Hawks and Doves and Foreign Policy

Jason Steck wrote a good, thoughtful post about “liberal hawks,” in response to Ezra Klein’s post, Ron Chusid’s post and, finally, my post on this subject.

Jason writes:

In regards to Iran, Klein’s criticism of the moderate position relies on a failure common among ideological purists — the inability to see anything other than purist options on the table. He casts the question entirely as about the use of force, as if the only available options are to bomb now or, as he prefers, to downplay the danger of Ahmedinejad and treat him instead as a man we can successfully work with. Klein fears that any recognition of Ahmedinejad’s possibly genocidal and totalitarian agenda feeds a “pro-war narrative” that must be avoided at all costs. In doing so, he makes the classic error of the ideological purist in consciously setting aside a honest evaluation of the evidence for fear that it may lead to the “wrong” conclusions.

Klein need not be so fearful. “Liberal hawk” moderates do not long for war with Iran, nor are they so bereft of intelligence and reasoning powers as to be incapable of articulating alternative ideas in the aftermath of failure in Iraq. We can, in fact, identify a specific middle way that avoids the errors of Iraq without giving in to a weak approach towards Ahmedinejad now. Many elements of this approach can be seen in U.S. policy now, including support for diplomatic engagements with Iran seeking to provide incentives as well as punishments, economic and technological sanctions that serve to limit or at least slow the ability of Ahmedinejad’s regime to pursue nuclear weapons, economic and cultural pressures that target his regime’s political repression, and, yes, the maintenance of military options in the background for use if (and only if) all other pressures fail and Ahmedinejad actually moves to acquire nuclear warheads and the means to use them for fulfillment of his openly-stated goal of the genocidal destruction of Israel. Contrary to Klein’s claims, planning for military action does not mean embrace of a “pro-war narrative”. The threat is real and serious and our tools are limited and fallible, but progress is possible, as prior success in South Africa and recent breakthroughs with North Korea have demonstrated.

This multifaceted approach is not vagueness, as Klein charges, but rather pragmatism matched with an appreciation for the complexity of the situation and the insufficiency of single tools or single ideologies operating alone. In his desire to “play gotcha”, Klein has missed the point: The best approach is a moderate approach.

Jason is, of course, quite right. Foreign policy requires a flexible mind - this means, among other things, that every and all options should always be on the table. The decision to go to war should not be made lightly (we can now conclude that Bush made this mistake regarding Iraq), but sometimes using force is necessary, no matter how much we dislike it. We have to weigh all pros and cons, we first have to use all diplomatic tools available but, in the end, force can never be ruled out.

It is interesting to see that this debate returns every now and then. During the Cold War there was the same debate going on in America: Barry Goldwater dealt with that in his book The Conscience of a Conservative.

Many doves also believe that the US should lead a major effort to destroy all nuclear weapons: the world must - according to these people - become a nuclear-free zone. This sounds nice in theory, but there is one major problem: the US is so powerful militarily because it has nuclear weapons. If it would destroy its nuclear arsenal, it loses its edge. China, for instance, has the potential to have a much bigger and stronger army than the US has both countries only have (and / or use) conventional weapons. If the US has nuclear weapons - and is willing to use them if absolutely necessary - China will not be able to take advantage of the size of its military. If it tries to, it knows that it puts itself at risk. If the US, however, destroys all its nuclear weapons, there will be no stopping China if China decides to invade one country or another.

Ron Chusid, meanwhile, argues:

The first fallacy here is to define hawk and dove in a manner favorable to his own position and unfavorable to the opposing viewpoint when they do not accurately describe the views of those labeled. Doves would counter that they are willing to use force when needed, but that hawks turn to force before exhausting other remedies. In other words, doves could also quote John Kerry, including the passage linked above, his warnings that war should only be used as a last resort, and his pre-war warnings at Georgetown for George Bush not to rush to war.

In having both sides quote John Kerry we see the ultimate fallacy of declaring some people to permanently be hawks and the others doves. While perhaps true of some, for many it depends upon the particular circumstances. Currently dove might be applied to those who oppose the Iraq war, while those in support are considered hawks. This is misleading as many of us who opposed the Iraq war supported the war in Afghanistan, and part of our opposition included the fact that the war was a distraction from the more important war against al Qaeda following the 9/11 attacks. Are those of us who supported one war and opposed another hawks, doves, or just sensible individuals?
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Labels such as hawk and dove simply fail to describe the views of many individuals, and when used it is a mistake to claim that doves “oppose using military force, because it is military force.” Statements such as this belittle all the arguments used against going to war, which is especially erroneous considering the degree to which the events which have unfolded have proven us right.

And that is - of course - where Ron is wrong. There are quite some progressives who are now calling on politicians to rule out using military force against Iran. They are not just talking about not using military force now, they are talking about not using military force ever. You can even hear them argue that Iran with a nuclear weapon will not be as bad, as dangerous, as hawks suggest. Next ‘argument’: Israel has WMDs as well, if Israel is allowed to have them, shouldn’t we allow Iran to have them as well? All in all, these people would never support using force to prevent Iran from developing WMDs.

Of course, there are also the ones who simply believe that the West should not strike against Iran now, but we are not talking about those people here (I mean, I am one of them). We are talking about people like Ezra Klein who believe that we should not talk about the bad things Iran does, because doing so might encourage haws to attack Iran.