A Policy of Containment

Rethinking Iraq

by blogSpotter
Peter Beinart is the author of The Good Fight: Why Liberals - and Only Liberals - Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again. He has an editorial in this week's Time which examines our thought processes regarding Iraq. He, like many of us supported the war early on, only to discover later that it was a quicksand pit. He says that we were all holding to a "catastrophic" point of view -- one which boils down to "get them, before they get you".

His example of an earlier "catastrophist" was James Burnham, a foreign policy maker of the early 50's. Burnham thought we should attack China and Russia before either developed nuclear proficiency like ours. It boggles the mind to think how protracted, disastrous and wrong-headed such a policy would have been. Somehow, and one may suppose it's because we're dealing with a smaller enemy, we were all "catastrophists" with regard to Iraq. Beinart gives a 3-point technique for dealing with these situations, each technique accompanied with an example. His logic is very clear and one has to wish we had followed a form of it, or shift some priorities to start following it now.

• Practice containment and strengthen allied relationships. I.E., we could've contained Saddam Hussein, who was presiding over a stultified government and economy. We did containment in Europe with the Marshall Plan. It helped to win struggling democracies over to our side, and the 'false Gods' that threatened us (Leninism, totalitarianism) fell of their own accord.
• Nurture alliances based on consent, not brute force. Such alliances will have longer staying power than alliances based on coercion alone. Thus, the Soviet republics are no more, but NATO is still alive.
• Clean up your own back yard. When Sputnik launched in 1957, many Americans thought that the Soviet launch should be a call to arms by itself. Instead, under the leadership of Kennedy, we ramped up the science/math offerings at American schools and became competitive with the Soviets at what was initially their own game.

Notice that the three policies above helped to avert crises, strengthen ourselves, strengthen democratic ties -- and they turned a negative into a positive. We showed leadership and a steady hand in a complex world that could've easily rushed headlong into another world war. Such restraint is sorely needed now; I'm wondering how other administrations might have confronted the events surrounding 9/11. Islamic terrorism strikes me as something as unstable as Leninism. They practice not a life style but a "death style" -- something that might be contained until it dies its own death.

I think Beinart's 3-point plan above worked well against secular, visible enemies; not so sure how it might work against furtive, Islamic terrorists. Common sense says that oppressed people should finally see the light and throw off oppression. But where fundamentalist religion takes root, it's hard to predict that such a light of comprehension will ever shine. This kind of situation might be answered with a super strict definition of 'containment', much as Israel has contained Palestine. At least the insurgents and perpetrators are given little range to destroy anyone else's piece of mind. And so, maybe Beinart is on to something -- though it could use some refinement, based on the enemy we face.

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