How to Restore America's Place in the World

June 6, 2007 2:02 PM

Beyond Bush: What the world needs is an open, confident America.An interesting article from Zakaria Fareed.
posted by chunking express (42 comments total)

Perhaps you mean Fareed Zakaria? Also, this seems to be the same article he's been writing for the last 3 years or so.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 2:12 PM on June 6, 2007

I agree with the author's main points but, unlike Zakaria, I believe that Bush should be held legally accountable for the joke our country has become, for the tragedies he has caused in so many innocent people's lives, and for lies he has told to cause all of this to happen.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:16 PM on June 6, 2007 [4 favorites]

On the campaign trail, Giuliani plays a man exasperated by the inability of Americans to see the danger staring them in the face.

How can one fathom the fact that the guys that let us down the most on 9/11 are the ones that most frequently, and most vociferously play the fear card?

Giuliani was great in front of the cameras after 9/11, but how can you trust the guy who put the NYC crisis management center IN the World Trade Center when it had been attacked previously? How does any such person deserve our trust to be city dogcatcher, let alone President of the United States?
posted by psmealey at 2:19 PM on June 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

Personally I think America needs a quiet, boring president for a few years. Not going to happen, everything needs to be so gosh darned dynamic.
posted by edgeways at 2:19 PM on June 6, 2007

This article, though compelling, is unfortunately fraught with the same infantile naivete and blind idealism that led him to cheerfully back the invasion of Iraq. Zakaria is a passionate and effective writer, but this is mostly horseshit.

As for getting over Bush. I find myself making similar arguments that the wingnuts made (then, in my view, erroneous) about Clinton. Until we rein this guy in and make him accountable, forgiving him and moving on just makes the next guy to come along an ever greater menace. The system is broken, the President has run roughshod over the Constitution, and the congress and the courts have done little to fix the damage done.
posted by psmealey at 2:29 PM on June 6, 2007 [2 favorites]

Also, this seems to be the same article he's been writing for the last 3 years or so.

No this is a cover story not his column, which can be found here.
posted by sswiller at 2:30 PM on June 6, 2007

No this is a cover story not his column, which can be found here.

You miss my point.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 2:35 PM on June 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

The June issue of Harper's did a much better job of this, with eleven essays discussing in detail Bush's legacy (from science to the national character) and how the country might revert to an idyllic, pre-Bush state. Liberal porn, indeed.
posted by eddydamascene at 2:44 PM on June 6, 2007

Also, this seems to be the same article he's been writing for the last 3 years or so.

He's been right about everything for the last three years, unlike your fellow Republicans. If only more people would read him.
posted by bardic at 3:12 PM on June 6, 2007

The Harpers issue was great, but I don't think it's online -- at least without a subscription to the magazine. And yeah, I have his name ass backwards. damn it.
posted by chunking express at 3:16 PM on June 6, 2007

"You miss my point."

Do you want to continue making YOUR same point for three years, Monju? We're patient souls, here. =)
posted by ZachsMind at 3:17 PM on June 6, 2007

I want my country back.
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot at 3:24 PM on June 6, 2007

He's been right about everything for the last three years, unlike your fellow Republicans. If only more people would read him.

That's because people like Fareed Zakaria and Jonathan Rauch structure their arguments so that they can never be wrong.

monju hit the nail on the head.

I do like Zakaria, though.
posted by spiderwire at 3:26 PM on June 6, 2007

I believe the 2008 election really needs to be a major repudiation of George Bush's entire administration and policies to begin to repair the United States' global reputation. (Which really should have happened in the 2004 election.)

So far I haven't heard many of the candidates talk much about that. The Republican candidates are mostly differentiating themselves from Bush by saying they'd be even tougher, and the Democratic candidates are Republican-lite as usual.

I liked Ron Paul's comments on the roots of terrorism and blowback in the first Republican debate, but judging by the audience's response to Giuliani's idiotic oversimplifications, we're probably not going to get anything rational from the Republicans.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:28 PM on June 6, 2007

To be more precise, there are certain political institutions and writers who can end up constructing a beautiful argument for "keep doing basically what we're doing," no matter what the situation. It's conservatism-plus-plus.

It's this incredible Hayekian headfake that never fails. RAND has doing it in every study they've published since time immemorial. It's how Rauch can construct an astonishingly persuasive argument in favor of gay marriage and credibly come out on the other side saying, "ehh, but everything's cool the way it's going now."

And it's what Fareed Zakaria's been doing since the beginning of forever. These guys are the center of the center of the center -- they make these things that look, walk, and talk like passionate policy arguments that are, in fact, the exact opposite. It's astonishing to watch it in action, though. I actually like many things about what Zakaria and Rauch do, but it's important to see this for what it really is.
posted by spiderwire at 3:33 PM on June 6, 2007 [6 favorites]

Getting rich by being wrong
posted by homunculus at 3:34 PM on June 6, 2007

spiderwire, I'm not a Zakaria fanboi by any means, but for someone published in a center to right news magazine like Newsweek, he's pretty good. My reading of this piece goes basically along these lines: Stop making policy decisions based on wishes rather than reality, begin taking US troops out of the region but leave enough to prevent total disaster, come to understand that even if your intentions are good, American troops will always be seen as occupiers by a majority of the region.

Orwell said the hardest thing to do is to see what's in front of you. As a corollary, given the palpable damage done to the US by the Republican party over the last seven years, it's not like we need rocket scientists to tell us how to start making the country less of a joke (and our military less of a broken disaster). Zakaria is stating somewhat banal, somewhat obvious things -- a shame that 30% of Americans still think magical thinking, baby Jeebus, and a yellow-ribbon bumpersticker are all they need, and they can ignore simple logic.
posted by bardic at 3:36 PM on June 6, 2007 [3 favorites]

I believe the 2008 election really needs to be a major repudiation of George Bush's entire administration and policies to begin to repair the United States' global reputation.

The question isn't whether Bush will be repudiated. That'll happen no matter who wins. The entire GOP is already running from Bush like rats off a sinking ship. Don't delude yourself into thinking that the White House suddenly forgot how to do PR and spin after 6 straight years of doing it without missing a beat.

Doesn't it strike you as remarkably convenient that the entire party seems to be finding its soul after two terms of pillaging and burning that's all getting blamed on W? Dude probably doesn't even know what the hell just happened to him.
posted by spiderwire at 3:38 PM on June 6, 2007

(Although I agree that "centrist" is a rhetorical ploy. I'd argue that pundits like Joe Klein and Chris Matthews fall into this game, spouting "moderation" when in fact they say whatever it is that will get them more of a readership/viewership, but in Zakaria's case, at least he's something of a real reporter, and knows his facts. Not a stellar FPP by any means, but also one that doesn't deserve to be drowned out by monju_bosatsu's puking and mewling.)
posted by bardic at 3:39 PM on June 6, 2007

" Obama said in a speech in Chicago, "It's time to ... send a message to all those men and women beyond our shores who long for lives of dignity and security that says, 'You matter to us. Your future is our future'."

That's what Bush implied when there were no WMD--we would bring Democracy etc...

Most of this divides into two parts: anti-Bsh, GO_P rant--they are the problem; and the second half: we must regain confidence and we can do it and things are better than you or the Democratis think.

But confidence might also require: jobs with decent salares; health care coverage; decent housing, schooling, daycare etc etc
There is nothing here about domestic needs--and that is in part where confidence comes from.

He would like us to be not only cofident but "open." What does that mean? dump Homeland Security, stop being so picky at airports etc etc?
In sum: nice genralizations, good for him on Bush, but no specfics to give us the openess and confidence we says we need.
posted by Postroad at 3:40 PM on June 6, 2007

spiderwire, I'm not a Zakaria fanboi by any means

I actually really like Zakaria. The Future of Freedom is one of my favorite books. I'm just agreeing with monju that Fareed's arguments are constructed such that, like Rauch, he can passionately expose flaws while advocating a level of laxity that's totally out of proportion to the clarity of his insight. I find it bizarre, on a personal level.
posted by spiderwire at 3:41 PM on June 6, 2007 [3 favorites]

The entire GOP is already running from Bush like rats off a sinking ship.

Yeah, but look closely at how they're running -- it's not that Bush the Conservative was a failure, it's that Bush failed true Conservatism. Greenwald I, II.

Rinse, repeat.
posted by bardic at 3:42 PM on June 6, 2007 [3 favorites]

Although I agree that "centrist" is a rhetorical ploy. I'd argue that pundits like Joe Klein and Chris Matthews fall into this game, spouting "moderation" when in fact they say whatever it is that will get them more of a readership/viewership, but in Zakaria's case, at least he's something of a real reporter, and knows his facts.

See, this is the interesting question for me. I don't think that these are the same sorts of centrism. Chris Matthews and his ilk end up advocating vague, meaningless policies because he can't come up with a low enough common denominator (read: he's an idiot).

Fareed Zakaria and Jonathan Rauch end up not going anywhere because they see in too much detail and make the problems appear trivial.

As an aside, I think that Noam Chomsky manages a similar rhetorical effect, but without any of the insight.
posted by spiderwire at 3:45 PM on June 6, 2007

In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king yadda yadda.

Which is to say, we should be grateful if a majority of Americans could read this Zakaria piece and understand the major gist of it, and know who the players are in a basic sense (I doubt most US congressmen could give you a solid definition of who the Sunni, the Shia, and the Kurds are).

So until Metafilter becomes an arm of Political Science Quarterly, I think criticizing Zakaria for not being enough of a wonk is a little strange. But I do see your points.
posted by bardic at 3:53 PM on June 6, 2007

I believe the 2008 election really needs to be a major repudiation of George Bush's entire administration and policies to begin to repair the United States' global reputation.

I could not agree more. Having said that, I would put the portion of Americans caring about America's global reputation at somewhere between 5 and 10%. As a campaign issue, it's a non starter.

The GOP field -- other than Paul, who seems like a right honest bloke -- is nothing but a bunch of right wing stooges. Not a serious person among them.

On the Dem side, I think Edwards is the real deal, but he's somehow vulnerable to attacks from the left and right. With all the effort he's putting into Iowa, though, he might surprise us. Otherwise, while I love Obama's soaring rhetoric, but his healthcare plan was lame: too much handwaving. He needs to get more substance or else he'll be forever tagged as an empty suit. Hillary has money, but not much of anything other than more of the same. The rest of them are pretty hollow.

I'd argue that pundits like Joe Klein and Chris Matthews fall into this game

True that Klein is similar to Zakaria in approach and political orientation, but he's not nearly as intelligent nor as gifted a writer. But Chris Matthews? He's just a guy who says stuff on teevee to get reactions from people. I heard that he was once a speechwriter for a prominent Democrat, but I can hardly believe it as I have never heard a complete sentence from that guy.
posted by psmealey at 3:56 PM on June 6, 2007

So until Metafilter becomes an arm of Political Science Quarterly, I think criticizing Zakaria for not being enough of a wonk is a little strange. But I do see your points.

I think that they're two prongs of the same strategy. There's a narrative for mass consumption, and then there's a narrative for the wonks; Zakaria provides the latter. But just because he's making the arguments at a higher level of abstraction doesn't mean that those arguments don't serve the same basic purpose of reinforcing the status quo.
posted by spiderwire at 4:02 PM on June 6, 2007

Sure, he's not arguing for total and immediate withdrawal, but it's unfair to say he's arguing for the status quo. To wit, Bush is not going to do a single damn thing suggested in this piece.
posted by bardic at 4:04 PM on June 6, 2007

To wit, Bush is not going to do a single damn thing suggested in this piece.

I agree. I'm saying that I don't think the next President isn't going to do the things suggested in this piece -- or at least they'll claim such. The damage is long done.
posted by spiderwire at 4:16 PM on June 6, 2007

So you're admitting you think there's substantive policy suggestions in the piece, even though even a Democratic president wouldn't follow them? How does this jibe with Zakaria being a useless "centrist" then, in your opinion? I'm not seeing how both of these things can be true.
posted by bardic at 4:21 PM on June 6, 2007

Fareed Zakaria attended a secret gathering convened by Paul Wolfowitz in late 2001. The task at hand, according to a fellow participant, was to draft "a forceful summary of the best pro-war arguments" which became a blueprint for the Bush Administration's PR campaign... one of the war's crucial media proponents—apart from Zakaria's ubiquity and sterling reputation as a foreign policy analyst, his is by far the most prominent Muslim voice in the press—helped craft the arguments that Bush used to take the country to war.

Needless to say, Zakaria found the case for war a strong one. His role as confidential advisor to the administration was never mentioned though. And his most priceless bit of public prediction? A scenario for democratic revolution in the Middle East based on the idea that "oil goes to $10 a barrel." Today it hovers near $60.

When it became clear that the occupation was not going to be a happy affair, he became politely skeptical. Now that the failure of the Bush presidency and the Iraq war are assured, he has found in the Daily Show a forum and a fresh audience for becoming a savage critic of those same people he secretly helped a few years ago.

http://www.radaronline.com/features/2007/01/betting_on_iraq_4.php

Why does anyone listen to this guy?
posted by Bletch at 5:37 PM on June 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

I don't think he's useless, I think that he artfully expresses exactly what's going to happen anyway. Look carefully. What "substantive policy suggestions" does he make? I see:

1. Drawing down troops in Iraq to 50,000? That's a ceiling for future troop levels there, not a floor -- and they'll be in bases outside the population centers. Does anyone really think otherwise?

2. Engaging in Darfur? Talking about global warming? How controversial. I personally favor international pony distributions.

3. Engaging in the Israel-Palestine conflict? What, Lebanon doesn't even get a footnote?

4. Engaging with Iran while maintaining containment? That doesn't mean anything. "A nuclear Iran would be bad, but that won't happen." Huh? (This is a perfect example of how people like Fareed Zakaria structure their criticisms to be "right" no matter what happens. The entire section on Iran is complete drivel.)

Hm. So I'm confused now. What "substantive policy suggestions" are we talking about, exactly? Cause none of that sounds very substantive to me.

Ultimately, the only thing this article says is that we "should" shift to soft-power political options rather than the idiotic bluster of the Bush years. Yet it's phrased like this isn't exactly what's going to happen anyway, no matter who gets elected. He gets off a few jabs at the Republican candidates for being over-aggressive with their base, knowing full well that come the general they'll just say they were talking about the bad Muslims, and oh no, we like Muslims in general.

Look, everyone knows that moving to a soft-power strategy is what's going to happen, and not just for the beneficial purposes Zakaria suggests. It'll happen because it's cheaper, the failures aren't public, and because, frankly, we don't have any other options -- our military is deflated.

Like I said, the thing that Fareed Zakaria and the rest of the Hayekians are extraordinarily good at is coming up with creative reasons to just do the thing you were going to do anyway. The guy's smart, but he's an analyst, not a policymaker. Here, he correctly identifies all the major issues the next President will face, but then says nothing substantive about them at all, probably because he knows that the reality won't be what we say or do but how we do it -- the differences will be in the little things, like we appoint another Wolfowitz to the World Bank or someone who's not a complete horse's ass. That's what this election is about; Zakaria is here just exercising his prodigious capacity to state the obvious. He's written good stuff. This ain't it.
posted by spiderwire at 5:38 PM on June 6, 2007

Why does anyone listen to this guy?

Exactly what I'm talking about. Fareed Zakaria's job is to stay right smack dab on the curve while appearing to be ahead of it.
posted by spiderwire at 5:40 PM on June 6, 2007

Zakaria is a marginally smarter Friedman (not saying much here, I know), or a D'Souza minus the obsession for skin color -- he's that unique American phenomenon, the millionaire "analyst" who couldn't analyze his way out of a paper bag. and they're laughing all the way to the bank, the three of them.

not to mention Zakaria's secret role as consultant/PR man for the Bush administration in their "let's make some shit up about the Iraqians" shining moment should have gotten Zakaria happily fired from any reputable news organization. and from a few disreputable ones, too.
posted by matteo at 5:51 PM on June 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

Fuck Fareed Zakaria. I never wanna see another piece by that war-mongering apologist lying sack of shit ever again. The only reason people print his shit or read it is his ethnicity. He has been wrong about EVERYTHING. Seriously. Fuck him.
posted by tkchrist at 6:00 PM on June 6, 2007 [2 favorites]

The question isn't whether Bush will be repudiated. That'll happen no matter who wins. The entire GOP is already running from Bush like rats off a sinking ship.

That's why I said the policies need to be repudiated, not just Bush. Instead of saying we should double Guantanamo, the candidates should be saying Guantanamo is a national shame.

The problem for me is, there's the way it ought to be and there's the way it is, and I want it to be the way it ought to be.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:37 PM on June 6, 2007

Personally I think America needs a quiet, boring president for a few years. Not going to happen, everything needs to be so gosh darned dynamic.

You mean a civil service type, who can work with various groups and make key decisions to fix a lot of our country's problems, and perhaps stop going to war so much?

But..but then how would America have the biggest penis, exactly? I don't get it.
posted by davejay at 8:15 PM on June 6, 2007 [4 favorites]

That's why I said the policies need to be repudiated, not just Bush.

And I'm saying that they will be repudiated, but it's not the policies that are the problem -- as Fareed Zakaria demonstrates, you can get anybody behind a policy if you phrase it right.

It's the scumbags running the show that are the problem, and if it weren't so incredibly disgusting, I'd be impressed with how quickly the GOP has managed the maneuver they're in the process of pulling off right now.

Does no one else agree with me on this? Is it not just a little too convenient that these guys who seemed to have an iron grip on their spin story for five or six years managed to lose their grip at just the right time to absorb all the blame, but since they won't answer any questions (see: Alberto Gonzales) no one can seem to hold them accountable for anything?

Who ended up getting caught in the wringer? Ney, Cunningham, Abramoff, and Libby? Pretty good odds considering the billions and billions of dollars that got plundered, and the damage that'll all probably come to rest on a Democratic President and take years to repair, if it even can be.

I'm just feeling incredibly cynical right now. I can't help feeling that since 9/11, they've managed to be about three steps ahead on everything, even when it looked bad. Even when it seems like a light might be shining into the muck, as soon as I look away, it's gone. Wonder how Tom DeLay's doing today? (Guess our "overaggressive," "partisan" Austin prosecutor wasn't really all that.) Rick Santorum? Ari Fleischer? Trent Lott? Mark Foley? Ted Haggard? Jeff Gannon?

Bueller?

Bueller?
posted by spiderwire at 8:22 PM on June 6, 2007

Personally I think America needs a quiet, boring president for a few years. Not going to happen, everything needs to be so gosh darned dynamic.

Yeah, that "quiet, boring" meme has worked out reaaaaal well for the left for the last, I dunno, forever.
posted by spiderwire at 8:23 PM on June 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

It has set up secret prisons in Europe and a legal black hole in Guantánamo, to hold, interrogate and—by some definitions—torture prisoners.

Holy Fkucing Shit! He still needs to qualify and pause and clear his throat before saying that. I stopped reading after that.

If you ask me, we'd be all better off if a lot of Americans started reading Matt Taibbi. Sure, he's raunchy and foul-mouthed, but I'd take raunchy and real over fake and hand-waving sophistry that is Zakaria and Friedman.
posted by forwebsites at 4:43 AM on June 7, 2007

Fuck Fareed Zakaria. I never wanna see another piece by that war-mongering apologist lying sack of shit ever again.

And Thomas Friedman, Charles Krauthammer, David Brooks, Douglas Feith, Colin Powell, the editorial board of the Washington Post, ...

Honestly, why are these people still listened to? Why would anyone pay them to offer an opinion about anything? It's not like they made a minor error -- they fucked up on the most important public decision they could make in their lifetime. The cost of their stupidity is staggering, and will remain so for the foreseeable future. The sense of entitlement that prompts them to continue to tell the rest of us what they think about Iraq -- or anything else -- is astonishing.

What I don't get -- really, really don't get -- is what is going on in news producers' minds when they are putting together a piece about Iraq. Who can we invite on to prognosticate? Hmm... maybe I'll give Richard Perle a call. Yeah, that's what I'll do.
posted by Killick at 5:48 AM on June 7, 2007

Too bad Zukaria didn't note the sad fact documented by Antonia Juhasz, authoritative foreign policy analysis and author of "The Bush Agenda, Invading the World, One Economy at a Time" that if the Iraqi Hydro-Carbon law is passed, the war will have succeeded in it's major goal: to give US energy multinationals iron-clad access to Iraqi oil fields, with exploitative contracts that far exceed anything they've been able to negotiate with other oil-rich nations. The book's just been released in paperback and is well worth reading. Also, you can go to her website www.thebushagenda.net. Juhasz had a op ed in the NYT Whose Oil Is It, Anyway? March 13th, 2007 which explains this point -- unmentioned and perhaps unseen by Zukaria -- that the fundamental aim of the Iraqi war was simple: Exchange of U.S. and Iraqi Blood for US Multinational Control of Oil.

There's been some suggestion that a state-by-state organizing effort aimed at getting state legislators to take a look at documentation of this simple "Blood for Oil" equation could be the backbone of a effective human rights-campaign. The campaign's goal would be to convince the people of Iraq that:

1) we understand the horror of the war for their citizenry(as well as for our own soldiers and their loved ones).
2) we support the protection of Iraqi oil resources against the exploitative demands of Big Oil.
3) We want the Iraqis to be able to effectively rebuild their country as a prosperous and peaceful place as soon as the US military comes home.
posted by E. Liz A. Beth at 7:01 AM on June 7, 2007

Interview with Juhasz from yesterday.
posted by homunculus at 10:16 AM on June 7, 2007