Bush screwed up (though they rarely put it that mildly) in not sending enough troops, but would Kerry send more? If not (it seems not) that puts this critique into perspective.

Let me defend Rumsfeld's strategy here. We couldn't afford to send more troops. As far as I can tell, we don't have them. Nato has pointed out that we're "attriting our [Korean] peninsular presence" because of troops posted in Iraq. A letter on Andrew Sullivan's blog pointed out that three divisions are in Iraq; rotation requirements are three readying/recuperating to one deployed; that's nine; and we only have ten. Tom Friedman says that Rumsfeld sent "just enough troops to lose." Lose? What? Saddam's gone. Lack of WMDs is exposed. If we can still "lose" this, someone has changed the rules on us. No fair. For Iraq to become a democracy was a hoped-for outcome of the war, but not a condition of victory. It's also not a big part of the US national interest, though it would be helpful. Rumsfeld failed to anticipate how a commitment (over-commitment?) to Iraq's democratic transformation would emerge in the wake of the war, and turn from a possible bonus into a political imperative. If the administration were hard-headed enough to insist that even a civil war in Iraq would not make Operation Iraqi Freedom a failure (given what US interests were and what Iraq was like under Saddam, the case is pretty strong), then a somewhat more hands-off policy would have been an option.

The Duelfer report sounds to me like a real tour de force. David Brooks and Time tell the story, and it is a story! I found this passage from the Time version especially haunting:

Saddam had no clear picture of the U.S. He told his debriefer he tried to understand Western culture by watching U.S. movies and listening to Voice of America broadcasts. He loved Ernest Hemingway's novel The Old Man and the Sea because he read in the tale of the brave but failed fisherman a parallel to his own struggles.

I'm glad we relieved this pitiful old man of power, for his own sake. I pity the old man, and I'm glad we spared him from committing more crimes. Eased his burden at Judgment Day a little, maybe. And maybe he's come to understand a bit of the wrong he's done.

The Duelfer report doesn't just nail Saddam, as Brooks says; it nails France, too, or rather (let's not blame the whole country for corruption in high places) a lot of high-up French officials too. My column "In Defense of the French" was written as a joke, but, well... might it deserve another look?

Third, it is not surprising that the French seem not to care about right and wrong, because most of them don’t believe in God. Most US voters, and leaders like Bush and Blair, are adherents of Christianity. Our faith teaches us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. So when we see our fellow human beings in Iraq suffering under a brutal dictatorship, we are willing to make sacrifices to liberate them, because we expect to be answerable to God for the use or non-use of the power that has been given us. It is easy to condemn the French for bonhomie with dictators like Saddam, for selling them arms, for undermining arms-control efforts in order to scoop up oil deals, etc., but first ask yourself this question: if you thought there was no God, if you thought your good deeds would go unrewarded and your bad deeds unpunished when you died, might not you too be as cynical as a Frenchman?

The Christian Science Monitor, basing its analysis in part on a New York Times piece, and David Brooks each try to contrast Bush's and Kerry's global strategies, for the reader's information. Here's CSMonitor:

In Bush's view, "America is the world's great force for freedom, unsparing in its use of preemptive might and unstinting in its determination to stamp out tyranny and terrorism." Kerry, by contrast, "seemed to offer no grand thematic equivalent..."

From Bush: militant pursuit of democracy. From Kerry: a more complex approach to what he sees as a more complex world. A clear distinction in their approaches.

Of course, when you put it that way, anybody would take Kerry, but this is tendentious. Bush is not bent on perpetual war to spread democracy, and his administration is perfectly aware that the world is complex. My doubts are precisely about the title of CSMonitor's piece, "Bush, Kerry: different lanes on the road to a free world." I don't think there's any evidence that Kerry cares if we're on the road to a free world. David Brooks puts the point better:

Put this way, the argument we are having about international relations is the same argument we are having about domestic affairs, just on a larger scale. It's a conflict between two value systems. One is based on a presumption of a world in which individuals and nations should be self-reliant and free to develop their own capacities - forming voluntary associations when they want - without being overly coerced by national or global elites. The other is based on the presumption of a crowded world, which emphasizes that no individual or nation can go off and do as it pleases, but should work instead within governing institutions that establish norms and provide security.

This formulation explains why Bush's foreign policy is not an aberration of conservatism, as Pat Buchanan and the other paleocons argue, but is actually its fruition. This formulation also explains why, in The Times Magazine on Sunday, Kerry compared terrorism to domestic organized crime, gambling and prostitution. In his mind there should exist an effective body of international law. It is a law enforcement problem when some group violates that law.

Seen in these terms, this election is not just a conflict of two men, but is a comprehensive conflict of visions. Both these visions have been bloodied of late. Still, they do address the central issue confronting us: How do we conceive of an international order in the post-9/11 world? Bush, the conservative, conceives of a flexible, organic, spontaneous order. Kerry, the liberal, conceives of a more rationalist, planned and managed order.

I would add that both worldviews are inadequate. Our world order is both anarchic and over-regulated. We need Bush's boldness, his willingness to defy evil, his vision of spreading freedom to the whole world; and we also need to recognize that law must be an element of any healthy world order that may emerge from our efforts. Law amplifies force, because a credible threat of force can render its use unnecessary. Why do we need it? To free the world of atrocities like those in Darfur.