Sovereign nation states, Mideast and GWOT

Lemme try to boil this down a bit.  It's written by an eggheaded, blame-America-first Princeton professor with an axe to grind, to be sure, but there's some really good stuff in here nevertheless.

The main thing is Prof. Mayer's comparison (albeit tortured) of the present Middle East with Westphalian Europe in mid-17th century.  

The point is that, as every poly sci major knows, the Peace of Westphalia and the end of the Thirty Years War heralded the dawn of the modern European nation-state, and the principle of sovereignty of states that we hold so dear today, in the UN and international law.  You could even say that state sovereignty is the sine qua non of international law; without it, you have the jungle where the strong prey upon the weak.  What Westphalia did, in essence, was start the process whereby the strong nations acknowledged the weak nations' right to exist and govern their own affairs, and furthermore, strong states acknowledged it was in their own best interests (i.e. the interests of peace) to do so.  Because we're all interconnected.    

Prof. Mayer reminds us that the development of Westphalian-European nation-states was a pretty bloody, God-awful process in relative historical terms.  Furthermore, he sees a similar process happening now in the Middle East... although the borders of those nation-states were drawn by colonial powers that then did not take into account pesky things like historically who controlled what region, what religious sects dominated those regions, etc.  He hopes that this process, about 300 years later, won't be as bloody.  

In these "violent towel heads'" defense, one could argue that the borders were drawn up by Western powers precisely to divide up awkwardly those "natural" borders and institutionalize conflict in a "divide and rule" philosophy.  This is important to understand because the non-European Middle East (that's redundant but I'll say it nonetheless for emphasis) never had a "Westphalia moment" where it felt the need to draw up strict state borders.  Their borders were more organic and understood, and enforced by tradition and local force.  (And this is one reason why Palestinians who hark from present-day Israel are screwed to this day).

So what does all this mean for the U.S.?  It means that, to compound the complexity of the "Great War on Terror" (GWOT) against nebulous non-state actors that don't recognize governments or borders, we have the wonderful complexity of Arab-Mideast nation-states with poorly drawn borders whose peoples don't necessarily pledge allegiance to those nation-states where they live, but rather to their tribe, religious sect, ethnic group, etc.  This fact strikes our post-Westphalia western minds as horribly backward and primitive and yet that is what Europe was like until the 1600's.  

To sum up, this makes America's defining the terroristic enemy awfully hard.  Even if the U.S. can manage to win cooperation with Mideast nation-states, there is little or no guarantee that local populations will go along with the program.  Again, this throws a monkey wrench into our whole military-diplomatic modus operandi, whereby our political leaders meet with their political leaders over whom we exert some diplomatic, military or economic leverage, and who in return give us certain guarantees.  As the Arab Spring showed us, those guarantees are conditional at best, and blowback-worthy at worst. Because, while our leaders may be viewed as legitimate by their home polities, the Arab-Middle East leaders' polities may simply scoff.    

What all this tells me is that the U.S. must do a much better job at retail diplomacy in the Mideast, speaking to the ethnic and sectarian nations that make up its core, and not only to the nation-states that try to keep a cork on all the bubbling conflict inherent in poorly drawn borders. 

Comments?  Questions?    

America: Its Own Worst Enemy

By Arno J. Mayer

June 18, 2013 | Counterpunch

URL: http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/06/18/america-its-own-worst-enemy/

Zogby: U.S. is a work in progress - NO WAY, JOSE!

Apparently, prominent pollster James Zogby is a fellow card-carrying member of the Blame America First crowd.  He wrote:  

America is, we are told, the exceptional nation: the greatest democracy, the greatest producer of wealth, the model nation that is envied by the world, a people destined to lead the world. In the language of those on the right, America becomes an idol, infused by the Creator with blessings and qualities so self-evident, that to question this article of faith is akin to heresy.   

I wonder why we are so insecure that we need to engage in endless self-praise. And I can't help but wonder what the rest of the world thinks of all this in the face of policies and behaviors that make such a wildly different statement.

He actually cares what the rest of the world thinks about us!...  That's a dead giveaway he feels guilty about American power and secretly despises its providential responsibility to lead the world, just like all liberals do.

Nevertheless, Zogby maintains that "America does have a good story to tell," which consists of U.S. liberals and progressives fighting and winning all the good fights: ending segregation; defending civil rights; establishing gender equality; the peace movement; consumer and environmental protections, etc.

"The American story is not one about a country that was born great. It is the story of a country that is struggling to become better," concludes Zogby.  Well, that just can't be squared with our Founding Myths.  If we were always great -- if indeed we were at our greatest at the time of our Founding Fathers -- then there is no getting better, only decline as we abandon their first principles.  Therefore, even though I still Blame America First, I must reject Zogby's hypothesis. 

Love it or leave it! ... Unless you hate America's gays, atheists, Muslims, minorities, labor unions, public education, Hollywood, intellectuals, NOW, the ACLU, the IRS... then you can stay.

America Has a Good Story; But It's Not the One Politicians Tell

By James Zogby

August 18, 2012 | Huffington Post

URL: http://huff.to/S7rIsn

Prager: 'Simple logic' for patriotic simpletons

Prager's self-described "simple logic" is so stupid that I'm only remarking on it for two reasons. First, because I know one or two of you really like him. Basically, Prager argues: Whatever makes America different from other countries also makes it better. As a syllogism it would go something like this:

Premise 1: America is unique (exceptional).
Premise 2: American exceptionalism is the "last best hope of Earth" (ripping Abe Lincoln's words out of their historical context and planting them square in the middle of the health care debate).
Conclusion: Whatever makes America unique is the best.

This false logic would lead us to conclude, for example, that our millions of legal firearms make us the last best hope of Earth (which conservatives do believe); but also that our extremely litigious society with its thousands of tort lawyers makes us the last best hope of Earth (which conservatives would vehemently deny). According to this logic, America's 10-15 million illegal alien residents make it the last best hope of Earth. America's highest incarceration rate in the world makes it the last best hope of Earth. Or, the fact that we consume the most oil per capita makes us he last best hope of Earth. I could go on and on about our uniqueness. You get the point.

In fact, this point is so stupidly obvious I shouldn't have to make it at all. Which brings me to the second, real reason I'm 'splainin' dis fo ya: Prager's argument has been employed for years, if not decades, by American conservatives, who get a free pass from Logic 101. Whenever we durn lib'ruls want to change something for the better, they say it's because we "hate America" or "blame America first," and want turn it into a copy of drab, gray, socialist Scandinavia. But when they criticize something about America, like lib'rul Hollywood, it's because they love America. Their unspoken assumption is that since they truly believe in "American exceptionalism" and treasure this as an ideal, and since they know what the "real" America is all about, they should be free to tinker with society's rules and mores as they see fit. For you see, they are the arbiters of our exceptionalism.

That's not only fallacious reasoning, it's terribly self-serving, too.

Finally, regarding health care reform, which instigated Prager's op-ed: I sincerely doubt that the rest of the world sees America's 40+ million uninsured population as a beacon of hope. Likewise, I truly doubt that immigrants come to the U.S. in the hopes that they, too, won't be able to afford decent health coverage.


Democrats Ensure America Will No Longer Be the Last Best Hope of Earth
By Dennis Prager
December 22, 2009 | Human Events

As the passage of the bill that will start the process of nationalizing health care in America becomes almost inevitable, so, too, the process of undoing America's standing as The Last Best Hope of Earth will have begun.

That description of America was not, as more than a few Americans on the left believe, made by some right-wing chauvinist. It was made by President Abraham Lincoln in an address to Congress on Dec. 1, 1862.

The bigger the American government becomes, the more like other countries America becomes. Even a Democrat has to acknowledge the simple logic: America cannot at the same time be the last best hope of earth and increasingly similar to more and more countries.

Either America is unique, in which case it at least has the possibility of uniquely embodying hopes for mankind -- or it is not unique, in which case it is by definition not capable of being the last best hope for humanity -- certainly no more so than, let us say, Sweden or the Netherlands.

Indeed, President Obama acknowledged this in April, when asked by a European reporter if he believes in American exceptionalism. The president's response: "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism."

The president was honest. In his view, as in the view of today's Democratic party, America is special only in the same way we parents regard our children as "special." We all say it and we all believe it, but we know that it is meaningless except as an emotional expression of our love for our children. If every is child is equally special, none can be special, in fact. If every country is exceptional, then no country is exceptional, or at least no more so than any other.

With the largest expansion of the American government and state since the New Deal, the Democratic party -- alone -- is ending a key factor in America's uniqueness and greatness: individualism, which is made possible only when there is limited government.

The formula here is not rocket science: The more the government/state does, the less the individual does.

America's uniqueness and greatness has come from a number of sources, two of which are its moral and social value system, which is a unique combination of Enlightenment and Judeo-Christian values, and its emphasis on individual liberty and responsibility.

Just as the left has waged war on America's Judeo-Christian roots, it has waged war on individual liberty and responsibility.

Hillel, the most important rabbi of the Talmud (which, alongside the Hebrew Bible, is Judaism's most important book), summarized the human being's obligations in these famous words: "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?"

What does this mean in the present context? It means that before anything else, the human being must first take care of himself. When people who are capable of taking care of themselves start relying on the state to do so, they can easily become morally inferior beings. When people who could take care of their family start relying on the state to do so, they can easily become morally inferior. And when people who could help take care of fellow citizens start relying on the state to do so, the morally coarsening process continues.

There has always been something profoundly ennobling about American individualism and self-reliance. Nothing in life is as rewarding as leading a responsible life in which one has not to depend on others for sustenance. Little, if anything, in life is as rewarding as successfully taking care of oneself, one's family and one's community. That is why America has always had more voluntary associations than any other country.

But as the state and government have gotten bigger, voluntary associations have been dying. Why help others if the state will do it? Indeed, as in Scandinavia, the attitude gradually becomes: why even help myself when the state will do it?

Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are right about one thing -- they are indeed making history. But their legacy will not be what they think. They will be known as the people who led to the end of America as the last best hope of earth.

Lincoln weeps.