|
Snowcroft’s managerialism
Managerialism, a concept often referred to at VFR in relation to the liberal social order, also describes the way some foreign policy experts would like to order all of our international relations—including our confrontations with dangerous adversaries. In an interesting article at National Review Online, John Derbyshire portrays Brent Snowcroft (who recently came out against a U.S. war on Iraq) as an exemplar of such managerialism. Concerning the Mideast in general and Iraq in particular, Derbyshire concludes: “What seems to me increasingly unarguable is that the time for managerialism, for understanding, for ‘peace processes,’ is past, and the time for confrontation nigh.”
Meanwhile, Patrick Buchanan asks: “Has Bush been mouse-trapped into war?” The mousetrap in question is the president’s own foolishly bellicose threats against Iraq last January which committed him to war months before he would be in any practical position to wage such a war, so that if events in the interim forced him to abandon his war plans his credibility would be shattered. This is one point on which even those who favor a war against Iraq can agree with Buchanan.
Comments
More bluster from the neoconservative crowd. So let me get this straight: In the Middle East the managerialism of the neocon empire-builders has failed, so the only solution now (according to Derb) is to listen to the neocon empire-builders and bomb the hell out of Iraq? To apply a little “attitude adjustment” to those rebellious Arabs? To annihilate those who “hate us and spit on our values”? He’s got to be kidding. But I don’t think he is. This kind of thinking would be amusing if it weren’t so deadly, so clearly prone to lead to mass murder in the Middle East and an emboldened police state in the US. Posted by: William on August 20, 2002 4:27 PM |