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Hanson urges MacArthur-style regency
Victor Davis Hanson is certainly a strange mixed case—half tragic historical realist, half triumphalist neocon utopian. I found his recent article about the importance of pre-emptive warfare convincing, but in the current Weekly Standard he takes the Norman Podhoretz line that we must—and can!—take over every country in the Mideast and rebuild it into a modern peaceful society, much as Gen. MacArthur did to Japan.
Now, I don’t view it as inherently irrational to say that remaking the entire Muslim Mideast is the only way to defeat that poisonous genocidal culture that threatens the whole world. But is there any conceivable scenario in which such a policy would be practicable?
Comments
Larry, It was a quite lengthy piece admitting we may be losing our most populous state to Mexico. Then, he drops the subject and hasn’t written about it since. I wonder why? He says we are losing California through immigration, so he wants to colonize the enter Middle East. The result of which would be bringing the Middle East here. Hanson is a typical neocon. He occasionally sounds sensible, then backtracks to utopian idiocy. Posted by: David on October 20, 2002 12:02 PMMr. Hanson wrote to me to say that (unlike Norman Podhoretz) he does not advocate the overturning of every country in the Mideast and does not believe in the possibility of imposing “democracy” per se, at least at present, on those countries. He also rejected the description of his views as utopian. I replied, quoting his article, that he certainly seemed to be advocating the imposition of democracy on the whole Mideast. After he explained things further I summed up his position as follows and asked him if I had it right: LA to VDH: Ok, I understand your position to be: 1. Invasion and overthrow of Iraqi regime, and of any other governments that threaten U.S. security; 2. Reconstruction of those countries with more consensual forms of government; 3. The hope that this would help trigger, with our further encouragment, the creation of consensual forms of government for a significant number of other Mideast countries, but not for the Mideast as a whole. 4. Leave aside the goal of “democracy” for the time being. Is this a fair summary? He replied: “I would want more than just “threaten,” but threaten in such a way as to show an ability to kill hundred of thousands of Americans without warning or what we saw as cause. And I would say if not democracy now, then consensual government as an evolutionary step toward democracy.” I appreciate Mr. Hanson’s efforts to clarify his views. He is an intriguing writer but also, as I’ve already noted, one who seems to entertain within himself somewhat contradictory instincts and world views, with a kind of tragic realism on one side and an expansive American triumphalism on the other. Let us see if in his future articles he continues to advocate merely a more “consensual” form of government for the Mideast or if he comes out for the early institution of “democracy” per se. |