Obama Is The New Kissinger

Jacob Heilbrunn, writing at the National Interest, published by the former Nixon Center:

Can anyone doubt that the blind lawyer and dissident Chen Guangcheng, who says that he feels a "little" lied to by American embassy officials in Beijing, was, more or less, hustled out and dumped into a hospital before he could further disrupt Chinese-American relations, especially with high-level meetings coming up between Hillary Clinton, Timothy Geithner and their Chinese counterparts? If any episode crystallizes the ruthlessness of President Obama, it should be this one. Even as the GOP tries to depict him as an impotent president, he is acting more ruthlessly and decisively than almost any American president in recent memory, including George W. Bush.

Obama gives off every sign of taking coldly antiseptic positions in foreign affairs. Again and again, Obama has dismissed the notion that he should get involved in the internal affairs of other countries. The Arab Spring? He viewed it with caution. Libya? He tried to lead from behind. Syria? He wants nothing to do with it.

This approach might be called Obama's neo-Kissingerianism.

Watching The Necons

The Democracy in America blog at the "Economist" gives Libya warmongers the Boot:

Now that I've taken a second to think about it, to calculate even, it seems plausible that weakness and vacillation [in Libya] will do us no harm whatsoever. Indeed, prudent inaction may not be weakness and vacillation at all!

Inspiration Without Intervention

Daniel Henninger makes a neo-neocon argument for the U.S. doing more to support democracy in Libya and elsewhere in the Middle East, saying:

Soviet-era dissidents have said and written that among the things that sustained them was that their heads were filled with the ideas drawn from America's freedoms.

And yet note that we didn't send in troops.
Hat tip to John Bode

No Strategic Sense

At "The National Interest," the Nixon Center's foreign policy journal, Jacob Heilbrunn says opponents of the U.S.-Russian arms treaty were either neocons or missile defense fantasists. And then there's this theoretically possible president of the U.S.:

Sarah Palin...chirped that the treaty makes "no strategic sense." How would she know?

So Who's Running This War?

Afghanistan war critic Andrew J. Bacevich:

The leaking of the McChrystal [war] Plan [in September 2009] constituted a direct assault on civilian control [of the military].

Strong words. And that leak, presumably from a high-ranking Pentagon source, was to-- Anyone? Anyone? --him of the peerless Pentagon sources, Nixon hunter Bob Woodward, who figures in theories that Watergate was actually a proto-neocon coup against a Soviet-appeasing, Chicom-loving, Vietnam peace-seeking president.

I misread it at the time, thinking the leak was engineered by a White House that wanted to use McChrystal's seeming pessimism as an excuse to leave Afghanistan. In retrospect, Bacevich is obviously right. The brass were goading, and dissing, President Obama. (They did Richard Nixon even worse: They spied on him.)

So who's running this war, anyway?

The View From Neo-Connecticut

From his home town of Salisbury, Connecticut, the local angle on Forty Years War co-author Tom Shachtman, who, with Len Colodny, aims to rewrite the history of Watergate, the last years of the Cold War, and the neocons' march to war in Iraq.

Richard Nixon And Dede Scozzafava

Was Richard Nixon done in by his own people? From the History Book Club's precis of The Forty Years War by Len Colodny and Tom Schachtman:

The first section of The Forty Years War traces the rise of the “neocons” during the fateful presidency of Richard Nixon. Though the conventional narrative has Nixon being overthrown by his traditional enemies on the left, Colodny and Shachtman reveal how much Nixon’s historic fall owed to conservative resentment of the foreign policy of Nixon and Henry Kissinger, particularly Nixon’s overtures to the USSR and China. They reveal how administration insiders—including White House Chief of Staff Alexander Haig—used their positions of responsibility to bring Nixon’s foreign policy to a halt. And they show how Nixon’s alienation of the emerging neoconservatives in Washington ultimately left him politically isolated and unable to survive the storms of Watergate.

Not Bedfellows At All?

Nixon and Kissinger vs. Haig, Rumsfeld, and Cheney? Very interesting indeed. Len Colodny sent me this "Library Journal" review by Stephen K. Shaw of his new book, The Forty Years War: The Rise and Fall of the Neocons, From Nixon To Obama:

Colodny (coauthor, Silent Coup) and [Tom] Shachtman (Airlift to America), two experienced investigative reporters, offer a rigorous and critical examination of the neoconservative movement and the bureaucratic, ideological battles over American foreign policy from 1969 to 2009.

During this period, there was infighting, primarily in Republican administrations, between pragmatists, e.g., Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, and ideologues, e.g., Alexander Haig, Donald Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney, for the privilege of conducting foreign policy and establishing American supremacy in world affairs.

Central to this account of the origins and evolution of crusading conservatives and ideologically driven theorists, such as the mysterious, influential Pentagon operative Fritz Kraemer, is a focus on the domestic and international prospects and perils of a foreign, military-driven policy that has sought to re-create the world in America's image. The authors essentially direct our attention to John Quincy Adams's advice that his country should not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.

VERDICT: Anyone who has read Jane Mayer's The Dark Side or Jack Goldsmith's The Terror Presidency would be well served by this captivating chronicle. Highly recommended, especially for students of U.S. foreign policy and/or presidential politics in the post-World War II era.

No-Bomb Iran

Leon Wieseltier hammers President Obama for his one-world naivete:

People admire Obama, at home and abroad, because his America is like their America; which is to say, they admire Obama because they admire themselves. The beautiful souls gave him a Nobel Prize for being a beautiful soul. We will soon discover that the popularity of an American president is a fact of minor strategic consequence. Anti-Americanism around the world is deep and tough and various. Most of it will not be dispelled by a black face and a Muslim name and a progressive smile. Multiculturalism is not a foreign policy. And enmity is the regular fate of states, and of superpowers, and of democracies.

Criticizing Obama for being too solicitous of Europeans and Muslims is one thing. There's no question he's overdone it. But Wieseltier's only example of Obama's perilous course has to do with Iran:

We have common ground with the Iranian regime, or so Obama insists, in our desire to avert a nuclear catastrophe. And we have common ground with the Iranian resistance, in our desire to promote liberty. In his policy toward Iran, Obama has so far honored one commonality and dishonored the other. His "engagement" with the illegitimate theo-fascist rulers in Iran, even as their show trials proceed, represents a decision to scant ostentatious differences in favor of dubious similarities.

This analysis has two glaring flaws. The Iranian regime is no less legitimate than the communist regimes in Moscow and Beijing when Richard Nixon improved relations to defuse mounting Cold War tensions and try to help end the Vietnam war. If detente with Iran is also in our interests, then the U.S. should by all means pursue it, no matter who's in power there.

Wieseltier's real howler is suggesting that our obligation to promote political freedom in Iran is anywhere near as important as our (and Israel's) interest in preventing it from acquiring nuclear weapons. Neocons and non-neocons may differ about the advisability of additional regime-change adventures. But I'd prefer a non-nuclear tyrant in Tehran to an atomic democrat any day.

Hat tip to Mike Cheever

"I Want To Get Married" Wins The Argument

Ross Douthat, the influential young conservative blogger who is now a columnist for the New York Times, when asked about gay marriage on Wednesday during a panel discussion about neoconservatives:

At first Mr. Douthat seemed unable to get a sentence out without interrupting himself and starting over. Then he explained: "I am someone opposed to gay marriage who is deeply uncomfortable arguing the issue in public."

Mr. Douthat indicated that he opposes gay marriage because of his religious beliefs, but that he does not like debating the issue in those terms. At one point he said that, sometimes, he feels like he should either change his mind, or simply resolve never to address the question in public.

He added that the conservative opposition to gay marriage is "a losing argument," and asked rhetorically if committed homosexual relationships ought to be denied the legal recognition accorded without hesitation to the fleeting enthusiasms of Britney Spears and Newt Gingrich.

After the panel, Mr. Douthat told the Observer: "If I were putting money on the future of gay marriage, I would bet on it."

He added: "The secular arguments against gay marriage, when they aren't just based on bigotry or custom, tend to be abstract in ways that don't find purchase in American political discourse. I say, ‘Institutional support for reproduction,' you say, ‘I love my boyfriend and I want to marry him.' Who wins that debate? You win that debate."

Hat tip to the "Daily Dish"

Nixon: Stuck In The Middle Again

Some Nixonites argue that when RN was handing out swords, the anti-Vietnam liberals twisted them with the most relish. Now comes Silent Coup co-author Len Colodny with his and a new collaborator's latest book, The Forty Years War: The Rise And Fall of the Neocons, From Nixon to Obama, which argues that it was the nascent neoconservatives (often domestic and social liberals, just to make it more confusing) who helped maneuver Nixon out of office because of his course-changing policies toward the Soviet Union and China. Len sent me an early notice, from Kirkus Reviews:

In this readable history, the authors tell many intriguing tales, including the neocon incubator that was Scoop Jackson’s senate office; the military spying on Nixon’s National Security Council; Haig’s maneuverings during Nixon’s final days; the rise of Cheney and Rumsfeld under Ford and their denouement under Bush II; the neocons' shameless readopting of Reagan after his accords with Gorbachev proved successful; the controversial decision to leave Saddam Hussein in power after the Gulf War; and the continuing and curious role of reporter Bob Woodward in the neocon story. A well-reported, fast-paced history lesson on the eternal conflict between ideologues and policymakers and the hubris that always accompanies success.

Watching The Neocons On China

Henry Kissinger was RN's partner in the opening to China, ending a generation of alienation. He took considerable and well-deserved satisfaction as Washington-Beijing became the most important bilateral relationship in the world. The global economic crisis is signaling a third era in postwar Sin0-U.S. relations, Kissinger writes this morning:

According to conventional wisdom, the world economy will regain its vitality once China consumes more and America consumes less. But as both countries apply that prescription, it will inevitably alter the political framework. As Chinese exports to America decline and China shifts the emphasis of its economy to greater consumption and to increased infrastructure spending, a different economic order will emerge. China will be less dependent on the American market, while the growing dependence of neighboring countries on Chinese markets will increase China's political influence. Political cooperation, in shaping a new world order, must increasingly compensate for the shift in trade patterns.

In the 1970s, RN and Kissinger famously revamped U.S.-Soviet relations in response to a similar trend, or so they thought -- a decline in U.S. dominance matched with an improvement in Moscow's strategic position. Detente, as it was called, was good for the world, though it exposed Kissinger to withering fire from conservatives who charged that he'd waved the white flag too soon in the Cold War. He's also probably right, as he argues in this piece, that the U.S. and China should take the lead role in fashioning what sounds like an embryonic Pacific Rim Common Market:

While the center of gravity of international affairs shifts to Asia, and America finds a new role distinct from hegemony yet compatible with leadership, we need a vision of a Pacific structure based on close cooperation between America and China but also broad enough to enable other countries bordering the Pacific to fulfill their aspiration.

And yet beware militant neo-neocons lying in wait to play the soft-on-China card against President Obama. Not everyone agrees with Kissinger that another Cold War wouldn't be an absolutely grand idea.

They Were Always Liberal Interventionists

As predicted, the neocons run home to mamma.

Reaganites Discover Nixon's Virtues

Kim Holmes at the Heritage Foundation:

Once upon a time, American liberals loved to hate foreign-policy realists. Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger - the uber-realists of their day - were the betes noires of the left. In the liberal view, stability and Realpolitik were the source of everything wrong with U.S. foreign policy.

No more. In an ideological shift that should make Mr. Nixon turn over in his grave, liberal internationalism is making peace with its erstwhile intellectual enemy, the tradition of realism in U.S. foreign policy. Liberals and realists are joining hands to forge a new vision of American leadership that President Obama may be tempted to embrace.

Why would Holmes think RN would be upset by this development? After all, it was he who went to China, dramatically improved relations with the Soviet Union, ended U.S. involvement in Vietnam, and balanced our unstinting support for Israel with a new acceptance of the legitimate interests of its neighbors. If RN were rolling over in his grave because President Obama is being tempted to make friendly gestures toward our current antagonists such as Iran, it would presumably be because Holmes and the Heritage Foundation feel that tough old 37 would think 44 was too soft. That's ironic, since at the time, the Goldwater/Reaganites who would soon found Heritage -- as well as their own tactical partners, the nascent neocons -- all feared that it was the vigilantly anti-communist Nixon who had gone soft. Pentagon hawks were so worried that they were actually spying on him.

Holmes sees a coalition forming between liberals (who would've been interventionists in the Kennedy era but now think America's world-changing days are behind her) and Brent Scowcroft-style realists intent on making sure the U.S. doesn't overextend itself on moralistic or otherwise misguided adventures such as Iraq.

Holmes is hopeful that Obama will find a Nixonian middle way:

He seems to sense a need to impose some limits on the inherent pessimism of the new liberal-realist fusion. A vision of America riding off into the sunset of geopolitical decline does not square with his message of hope and change. Americans may not want the U.S. to be the world's policeman, but they also still believe their country has a transformative role to play in the world.

Of course that was precisely Richard Nixon's view and legacy. It is good that the heirs of his often mistrustful conservative friends have come to appreciate it.

Who Watches "Watchmen"?

I'm over 20 years late with this assessment. "Watchmen" was published when I was working for RN in New York, practicing almost weekly counter-journalism on his behalf.

Missed this one, Mr. President. Got most of them.

Sadly, the graphic novel's alt.-Richard Nixon gets a raw deal. His high point comes in chapter IV, when he sends Dr. Manhattan, a blue superman with seemingly infinite powers, to defeat the Viet Cong (p. 20), enabling RN to ram through a constitutional amendment in 1975 that enables him to run for a third (and presumably a fourth and fifth) term (21).

From there, for Hannah Nixon's good Quaker son, it's downhill fast toward near-certain nuclear holocaust. I recognize that this is just a comic book, but author Alan Moore, although some kind of genius, misses or ignores that RN discerningly engaged the Soviets through his policy of detente, thus substantially decreasing East-West tensions. Moore might be saying that Nixon's policy, extrapolated into the 1980s, would've been too soft, resulting in the story's October 1985 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan -- which actually happened in 1979 under the dovish Jimmy Carter. And yet reviews of the "Watchmen" film make clear that among Moore's original targets was the hawkish Reagan administration.

If Nixon had really been in office, presumably the Soviets, in calculating the risks of aggression, would've remembered the tough measures he took in Vietnam (prior to sending the giant blue man, of course). When the alt.-Soviets nonetheless prepare to invade Pakistan, alt.-Nixon seems less than appalled at his advisers' estimation of the vast losses that would result from a nuclear exchange beginning with a U.S. first strike. "Losing the East Coast, we'd need to," he says. "I don't know...I'd always kind of hoped that the big decision would rest with somebody else. This is going to take some thinking about....I think we'll give it a week, gentlemen, before bringing out our big guns...After that, humanity is in the hands of a higher authority than mine. Let's just hope he's on our side." (III, 26-28)

Though each Cold War President no doubt dreaded having to make that decision, the distinct possibility of nuclear war shadowed three generations of Americans. For most of the era, the uneasy peace between the U.S. and Soviet Union was bolstered by the concept of mutually assured destruction. Both sides had enough nuclear firepower to be able to destroy the other, meaning that in a full-scale exchange, neither side could win. What altered the picture was the possibility that one side would have enough forces to destroy enough of the enemy's strategic nuclear missiles in a first strike that the attacker would stand a good chance of surviving as a functioning polity.

While the very idea of a survivable first strike was monstrous, it was the way strategists thought. "Watchmen" author Moore was deftly probing the weak link in the MAD armor, namely whether any leader, American or Soviet, would be ruthless, desperate, or unhinged enough to order the catastrophic first strike.

That's where Moore's choice of a guinea pig came in. His real-life 1985 commander in chief was Reagan, and the policy he was critiquing was Reagan's. When Reagan proposed his Strategic Defense Initiative in the early 1980s, as "Watchmen" was being envisioned and written, skeptics actually feared that Reagan was using it to create or enhance the U.S.'s first-strike capability. And yet for his madman, the monster actually willing to pull the trigger, Moore maneuvers poor Mr. Nixon back into office. To add insult to injury, he even has a character mutter about the privations of "Nixononmics." (VIII, 2) Near the end of the story, alt.-RN arrives at what looks like NORAD, clutching the nuclear football (it's actually a metal football, chained to his wrist), mumbles something about Mrs. Nixon being safe elsewhere, and then sits stoically, watching the big TV screens and waiting to give the order for a first strike if necessary. (X, 1-3)

Meanwhile, his actual Presidency was dedicated in large part to making sure no one would ever have to. Anti-Soviet hawks, including some proto-neocon Democrats, accused him and Henry Kissinger of degrading U.S. nuclear forces and even ceding a first-strike capability to Moscow. Pentagon generals were so nervous about RN's policies that they spied on him. Now that would make a great comic book.

Neocons Waxing Neolib?

As historians get to work studying how foreign policy neoconservatives captured the heart and mind of the Bush administration, Jacob Heilbrunn argues that the neocons themselves may be getting set to run home to mamma -- the Democratic Party in general and the interventionist secretary of state-designate, Hillary Clinton, in particular. According to Heilbrunn, who also writes for the Nixon Center's "National Interest" (this article is in "The American Conservative"), the neocons never much liked Republicans:

There can be no doubt that as staunch cold warriors, or, if you prefer, liberal internationalists, the neocons viewed the Republican Party, which was led by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, both realists and promoters of détente, with unease. The neocons, who had started out as Trotskyists, espoused a social-democratic program in domestic policy. Essentially, they were Hubert Humphrey Democrats. The neocons clustered around Sen. Scoop Jackson, whose adviser was Richard Perle. They didn’t want détente with the GOP itself; they beseeched Democrats to decry their opponents as selling out human rights and American ideals.