These two assumptions are as wrong as a cat barking.
The accuracy of this characterization is seen in the answer to a simple question: What have Iran, Russia, and China had in common since the early 1990s?
That's right, bucko--all three countries were powerfully perturbed and disturbed by the emergence of the US as the only Great Power on Earth. The unipolar world made the leadership of all three quiver, even shake in their boots.
This apprehension existed even during the Clinton administration even though the foreign policy of that crew seemed to consist mainly of bombing parts of former Yugoslavia; sending the occasional cruise missile in the general direction of Iraq, or Sudan, or Afghanistan; and constantly boosting the neo-liberal (or was it neo-conservative? The Geek gets confused) agenda of globalization and privatization. None of these foreign policy objectives threatened either Russia or China and were irrelevant to Iran.
Not to put to fine a point on the matter, the Clinton infatuation with the spurious notion of free trade so wrapping the countries of the world in economic interdependence that war would be unthinkable benefited China more than any other country in the world. China can date its ascendancy to the high levels of economic and military power it possesses today to the day President Clinton tore himself away from the pursuit of White House interns long enough to sign trade agreements with the Cheshire Cat grinning Mandarins of the Forbidden City.
Even with the facts before them, the Chinese leadership took the (internal) position that what the US gave, the US could retract. Only countervailing forces would keep those inscrutable occidentals by the banks of the Potomac honest.
Russia sat on the sidelines during most of the Clinton years. The assorted powers-that-be in the Kremlin had to deal with the mess left behind by the implosion of the Soviet centrally directed economy and concomitant social and psychological lesions. The unquestioned dominance of the US did nothing to reassure the Kremlin that there was a meaningful place for Russia in the unipolar world order. The Russian political class was also not pleased by the rather condescending attitude taken by assorted American figures toward the problems which were proliferating across Mother Russia.
The arrival of Bush/Cheney in the White House rapidly worsened the relations between the US and both Russia and China. The cause of this deterioration was easy to find. Bush/Cheney, rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding, positively reveled in the apparent freedom bestowed upon the US by the unipolar world. The administration made matters worse by either hectoring or speaking in the most condescending terms imaginable to the new Russian government headed by Vladimir Putin.
In short, the US treated Russia as if it were a defeated nation, a has-been on the international stage rather than the Great Power Russia believed itself to be. Whether the Deep Thinkers of the Bush/Cheney administration recognised the reality or not, the attitude projected at Russia sowed the diplomatic wind which would become a whirlwind twisting against US interests within a very few years.
The revolutionary theocratic regime of Iran depended upon having the US as a safe demon. The mullahocracy needed to rhetorically beat up the Great Satan without any real risk. Without the US as an object upon which to pin the tail of blame for all that was going wrong in Iran following the disasterous war with Iraq, the regime would not have had the necessary diversionary safety valve.
To keep on bashing the Great Satan while gaining access to the necessities of reconstruction and economic expansion after the end of the Iran-Iraq war, Iran needed allies. The revolutionary and theocratic nature of the government along with its actions derailed the diplomatic offensives launched toward Europe and the Arab states by the Rafsanjani administration. The only places where the Iranian outreach program had any success were Russia and China.
Russia was prepared when the Iranians came knocking on the Kremlin's gates. Russia needed Iranian assistance in keeping the lid on Islamist jihadist movements both in the Central Asian Republics and within the Muslim heavy provinces of Russia proper. And, the ancient Russian interest in expanding its area of influence toward the Persian Gulf had not been weakened by age or changes in governmental form.
Iran also had money. Or at least oil which could be transformed into money. Russia had any number of products to sell ranging from civil aircraft to every sort of advanced or semi-advanced piece of military gear on through to a wide variety of industrial machinery. In no time at all order books were filling and the imams and ayatollahs were doing what (little) they could to erode the growing Islamist separatist movements bedevilling the Russians.
For their part the Russians took to running interference for Tehran at the UN Security Council and other venues. This not only kept the customer satisfied, it gave the Russians the distinct pleasure of proving the limits of American power in the putatively unipolar world.
China played a very subtle, nuanced, and successful game with the Iranians. The Chinese well understood the intense nationalism which Iranians feel as well as the closely related strong sense of having been victimised repeatedly by the West, by Great Britain, and then by the US.
The Chinese flattered the Iranians. They deferred to the Iranians. They used flowery and even risible words to play to the nationalistic sentiments and pride of the Iranians. In less time than it takes to tell, Tehran decided the mandarins of Beijing were the most splendid bunch of chaps imaginable.
Getting down to business, the Chinese had things to sell. The Iranians had oil. The two countries had a deal. A complementary set of deals involved Iran keeping quiet on matters involving Chinese internal affairs such as that unfolding in Western China right now. China would run interference for Iran at the UN and provide such other diplomatic support as might prove necessary and desirable.
For more than a decade the three unlikely political bedfellows reckoned that as long as they could cooperate, the US could be discomfited in the unipolar world. Both Moscow and Beijing calculated that with the passage of time, new opportunities for the effective restoration of a multi polar global politics would emerge.
Iran worked hand-in-glove with the two "infidel" governments because by so doing it would gain the time and resources necessary to go it alone as a regional hegemon and aspiring Great Power, a third (or fourth) force in the multi-polar configuration. The three powers collaborated, each in pursuit of its own subjectively defined national interest. They were united only by a pervasive distaste for the limitations on national interest which (could have) existed in a Pax Americana such as Bush/Cheney and the neocons sought.
The key phrase in both describing and understanding the Iran-Russia and Iran-China relations is that each country was pursuing its "subjectively defined national interests."
In that phrase lies the greatest obstacle presented by reality to the Obama/"Progressive" view of international politics. To put it bluntly, for Mr Obama and the other "progressives," the concept of national interest like the institution of the nation-state is anathema, even an obscenity.
Many Americans born since 1940--particularly those of the highly (overly?) educated elite, the chattering, academic, and political elite classes--grew to view the notions of nationalism, national interest, even the nation-state as being intellectually bankrupt, ethically objectionable, and, quite often, frankly evil. These people place their faith in supra-national institutions, collective agreements, regional and global organisations.
They view the United States as they do other nation-states as having been the sources of rapacious, aggrandising, exploitative conduct. They see the nation-state as having been the cause of war, poverty, slavery, and every other ill which has beset humanity with the possible exception of the common cold.
Unfortunately for the residents of this rarefied plateau of lofty thinking, most of the world does not agree with their perspective. Most of the world, including the leaders of China and Russia, to say nothing of Iran, view the globe as the field upon which states compete for advantage, for influence, for domination. Most citizens, most of the often maligned hoi polloi, view themselves as citizens of a specific country, not "fellow passengers on space ship Earth." Most people in most countries, most of the time (including the US) want their country to be peaceful, prosperous, and well-respected throughout the world.
The Iranians are highly nationalistic in their worldview. This factor has been taken advantage of, manipulated, and massaged by the country's rulers. Iranians want to be respected. They want to see themselves as belonging to a country which is dominant, not dominated. That, even more than a love of democracy or even the parlous economy, lies behind the current distaste with a central regime which has made Iran an object of loathing in much of the world.
Russians look back at the days of the Soviet Union with fondness. Not because they pine after the time of the Gulag and omni-present Cheka (under whichever name) and pretending to work so the state could pretend to pay them. No. The Russian on the street remembers with warm feelings the time when the Soviet Union was respected (feared?) throughout the world. Putin's success has been based in large measure on having successfully restored much of that good old feeling in Moscow, St Petersburg, and points south and east.
For China, particularly the Han Chinese, the situation is similar. If anything, the enormous strides in economic prosperity brought in recent years by the fortunate combination of Beijing's decisions, Clinton era beliefs, and Walmart makes the Han prouder today of being Chinese than at any former time in recent history.
Only the "progressive" elites of the US and Western Europe fail to understand the persistence, prevalence, and power of nationalism as a motivator of human and governmental conduct. The politically correct of these elites may comfort themselves by thinking how "civilized" and multi-cultural they are compared to the hairy handed oafs of the common herd, but the comfort is false.
Worse than false, it is inherently destructive. Unless and until the Obama administration gracefully recognises and works with the power of nationalism and subjectively defined national interest, it is doomed to fail in its repeated efforts for "engagment" and searches for "a peace process."
Unless and until the Obama administration recognises the power of national interests in the conduct of other states' policy the US has nothing to engage. No shared basis for a "process." Diplomacy, like war, depends upon the accurate appraisal of one's own national interests and those of other states. Then, the diplomat, like the successful general, matches his strengths against the weaknesses of the opponent, and pushes hard to achieve a favorable outcome.
The US is at a disadvantage today as it attempts to deal with countries such as Iran, North Korea, or the Mideast states. These countries all recognise they are working from a strong foundation of self-defined national interests supported by a nationalistic public. We, or at least the elite currently running the shop here, just don't get it yet.
This means simply that the Obama administration and its supporters had best get a grip on reality or accept that our interests have been defeated before the game gets well underway.
No comments:
Post a Comment