What idiot becomes "intoxicated with the revolutionary potential" of an imperial power?

[BurtWorm]

BEINART ON IRAQ....Peter Beinart on why he supported the Iraq war:

I was willing to gamble, too -- partly, I suppose, because, in the era of the all-volunteer military, I wasn't gambling with my own life. And partly because I didn't think I was gambling many of my countrymen's. I had come of age in that surreal period between Panama and Afghanistan, when the United States won wars easily and those wars benefited the people on whose soil they were fought. It's a truism that American intellectuals have long been seduced by revolution. In the 1930s, some grew intoxicated with the revolutionary potential of the Soviet Union. In the 1960s, some felt the same way about Cuba. In the 1990s, I grew intoxicated with the revolutionary potential of the United States.

And why he changed his mind:

We lack the wisdom and the virtue to remake the world through preventive war. That's why a liberal international order, like a liberal domestic one, restrains the use of force -- because it assumes that no nation is governed by angels, including our own. And it's why liberals must be anti-utopian, because the United States cannot be a benign power and a messianic one at the same time.

That's not to say the United States can never intervene to stop aggression or genocide....But it does mean that, when our fellow democracies largely oppose a war -- as they did in Vietnam and Iraq -- because they think we're deluding ourselves about either our capacities or our motives, they're probably right. Being a liberal, as opposed to a neoconservative, means recognizing that the United States has no monopoly on insight or righteousness.

Whatever else one might think of Beinart, he's looking at the disaster in Iraq with clear eyes and thinking seriously about how it should change his worldview. That's something that an awful lot of war supporters continue to refuse to do. It's as if Iraq holds no lessons for them at all.


http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_02/010798.php

<The commentary is by Kevin Drum of Political Animal. He's more forgiving of Beinart than I am.>

[Jacobin]

1. Um, 'revolutions' come from within. they are not imposed

by foreign invaders. that is called an 'occupation'

I can't belive some of the fluff the former war cheerleaders are dreaming up to make themselves feel better about being sub-human, warmongering ghouls of death

[BurtWorm]

4. It makes me wonder if the Brits were this clueless in the 19th Century

or the Romans in the 1st. Were they naive enough to seriously think the barbarians they conquered would be grateful for unleashing their revolutionary potential? Or were they clear-eyed enough (setting aside the ultimate morality or lack thereof of imposing hegemony at the point of a spear or bayonet) to understand the cold-blooded economics that usually drives such civilizing conquests? Is it something about Americans that makes us particularly naive about the world beyond our borders?

What really gets me about this is that Beinert is an opinion-maker. He's not just any old hack. He's a very high-powered one. People in power pay attention to what he says, and they took permission from people like him and Thomas Friedman and Fareed Zakaria to go ahead and have their war.

[Jacobin]

5. "Think Tanks" du jour

Since pols are not ordinarily astute concerning foreign affairs, but are simply marketable personalities (a recent exception being Clinton who happened to be both), they rely on 'think tanks' funded by those what brung them to the party....in this case AEI, et al.

It is interesting to see the history of empire. I suppose its seductive and while it may work to enrich those in power temporarily, the blowback is certainly not something to look forward to.

[melody]

2. he's admitting his mistake and explaining why ... whaddya know?

I think that genuinely takes courage in any climate -- he's admitted wrong and selfish thinking. Good for him.
For that anyway.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

3. What idiot?

Peter Beinart, the idiot who spent an awful lot of time and effort insulting, marginalising and degrading those who opposed the war from the outset.

That idiot.

Any redemption, now or in the future for Goodfellow Beinart, is contingent on deeds, not words. Which is a hell of a position to be in for someone who is a writer.

I guess he has thrown of The Marty Cloak of Thrall, now he is leaving TNR.