Closing the Neocon Circle

Newsweek on line ^ | Jan. 25, 2005 | Michael Hirsh

[elhombrelibre]

Michael Hirsh

Jan. 25 - Natan Sharansky can bestow no higher praise than to call George W. Bush an honorary “dissident.” And the Israeli cabinet minister says he is elated that the U.S. president, in his second inaugural speech last week, appeared to fully embrace Sharansky’s vision of foreign policy. “It’s clear to me that he read my book,” Sharansky, a squat cannonball of a man with a heavy Russian accent, told NEWSWEEK. “I only wish that my mentor, Andrei Sakharov, were alive to see this,” Sharansky added, referring to the Soviet nuclear scientist who risked his life and career to help open up the Soviet Union.

Bush, in his Jan. 20 address, did prove himself a dissident in one sense. When the president declared that “the survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands,” he was delivering a dissent from traditional U.S. foreign policy, one that could have been lifted whole from the pages of Sharansky’s new book, “The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror.” (Public Affairs; New York). Bush, in fact, has been pressing the book on aides and friends in recent weeks and urging them to read it. And it is clear that Bush’s speech—as well as Sharansky’s influence—could have huge consequences for America in the coming years.

In Bush’s speech, drafted by chief White House speechwriter Michael Gerson with input from an old Sharansky ally dating to the Reagan years, National Security Council official Elliott Abrams, Bush in effect declared an end to a three-decade-old debate in foreign-policy circles. Fittingly, it is a debate that dates back to the fights over détente versus confrontation with the Soviet Union—and, not coincidentally, to Sharansky’s earlier incarnation as a jailed Soviet dissident.

[Terpfen]

“It’s clear to me that he read my book,” Sharansky, a squat cannonball of a man with a heavy Russian accent, told NEWSWEEK.

It's clear because he came out and SAID he read the book the week before the inaugurual.

[Shermy]

It's clear because he came out and SAID he read the book the week before the inaugurual.

The book is nothing more than what hundreds have written before in theory.

This article is a loopy exercise in "neocon" spotting and weak connect the dots conspiracy theorizing without the examining issues and interests of countries and whether they are a threat to our interests, what passes for lefty international understanding these days. Basically the writer wants to say Bush's policy is a Jewish plot.

"Why is Sharansky’s influence so deep?"

It's not. But he's a "neocon" wink, wink. Bush didn't say anything different than what Wilson, Kennedy, Reagan, etc. said. I almost expect the writer to gush that Soviet expansionism was a myth. He wants to say jihadism is so too.

At the very least, Bush’s rhetoric strengthens the hand of hardliners from the Pentagon and the office of Vice President Dick Cheney who see no way around the use of force or covert activity against such tyrannical regimes.

Lefty fantasizing. Bizarre.

[Shermy]

Hey, here's my favorite false correlation by argumentative proximity of the month!

"Just as the hardline Sharansky has been criticized from his left for setting an impossibly high threshold for negotiating with the Palestinians—he opposes Ariel Sharon’s disengagement plan for Gaza—Bush could turn the totem of “democracy” into a convenient excuse for persisting in his stony refusal to talk directly to Iran and North Korea."

"Talk directly" - Kerryesque unilateralism has not died!

[jonestown]

One of the negative reviews from Amazon:

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Nothing is ever all of what it seems

Reviewer:renfro (USA) -


The average person seeking a simple answer to justify their own particular "leanings" too often accepts in the whole whatever is put in front of them without examining at the real message.
The first thing I want to know about a writer is his personal history because that will tell me what "emotions" he bases his "reasoning" on.
Sharansky, like many of our current would be "shapers" and masters of the universe is a personally "damaged" person. Like an abused child who dreams of killing his abuser, he promotes destruction as the answer to making "his" world safe.

We see this in many of the policy makers of our current administration. Wolfowitz and Feith are good examples of damaged people who were taught by their fathers, who escaped nazi Poland, that Hitler was under every bed and the US shrugged it's duty in not doing more to stop him and now must set the entire world right to make it safe for them.

Never mind that it doesn't work and that his historical argument for it is faulty and inaccurate and that the case he makes for Israeli aggression is one that has already failed.

His theory is really a rant and a cry for revenge against his own
victimhood. Democracy through total destruction is not a principle of American democracy or even a workable plan, it's a pipe dream of the formerly powerless who have spent their entire lives working toward exocising their own demons through the use of American power.

Beware the damaged people who transfer their own personal torment to radical democratic theories.
Even the healthly and normal among us have some perceived sense of individual powerlessness or slight injustice in our lives and people like Sharansky provide the sick pit of revenge and power for them to fall into if they aren't careful.

Don't fall in this trap


Amazon.com: Books: The Case For Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror
Address:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1586482610/qid=1106710430/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/104-6669097-8164712

[Fedora]

At the very least, Bush’s rhetoric strengthens the hand of hardliners from the Pentagon and the office of Vice President Dick Cheney who see no way around the use of force or covert activity against such tyrannical regimes.

I knew they had to fit Halliburton in there somewhere. . .So now "It's all Bush's fault" = "It's all Sharansky's fault" :-)

[expatpat]

The influence on Bush et al is more from a different book, by Barrett or Bennett or something close, regarding the fact that democratic nations are less aggressive than "failed states".

[Shermy]

LOL! But what's a Communist to believe in days otherwise?

[elhombrelibre]

Apparently, the amazon reviewer thinks those who have suffered under communism or some other tyranny don't deserve to praise the merits of democracy and freedom. To accuse Sharansky of a rant is to project, obviously, the reviewers emotional heat onto a true intellectual and man of courage. Sharansky risked a great deal as a dissident. He risked far more than most of us will ever risk.

[jonestown]

Here's a more balanced review:

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Exceptional read - I have a question though.......,

January 22, 2005

Reviewer:MovedbyMusic "lishaz3" - See all my reviews
  

I wanted to read this because the author has tremendous credibility as an eyewitness to and active participant of radical change in the Soviet Union. He took part in a rare metamorphosis of a country without international war.
I read the book; respected and agreed with the author but he left out a very critical aspect I wish he had explored further. The severity of potential costs.
The cost can vary from Russia's case where there was virtually no bloodshed with success of democracy to astronomical loss of life without success (North Korea, Vietnam). So the only question I would like to ask is "at what price do we enforce global democracy"?


I think his premise is accurate because he notes how over and over in history we have seen the benefits of people who live free under the umbrella of democracy and benefit from innovative progresses with the momentum of capitalism.
He makes empahtic and well-written arguments for how global democracy results in a better protection for people of all nations. I however missed him addressing the huge discrepancies in how each democratic battle has been fought and sometimes with complete failure.
The Soviet Union's demise was internal collpase. However, it doesn't always work out that way. It's one thing for a country to decide itself to turn around the structure of it's own nation (Poland). What happens when things don't work out as planned and there is unnecessary bloodshed? Hindsight is 20/20 vision.


I recognize the importance of standing up to tyranny. I know bullies have to be stared down and not appeased; I honestly do but I can't fathom the potential catastrophic death and destruction it can and does take to get there.

I intellectually understand the points made by this extraordinarily brave author, but I still can't be emotionally concomitant to the bloodshed it so often takes to get there.

To the reviewer who stated we are not a democracy - you are misinformed. We are both a democracy and republic.

The United States, and Member Countries of the Commonwealth for example are in fact representative democracies. There are two different types of democracy. Direct (where people directly affect the decisions of government and locally we do have direct democratic status)and representative where people elect representatives to make decisions on their behalf.

[the Real fifi]

The author is an idiot. Sharansky, however, is someone who's vuews the President values. It's the end of the piece where Hirsch again tips his braindead leanings.

[okie01]

In reading the article, one learns much more about Michael Hirsh and his politics than one learns about either Sharansky or Bush and their philosophies.

So much reporting is that way today...

[marron]

It is possible that America’s new embrace of Sharanskyism will also prove to be a recipe for eternal conflict.

Sharanskyism? That sounds scary, doesn't it. Eternal conflict? It would be interesting if the writer could pinpoint for us that peaceful moment in time that he uses for purposes of comparison.

I would lean toward the notion that, conflict being eternal, we must be clear where we stand and where we are going as we pick our way through history's mine fields.

America will now be accused of hypocrisy every time it fails to live up to Bush’s promise “to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture.”

Again, I would be interested in knowing, for purposes of comparison, that moment in time when America wasn't being accused of hypocrisy and worse. I ask that in jest, of course, because we are never 'not' being accused of something by someone. When its non-stop, you have to recognize it as noise, and you use your squelch to tune it out.

...his new statement of American policy is certain to come back to haunt him, just as Woodrow Wilson’s promise of self-determination haunted American foreign policy-makers after World War I.

Actually, our preference for self-determination remains at the core of our policy and our national moral vision. A case could be made that the Second World War was caused in part by our failure to defend that policy, and our retreat from our willingness to defend our beliefs. It wasn't Wilsonianism that answered the rape of Nanking with the entire Pacific fleet sitting in port on a Sunday.

[elhombrelibre]

Great points, one and all. As for Nanking, justice delayed is justice denied. I fear the Japanese will regret never admitting what horror they inflicted in WWII on the Chinese in that city as the nationalist in China fan that grievance to avoid looking at the horrors that communism inflicted on the Chinese. Japan's nationalist have failed to admit, unlike Germany, that evils of huge proportions and beyond any military necessity were committed. A wiser policy would be to admit the truth and work toward some reasonable understanding. But as for our own efforts with the spread of democracy and the urging of self-government, the critics are way off base as usual. And it wasn't too long ago they hammered us for cozying up to right-wing dictators. The critics just want to carp and keep their anti-American bias. Their inconsistancy in cases like their prove they're unbalanced.