Lessons from Iran

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Prediction in social science is d— difficult, but it is awfully easy to retrodict. Charles Kurzman makes the important point that when the outcome is clear in Iran in a few weeks or months, lots of ‘experts’ will say it was ‘inevitable.’ Excellent point against social science hubris. So, I will hazard my guess now, in advance:

1. These color revolutions, and their model, the Velvet Revolution, always seem to take us by surprise. Suddenly, previously apathetic populations explode and and waves of protestors hit the street. No one seems to be able to explain why quiescence so quickly collapses. This is terribly humiliating to the social sciences, because we strive to build theories that explain social action. Yet we seem to get it wrong time and again – particularly in identifying the social breakpoints which push populations from apathy into activism. The CIA has been criticized for years for wildly overestimating Soviet power in the 80s and having not even an inkling of the coming collapse. Even Paul Kennedy, one of the finest historians working today, assumed the USSR would survive into the 21st C. (And good prediction is why Nouriel Roubini is such a rock-star today.) We just don’t know nearly enough about the intersection of politics, psychology, and social mobilization. Nonetheless, the lesson I draw is that political apathy is ticking time-bomb. If you endlessly repress (and bore) your population, there will be a backlash. China and even, or perhaps especially, NK beware.

2. Stagnation and low growth seem to be a driver of these revolutions as much as freedom. Freedom is great, but so are mundane things like being able to travel or getting a cool, future-oriented job. Eastern Europeans didn’t just want liberalism, they wanted globalization – the fun hip, exciting lifestyle they saw filtering in on bootleg VHS or western TV shows. Who wants to work for some bland, grey, state-owned enterprise making soviet-model toasters? People would rather work for Yahoo or Intel and be connected the world and the future. That the China seems to be able to deliver this, where the Islamic Republic could not, is my guess why China seems more stable.

3. Autocracies are frequently terrible economic managers. East Asian states seem to be an exception to this, but even they have high levels of corruption and can become unexpectedly brittle (Indonesia during the Asian financial crisis). Ideologues who demand national, religious, or other principled ‘purity’ frequently must do so at the expense of cool, fun, modern global lifestyles. Who wants to be cut-off from the fun world of globalization, video games, HDTV, Starbucks, etc? Maybe the Amish or Haredim, but the vast majority of people hardly want to be constricted this way, or at the very least, they want to choose to be or not be so restricted. To the Amish’ credit, they at least allow their children a choice to stay or go. In these color revolutions, economic stagnation is usually combined with closed politics.

4. Foreign influence can energize these revolts, but not seriously participate. I think there was a W effect and an Obama effect that helped spur these movements. Both presidents spoke meaningfully about democracy (2005 & 2009), and both were followed by outburst of popular enthusiasm. That is a good correlation. Further outside attention can put the regime in the spotlight and so raise the costs a Tiananmen-style repression. But this hardly means it won’t happen. The best we can do is continue to talk about it in the press and keep attention on it. This will give the regime pause. But openly intervening is hard (these places are far way; what exactly would we do?). So part of the blame for the recent Iranian crackdown is the ADD-level attention span of cable news. Michael Jackson saved the mullahs. That’s globalization for ya’.

5. Islamic governance is not inevitable in the Middle East. The ME will always be the home of Islam. But Islamic politics is not the only way. Muslims clearly like more open politics, even if they do then vote for Islamists. Yes, Hamas got elected, and Turkey’s Islamists are reasonably successful. But then these parties must govern. Inevitably, they make mistakes, and in so far as they close politics to criticism, those mistakes will remain unaddressed, pile up, and exacerbate. When they screw up, there will be pressure from below for change. That Muslims vote for Islamist parties does not mean they want to never vote again, or live in an Islamist tyranny. The Iranian clerics confused the two. They saw the mundane rejection of the Shah as an apocalyptic endorsement for Islamic theocracy. So did Hamas. So to will the Islamist in Egypt if they ever tip Mubrarak. The trick is retain democracy while allowing Islamists to run. This is challenging. The US allows anti-systemic parties like nazis and communists to run. Germany, given it history of voting in the Nazis who then prohibited voting ever again, does not. Whether or not to allow parties who want to destroy democracies to run in deomcratic elections is tough question.

Grotesque Misuse of a Korean Victim in the War on Terror

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The following is a letter to the editor of the Korea Times on the killing of a South Korean in Yemen by a jihadist group. Published on June 26, 2009, it is available here.

“The tragic execution of Eom Young-sun reflects the barbarism of binladenist jihadism in the Middle East. But it is both empirically inaccurate and morally grotesque to suggest that her slaying a “reflects South Korea’s rising international status.”

Ms. Eom was murdered with eight others foreigners of various nationalities, suggesting she was a target of opportunity, and not chosen because she was Korean. It is correct that Korea is a US ally, but it is only nominally involved in the war on terror. And Islamic fundamentalism is most worried about theistic competition with other abrahamic monotheisms (Judaism and Christianity)  and Hindu polytheism. Korea (despite its growing Christian population) is culturally and geographically quite distant from these concerns. Islamic fundamentalists have shown little interest in religious competition with Buddhism or Confucianism since the destruction of the Bamyan Buddhas.

Morally perverse however is spinning a savage execution into a grotesque complement to Korea’s national stature. Small countries like Korea usually lament their low international recognition. This is understandable, as world attention focuses on great powers. This breeds status-craving and weak global self-esteem in wannabes like Spain, Italy, or Turkey, and Jon Huer has aptly made this point about Korea. But reading this homicide as a perverse ‘complement’ suggests not that Korea has “rising status,” but that Koreans crave it so much, they will look for even the flimsiest, most grotesque evidence. This is disappointing.

Korea is a fine place to live – wealthy, liberal, democratic, plural. It is patiently and steadfastly resisting the world’s last and worst stalinist tyranny without sliding into authoritarianism (as Pakistan and East Germany did in their local competitions). This is a huge achievement. That is the root of its prestige; that is what Koreans should take pride in.”

Off to Miguk-Land for a Vacation!

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I won’t be blogging too much. I am off to see my family and lie on the beach and drink cocktails for awhile. I will comment perhaps once a week until I return in the middle of August.

As always, thanks for reading.

REK

Theorizing Russian Decline (Reviewing an IR paper for a Journal)

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A lot of what we do in IR is peer review of others work. This is a useful exercise and displaying an anonymous one on a blog is a good glimpse into what we do. This paper was written about Russian foreign policy toward Korea. For my collected thoughts on Russia, try here.

“1. The English is excellent. Most of the suggestions I made are stylistic not grammatical. Well done. I recommend however, that you follow my edits before you submit. They will make it easier for anglophone reviewers to read. Also, I think the paper is far too long for most journals. Finally, it is unclear to what kind of journal you want to submit this. It feels like you are aiming for a policy journal like the Far East Economic Review, but it is too long for that.

2. I think the paper lacks a concrete thesis to tie it together. It seemed more like a history of Russian SK foreign policy from Gorby to Putin. You introduced realism and IR theory early in the paper, but they never came back. I didn’t find much theoretical connective tissue between the sections, especially between the presidencies, nor any theoretical wrap-up at the end of the paper. I think you need to tell me a theoretical story that all this data about Russian-Korean interaction can explain. For example, the shift in Russian foreign policy toward SK from ideological opposition to pragmatic realism could illustrate the ‘normalization’ of Russian foreign policy. Most states pursue an interest-based foreign policy, but the USSR allowed ideology to dictate alliance picks. By the mid-80s that was no longer sustainable; the percent of global GDP of the Soviet alliance network was half that of the US network. The USSR was losing the Cold War. So a good IR theory story here is the corrosive effects of great power politics on foreign policy ideology. Or you could tell a story about post-imperial foreign policy. How do former empires or superpowers try to restore their influence , respect, or likeability, especially among wary neighbors? Yeltsin tried to be nice to the neighbors after 75 years of belligerence. Putin decided Yeltsin was a wimp, so he has bullied in Eastern Europe (gas-shut offs, Georgia) and spoiled in East Asia (trouble-making in the 6-party process through an informal tilt toward the North).

3. I think you are far too generous and political in your interpretation of Putin’s behavior. Putin has claimed the collapse of the USSR was the greatest catastrophe of the 20th C and that Russia needs to be a respected ‘player’ again, complete with a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe and its ‘near abroad.’ This is why EE and former Soviet republics all want to join NATO. I recommend you look at the mainstream western foreign policy literature, like Foreign Affairs, the Economist, Foreign Policy, International Security, or Security Studies. I think you dramatically underrate the strategic value of Russia’s energy diplomacy, the importance of Kremlin control of Russian energy firms, the wariness of states to become Russian energy clients after Georgia, and NK’s extremely erratic behavior (and so the low likelihood of energy or rail projects involving the DPRK). Finally, you didn’t even mention the Georgian invasion. This was the first move the Russian army outside its established borders since the Afghan invasion in 1979. Then as now, the invasion has shifted western attitudes (which means SK and Japan will reconsider too). Putin looks a lot more like a revisionist with semi-hegemonic Russian nationalist aspirations in EE and Central Asia, than a pragmatist looking for investment. How much has the Russian stock market dropped since Georgia?

4. I think your evidence of Putin’s SK diplomacy is weak. Most of the projects in energy and rail you discuss are speculative, not actual, nor do you calculate the impact of the Georgian war on SK’s likelihood to proceed, nor do you account for NK’s behavior on any trans-Korean projects. Also, you don’t provide SK FDI data for the Far East region, which is purportedly the reason that Russia is reaching out to SK. Is there a huge boom of SK investment in Vladivostok or Sakhalin? I don’t believe so. SK-Russian air traffic does not reflect a huge investment boom. My understanding is that most of the investment in Russia’s maritime provinces has been under western oil company and World Bank auspices. The Russian-SK space cooperation is nice, but hardly crucial. Worse, Russian visits to NK have propped up the regime’s international profile, probably making it harder to push for a final status deal with the North. This is not mediating tension, but enabling bad behavior. Russia helped block further UN sanction after the recent missile launch. That is not mediating either, but spoiling. Informal tolerance of NK by Russia (and China) helps NK wriggle free from the punishment of UNSC sanctions, cheat on agreements like the Kaesong deal (now NK wants to change the land rents), etc. Unless the other 5 parties to the 6 party talks close ranks, NK will continue to play one off the other for a better deal. Putin is doing this for the obvious reason that he wants to make life hard for the US, which he sees as a hegemon intent on blocking Russian aspirations. So clouding the issue in Korea is useful way to needle the US and keep it off balance. I don’t believe Putin cares one bit about K unification. The DPRK is a wedge against the US, and SK is a hoped-for investor.”

Koreanism of the Month – Don’t Clip your Nails at Night

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Here’s another genuine curveball. A good friend told me to never clip one’s nails at night. He openly said this is a Korean myth, but said you should do it anyway.

The logic is that at night, the spirits of your ancestors are active and take care of you. Hence damaging yourself offends them, or conversely grooming yourself is unnecessary.

The obvious problem then is what else should you not do at night? Can I take a shower? Brush my hair? Wash my hands?

Tragicomedy of US Soft Power: Exporting Banality to Korea (2)

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For part 1, click here. SK is a great case for the study of the soft power,and also a sad example of the cultural banality that is frequently the outcome of Americanization. Conservatives never seem to acknowledge this, but spreading McDonalds, boy bands, action movies, Madonna, etc. not only breeds cultural blowback, it also breeds an embarrassing banality and cultural shallowness in its targets. It is, quite honestly, rather shameful as an American living in Korea to see the arrival of American habits like consumerism and obesity, or insipid American products like soap operas or music-machine pop-music. So from a US foreign policy perspective this is good (Koreans are more like us), but from a high, or even middle-brow, culture perspective, its pretty disturbing to see (how come they seem to pick up the worst of what we have to offer?). When Koreans tell me their country is too Americanized, it is hard not to agree.

Why SK is a good case for a study of soft power’s success/failure:

1. It has been heavily penetrated by the United States for over 60 years. It has been subject to the full weight of Americanization – deep political ties, reinforced by a constant military presence, nested in a large cultural influx.

2. Korea is (was?) very culturally distinct. (Canada or Britain, by contrast, would be weaker examples of cultural shift, because of pre-existing values congruence.) Its history is all but unknown to Americans. Its traditional food, dress, language, and music are quite distant. Its alphabet is not roman and includes sounds that translate poorly. Most importantly, its religious-philosophical traditions – Confucianism, Buddhism, plus some shamanism – are very different. Liberalism and democracy are ideological transplants. Monotheism, and fury it creates in the West and Middle East, are foreign here (although the charismatic evangelicals here are unfortunately bringing it with them.)

How Korea is Americanized:

1. The country is obsessed with learning English. I have been to lots of other countries where learning English was a priority for survival in the global economy, but Korea is exceptional. Koreans will drop out of school for a year to take private lessons just to learn English – not junior years abroad that count as credit. There is a huge public fight over which Koreans can attend US DoD schools here, and there are private ‘international’ schools with an English-only curriculum. (Ironically, they are filled with Koreans, because expats can’t afford their usual $20k/year price-tag.) They will send their grammar school children to after-school extra schooling (hagwons), that have downright brutal teaching regimens with 10 year old students staying until, I’m not lying, 11 pm every weeknight. The bookstores here are filled with books and gimmicks for learning English to pass the TOEFL. There is even an urban legend about surgery to get your tongue cut to supposedly make it easier to speak English. Good English speaking has huge social prestige and will help you land a serious job in Seoul, the center of the universe. 

2. Korean TV is filled with American TV shows and films, frequently the most silly or violent. And Koreans have also patterned their own television partially on the US models, frequently the most insipid. Soap operas here are quite similar to the US – ridiculous adultery plots with pretty women and prettier men wildly overacting, all with great hair and sportscars, living in large American-style homes with driveways and lawns that almost no one here actually can afford (Koreans live in apartment high-rises because of extreme population density). Korean action movies are similar, with exorbitant CGI and quick-cut editing. Forensic police shows are popular too. My students have learned more about America from CSI than from me.

3. Korean popular music too reflects repetitive, self-serving US pop. K-pop is filled with rap and boy/girl bands with all the accoutrements of such groups in the US: silly self-congratulatory videos, inane love lyrics, hairspray & fashion model outfits, bling and conspicuous consumption.

4. US junk food is ubiquitous: Burger King, McDo, KFC. Obesity is a growing problem among Korean youth.

5. Perhaps most disturbing is rapid influx of US versions of Christianity. Protestant evangelicalism is spreading quickly. It is easy conquest, as 50% of Koreans are agnostic or areligious. Blood (yes, as in the spiritual “Power in the Blood” you heard in There Will be Blood) red neon crosses fill the nightskylines of major Korean cities.

6. The US has a major diplomatic and military presence here, and just about every American here seems to know someone in it or otherwise be connected to it. (Me included.)

Of course, deep Korean cultural attributes – food, deference/bowing, Korean traditional music – survive and contest this Americanization. No society is monolithic, and the social contest ebbs, flows, and hybridizes. Last year America was a big problem because of (supposed) mad cow-infected beef; this year, the US isn’t so bad, because NK suddenly seems so dangerous.

My concern is the sheer banality of the cultural influx. Indeed, I think this whenever I travel. I remember seeing Star Trek on TV in Athens with Klingons speaking Greek! Why is it that the silliest, most unhealthy, most ridiculous elements of US social life are exported? Presumably in a market economy, there is local demand, so blame goes both ways. Koreans clearly like McDonalds and the Transporter (its on TV at least once a month here). But it is discomforting to see Koreans made fatter and sillier by US cultural import. And it is easy to imagine what Khomeini notoriously called ‘westoxification’ creating a cultural-nationalist backlash. In the ME of course, that extends to liberalism and democracy, so Khomeini was no defender of the culture – he was a vicious theocrat. But it is still easy to conceive a cultural, sliding into political, backlash against the influx of so much trashy American mediocrity (Project Runway translated into Korean). In fact, Asia is where Chalmers Johnson, the best theorist of political blowback to cultural Americanization, expected something like 9/11 to originate, not the Middle East. And it should embarrass Americans too. A soft power remaking of Korea may be good for us, but don’t we feel a little ashamed about what we export? Are we really pleased to remake others to be shallow, celebrity-obsessed, obese, or insipid (like the Americans foreigners see on TV)? How come Frontline or Mark Twain are not our exports?

Koreanism of the Month – Smiling Cartoons of the Animals You are about to Eat in Restaurant Billboards

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That is a long clunky title, but I could think of no other way to put it. Restaurants frequently include in their billboards a smiling image of the animal product they primarily serve. So a seafood restaurant will show a smiling octopus, or a a pork place will show a smiling fat pig wearing a chef’s hat. This reminds me of the cannibalism of “Charlie Brown’s Thanksgiving.” At the end, Woodstock eats turkey with Snoopy.

Enjoy the pics:

P090524010 P090603001 P090528002P090521003

P090524002 P090521005

Obama-Lee Summit: Good Enough

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Amidst all the Iran hubub, the US and Korea had their first head of state summit this week. Here are my thoughts on what needed to be said. It seems to have been a wash, which is good enough.

The Good:

Obama affirmed a US nuclear commitment to SK. That is probably the biggest gain for the South. Given NK behavior in the last year, this was necessary. It also helps delay a possible nuclearization by SK. The SK conservative press is edging closer to this position.

Lee also seems to have gotten Obama to declare publicly that NK flim-flams in negotiations – obfuscating, demanding favors, giving little and then backtracking later. Everyone already knows this, but it is a blow for Obama who has stressed negotiations with US opponents. On the other hand, it reflects Obama’s realism. The reality of NK is that deals are, at least at the moment, not on the regime’s mind. It seems to want to prove to the world that it is a nuclear power and get acceptance of that.

Finally, Obama agreed to a upgrade of the US-ROK alliance to a “comprehensive strategic alliance.” Who knows what that means, but it is a good signal against the reality of a weakening US defense commitment.

No-so-Good

Obama seems cool to idea of shutting down the six party talks. Lee wants five party talks (i.e., without NK). NK has said it won’t return to the six party talks, and they seem to have done little but buy time for its nuclear program, and given China and Russia an opportunity for international grandstanding. So, sure, let Obama try more. Maybe his Cairo magic will work here, but I doubt it.

Nothing was said about Japan, and little about a united democratic front (SK, US, Japan) toward NK. Instead the idea seems to be building a 5 party front toward NK; “then the four nations will give the U.S. ‘bargaining rights’ after working out a joint plan what price the North should pay unless it abandons its nuclear weapons.” This would be ideal, but Russia and the PRC will almost certainly hedge and obfuscate and can hardly be expected to cede negotiating rights (like power of attorney or something) to the US. The democracies really shouldn’t be held hostage to Russian and Chinese opinion on NK.

Lee’s major concession seems to be that the US may directly negotiate with NK. The wisdom of this is hard to judge. NK desperately wants this – for prestige purposes and hopefully to hang onto its nukes. And NK will certainly push for a deal over SK’s head and to its disadvantage. This is risky, as the SK right will flip out if it looks like the US is unilaterally seeking a separate peace at SK’s expense.

As for the trade deal, nothing much happened – more arguments about beef and cars. Silly.

So all in all, it was a wash. Not much new was said. Nothing that really changes the game. But given how dangerous NK is, that is probably wise. All these talks are driven significantly by NK’s unpredictable behavior. The next big flap that will certainly throw all this into confusion again is NK’s upcoming ICBM launch, over which the US in turn will flip out.

Bonus NK lunacy: a WaPo story on how NK defrauds insurance, sells drugs, and counterfeits dollars. NK’s government is so uniformly awful, they seem like the bad guy out of comic book movie.

More Cairo Fallout: Zionism Must Remain as Liberal as Possible

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The bedrock of Israel’s claim to moral superiority in the Middle East (ME) is its liberal democratic pluralism. It is the only ME state ranked ‘free’ by Freedom House. This separates it from the dictatorships, openly islamist governance of Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Gaza or the pan-Arabist nationalist narratives so common elsewhere. In a neighborhood filled with illiberal, particularistic ideologies rooted in the conservative communalism of race or religion, Israel has hewed to a liberal universalism. This morally elevates it above its neighbors and appeals to the West, to whom liberalism is modern, and Arabism and Islamism feel like 19th century reactionary throwbacks.

Yet this is only partially true, of course. Israel too has a nationalist-religious narrative – Zionism, the restoration of Eretz Israel. This narrative is well-known, but its formal proclamation as Israel’s legitimation would be problematic. That would place Israel’s intellectual justification in the same particularist/communalist realm as its neighbors. Instead of a liberal, open state contending with reactionary aggression, de jure Zionism would make the Middle East into a competition of religio-nationalist projects, in which one is triumphant through force of arms.

Arab and Islamist ideologies claim Palestine as national soil or holy ground. Western liberalism finds this reactionary and distasteful. To the extent that Israel argues for and practices a liberal use of this space (as it does, e.g., in permitting free worship for all in Jerusalem), then the West will sympathize with its attempt to defend liberalism against reaction. But if Israel overindulges a soil/blood/religion narrative too, then western sympathy diminishes. If Palestine is read as sacred Zion, holy soil, by Jews, then the conflict slides easily toward a religious or cultural contest in the vein of a clash of civilizations.

Clearly the settler movement endorses exactly this sort of thinking. For them, Eretz Israel is a holy and nationalist project. But more disturbing is when such logic is directed as justification at Americans who should not be expected to support a religious, nationalized project. This violates our liberal values, and opens the door for Arabists and Islamists to ask why we prefer the Jewish religio-national project for Palestine over their own. The answer, of course, is greater cultural and religious affinity between Americans and Israelis, as well as more political comfort with Israel over its (dangerous and badly governed) neighbors. But if we openly assert this, then we lose all moral claim to arbitrate neutrally the Arab-Israeli dispute. Then we become a partner to one side in a particularistic cultural showdown, rather than a defender of liberal universalist values. This is exactly the suspicion that Obama worthily tried to overcome in Cairo.

I am thinking here of M Peretz’ and Netanyahu’s rejection of Obama’s Cairo speech. Peretz is miffed that Obama did not validate the zionist narrative of Israel’s foundation. Obama sought “to diminish the determination of the Jewish people through the ages, and especially since the age of nationalism in the mid-nineteenth century, to reclaim their homeland, to bring its very earth out of desolation and restore its dispersed sons and daughters to Zion–all this not as a reparation [for the Holocaust], but as a right.’ And Netanyahu: “The right to establish our sovereign state here, in the Land of Israel arises from one simple fact: Eretz Israel is the birthplace of the Jewish People.” To boot, Netanyahu wants the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a “Jewish” state.

Yet Obama is exactly right to reject such illiberal logic. To endorse such conservative romantic metaphysics would be politically disastrous and violate core American liberal beliefs. It is exactly this sort of rhetoric, even from the avowedly liberal New Republic, that convinces Arabs and Muslims that Israel is just another religio-nationalist project they must contend with their own. This sort of ‘holy soil’ rhetoric fires the conflict, not softens it.

We all know that Israel was founded in great part on the intellectual basis that Peretz and Netanyahu describe. But this sort of religious nationalism no longer commands normative respect in the West. The reason the West today prefers Israel to its neighbors is its liberalism – civil rights, elections, religious freedom – not its Zionism (except for the US religious right). So every time Israeli leaders and defenders wander into zionist, antipluralist territory about the Jews’ ‘right’ to Palestine – well, then Westerners just can’t go down that road.  Invoking divine rights, national privilege from time immemorial, Moses, or God to claim territory is exactly the same logic Muslim ideologues use to denote parts of the world as ‘Muslim lands,’ which may therefore be purged of non-Muslim influences. The claim that Israel must be ‘Jewish’ has never been demanded of the Palestinians before. It is creepy, because it implies demographic control measures should Israel’s Jewish majority status be jeopardized. The US can hardly be expected to support such language.

Hence, the dilemma seems to be to square the zionist desire to have a de facto Jewish state with the liberal need to have Israel be a de jure pluralist democracy. This problem is similar to Quebec’s desire to be both liberal and francophone. An open constitutional declaration of a Jewish national-religious state would make Israel into a more liberal, Jewish version of Iran. But Judaism could heavily influence national life if Jews were a strong majority within a liberal democratic frame, as is the francophone case in Quebec. The best way to achieve that is to cut the occupied territories loose as soon as possible and keep the overt zionist jargon under wraps. Israel can be a Jewish-majority state, as the US is a Christian-majority state or Quebec is a francophone society, but Israel should never seek to constitutionally be a ‘Jewish state.’ This is what religious ideologues in places like Saudi Arabia or Calvin’s Geneva do. Zionism needs to try to be as liberal as possible. If not, Israel is just another competing tribe in the factionalized Middle East, with no principled claim on Western support.

Iran: Democratic Realism Didn’t Last Too Long

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Two months ago, I predicted the imminent death of foreign policy realism among US liberals and the Democratic party. It turns out I was right faster than I thought. The tumult in Iran has brought back all those basic US idealist instincts: democracy and liberalism are the only ‘real’ way to govern, the US should nag others to govern themselves the way we do, liberals’ pain anywhere in the world is a US concern, nondemocracies are run by thugs we should not cater to. In short, foreign policy idealism (if you like it) or imperialist hauteur on democracy and liberalism (if you dislike it) is back! And it only took five months under O.

Try F Kaplan, previously a biting critic of aggressive democratic idealism under W, or R Just on the sudden ‘re-rediscovery’ that the US should be in the democracy promotion business, or the Wall Street Journal‘s fear Obama won’t help the Iranian protestors.

Leslie Gelb once wrote (I can’t find the link) that Americans historically oscillate between idealistic interventionist optimism (‘make the world safe for democracy,’ Saving Private Ryan) and sullen realism stemming from disillusion when others reject our help (how could they?!), or worse, actually fight against us (Iraq debate 2004-07, Black Hawk Down). But I think on balance – since the US really joined world politics after Reconstruction – Americans have tilted toward idealism. We have this incorrigible belief that our lifestyle and constitutional order are the best on the planet, and that breeds an idealism (arrogance?) that can be suppressed by Vietnams and Iraqs, but not rooted out. You can see it in the sudden enthusiasm for leaning on Iran. Just two weeks ago, we were the country recovering from ideology and trying to deal with the world as it is. Now we are trying to decide what kind of intervention in Iran’s domestic politics would be best (here too).

It’s all rather amusing to watch; like a child, waves of exuberance and despondence come and go (always masquerading as ‘lessons of history’ or a ‘new paradigm’). But optimism and self-confidence are always psychologically more appealing to anyone or country. Americans are quite nationalistic and really believe in US exceptionalism, so Obama’s despondence and ‘apology tour’ hardly fit the deeper national psyche. What country likes think of itself as disdained and dismissed by others? So as soon as those Iranian students started waving democracy posters, all the old US habits and prejudices about foreign policy burst out.