Realism and Stability
Reader comment on: 'Realism' in Syria

Submitted by Tom Mangieri, Feb 18, 2008 15:42

So Zbig Brzezinski is up to his old "realist" tricks again, hawking "stability" as the summum bonum of American foreign policy. Although he is apparently doing it this time on behalf of the Obama campaign with its promise of "change we can believe in," Mr. Brzezinski's stealthy visit to Syria is actually a continuation of an old argument dating back to the height of the Cold War. Self-styled "realists" like him have built on the Truman Administration's policy that contained Soviet expansion while preventing nuclear war and awaiting an eventual Soviet collapse. This policy was in itself a wise one, thwarting Soviet expansion while avoiding the catastrophic risks posed by the alternative policy of "rolling back" the Communist empire. The realists conceded the moral high ground to those who wished to win the Cold War and free the captive nations, while admonishing that such moralism could neither ensure such a victory nor safeguard the world from thermonuclear annihilation. The hard reality was that only the maintenance of a stable relationship between the two superpowers could accomplish the latter, while internal Soviet collapse alone could provide the former.

However, as the Cold War wore on and Communist power waxed rather than waned, especially after the Vietnam debacle, realists generally despaired of Soviet collapse, leaving stability as their last best hope of achieving some modicum of security for the declining West while still preserving nuclear peace. Ironically, stability itself thus became a moral imperative that determined which uses of American power were deemed legitimate precisely because they were (allegedly) prudent. What had been practical wisdom under Truman became received wisdom under Jimmy Carter, whom Mr. Brzezinski ably served as National Security Advisor. Then along came Ronald Reagan, the "amiable dunce" cum dangerous heresiarch who denied that American policy must aim at stability above all while seeking the best deal possible with a permanently reigning Soviet superpower. Rather, Reagan and his conservative policy advisors and Team-B intelligence experts saw a different reality: a Soviet Union vulnerable to pressure from economic competition -- especially with its grip on its Eastern European satellites slipping -- combined with carefully selected politico-military initiatives (SDI, Granada, Afghanistan, etc.). Most realists deplored Reagan's forward-looking, change-oriented strategy as dangerous and, well, unrealistic, which in their lexicon means a rejection of the stability-oriented policy that is by definition the only legitimate and wise course. When the Berlin Wall came down and supposedly permanent Communist dictatorships fell from the Elbe to the Amur, the realists were certainly surprised. But, rather than celebrate America's triumph in the Cold War, they glumly pointed to civil and tribal conflicts that followed in the 1990s as proof that stability is the only proper goal of a foreign policy aiming to secure peace as opposed to inevitably hollow victories.

Fast forward to 9/11 and its aftermath. Zbig and company support the military overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan – the realists are not pacifists -- but only to restore stability to the Middle East and South Asia rather than foster transformational change as envisioned by the latest heretical ignoramus, George W. Bush. Some regime change, as in Kabul, may be acceptable if practicable and understood as a mere means to the end of regional stability. By and large, however, stability can only mean cutting deals with the existing players, including jihadis like Iran, moderate Talibani, and Hamas if they wish to negotiate power arrangements. Naturally, the US will work with existing Arab regimes, even Assad's in Syria, to promote stability rather than try to change them or see them replaced.

Such "realist" policy assumptions beg some crucial questions. First, can the Middle East of September 10 be accurately described as a "stable" situation to which we want to return? Rather, hasn't the region always been a roiling cauldron of violent discontents just as violently repressed? Isn't that instability on steroids, and isn't it true that the violent jihadism bedeviling the world was produced by it? So precisely what precious "stability" is Mr. Brzezinski advancing? Does he mean regarding corrupt and repressive Arab regimes we formerly needed as Cold War allies—particularly Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan—as our Best Friends Forever in the region regardless of their gross unpopularity and the cynicism towards secular Arab nationalism that now pervades the Arab Street? Or does stability mean what it came to mean in the Cold War context—i.e., negotiating from a position of weakness to cut deals with our enemies, today Syria and Iran, enabling us to manage the decline of American power in the region, including offering a timetable for withdrawing our troops from Iraq and forcing a suicidal "peace agreement" on Israel?

All such "realist" policy prescriptions are actually counsels of despair. Despite the rhetorical packaging, they cannot stabilize the region because they do nothing to counter the forces and circumstances that have routinely destabilized it. Mr. Brzezinski would have an American policy that would only serve to perpetuate the corruption and repressiveness of our so-called friends while emboldening our jihadist enemies. What "stability" can that possibly provide?

Whatever, it seems that the "realists" will be firmly back in control inside the Beltway no matter who wins the White House in November. If so, they will no longer have to resort to the guerrilla tactics they employed to frustrate Bush Administration policies that, in their ham-handed way, really did try to offer alternatives in the region to the continuing hopelessness, lawlessness, oppression, and violence that are the real roots of jihadism. While the realists will be able to openly enjoy their hard-won ascendancy over conservatives and neo-cons alike, their old-wine-in-old-skins policies will not serve America's interests any better today than back in the 1980s.

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