Jonah Goldberg has a neat op-ed piece on the "I" word--isolationism. He notes that the term is generally a misnomer--non-interventionism does better--and that its application solely to figures on the Right conveniently overlooks similar views on the Left. "[N]on-interventionism would have been discredited for a generation" had Iraq been a success. "Now interventionism has been mortally wounded. But one thing stays the same: Whatever position conservatives hold is evil, while the liberal view is wise and just. But don't you dare call it isolationist." The world is turned upside down when the "conservatives" embrace the foreign policy of Woodrow Wilson and Jimmy Carter and the "liberals" sing to the tune of Robert Taft and Calvin Coolidge.

If Goldberg truly thinks "isolationism" is a misleading word meant to misrepresent the views of opponents of aggressive interventionism it woulda been nice if he pointed that out about, oh, three years ago. Back when his online and paper mag was berating conservatives who opposed the Iraq War as traitors and terrorist lovers it would have been honest (if not even courageous) for him to point this out. Now, it is just mere opportunism from the "intellectuals" who are conveniently ignoring their responsibility for an unjust war and the deaths and mutilations of thousands.

He is doing a good job joining George Will, Ledeen, Krauthammer, et. al., on that crowded corner filled w/ the neocons who lied us into war that now are trying to cover their tracks so as to maintain their credibility as part of the punditocratic elite.

.....

Frankly, imo what he is up to here is the typical neocon move to continue to define themselves as the "acceptable" "conservative" opposition. Note, that his essay is directed against liberals who admittedly do have the track record of calling the right "isolationist" as a scare tactic to stifle debate. Yet, it was he and his allies on the supposed right who push so hard for interventionism (just the same as the TNR and Clinton Democrat crowd) and attack their opponents on the traditional right as isolationist. By now telling a story where the liberals are calling the likes of HIM isolationist the neocons are ensuring that no real debate is even NOW allowed over U.S. foreign policy b/c he is defining out of the mainstream those to the right of the Scoop Jackson neocons.

So we will continue to be left with the dominance of a neoliberal/neoconservative TNR and NR elite which completely agrees on interventionism and U.S. global hegemony and just squabbles over the details in order to continue the charade of a two-party system.

Notice that NONE of the three quotes come anywhere close to advocating isolationism. They show only a mild, polite skepticism about creatings democracies through war, invasion, and occupation. When he says that isolationism is false, I guess that is his target.

Even then, it would have been nice of him, and mildly courageous, to say this three years ago. I'm with Bruce here. Instead, his magazine was publishing that hit-piece by Frum banishing (by way of guilt-by-association) any conservative opponents of the war from conservatism. I remember the NR staff cowardly congratulating each other on the Corner for the magazine's "courage".

Mass-insanity, to which they contributed. Cowards indeed.

For what it is worth--maybe nothing--I basically agree with Bruce Wayne on this topic.

I do not think that Goldberg's an*lysis is very deep. I do not even think that the left/right normative framework with regard to intervention has changed as much as he lets on. It is really an issue-by-issue case. Most lefties believe that the United States should intervene in foreign countries if there is a humanitarian crisis (the government is slaughtering a group of innocent civilians, genocide, etc.). Most lefties believe that the United States should not intervene if the only justification for doing so is really predicated on self-interest--i.e., personal vendetta, oil, greed and so forth. Thus, lefties tend to believe that the United States should intervene in Darfur and other such places, but should not invade places like Iraq, Iran, etc.

Most righties argue that we should intervene if America's safety is in danger--i.e., to use Cheney's term, the 1% doctrine means that the United States should intervene or attack if there is a 1% chance that another country may attack us first and kill a significant number of people.

This framework shows why almost no clear-headed person still supports the Iraq war. On the left, there is no humanitarian crisis in Iraq (no genocide, no slaughter of civilians by the government, etc.) so our soldiers are not serving any good purpose being there. On the right, it is now CLEAR that Iraq does not pose a threat to us (and never did anyway), so there is no point in our troops being there.

Goldberg, a righty, miscalculated and claimed that Iraq posed a greater threat to us than it obviously ever did. This was a grave error. He called for a war; he got the war and now it is plain that his justification for the war was completely off-base. This is inexcusable. I do not think he has any credible when he speaks on this issue. He is just trying to dig himself out of the deep mudpit he so enthusiastically dove into.

Reader:

"Most lefties believe that the United States should not intervene if the only justification for doing so is really predicated on self-interest--i.e., personal vendetta, oil, greed and so forth."

Please.

more accurate: Most lefties believe that when rightwingers want to intervene internationally, the only justification for doing so is really predicated on self-interest--i.e., personal vendetta, oil, greed and so forth.

Skeptic:

I do not know what the "please" is for. You do not appear to be disagreeing with my framework. Your point is that lefties and righties may disagree about what is considered predicated on self-interest. No kidding. Did you ever notice that the sky is blue?

My post provides a normative framework that I believe lefties and righties use when evaluating whether the United States should intervene/attack a foreign country. It does not posit that lefties and righties will always agree about when one side or the other is correctly applying their own framework.

I began to notice this when Clinton was bombing Kosovo. When liberals oppose a war they do so because they want "peace" but when conservatives oppose war they do so because they are "isolationists." Regardless of whether a conservatives supports or opposes a war, he gets the pejorative.

Goldberg's hypothetical statement:
"If Iraq was a "cakewalk," non-interventionism would have been discredited for a generation." Is so preposterous I feel I need to mark it.

What does he suppose a "cakewalk" would entail? That we would have simply taken out Sadam, found WMD's, and established a fully functional Democracy in Iraq? The description what we are doing in Iraq has been so varied and vague, to present a hypothetical situation like that is meaningless at best--to paraphrase Kant "milking the proverbial he-goat."

And, to play off of a point I've seen many people on this blog make, any card carrying conservative should be offended that he links conservative ideology to that of the Bush administration and what is going on in Iraq. I think.

r.c.

I no longer know who W's constituency is. Government employees that rode his campaign to their present jobs? Corporate America? Neo-conservatives? Hicks ecstatic about ethanol subsidies? Shiite Muslims? Who?

If you are an intellectually-honest liberal or conservative you have to hate this guy. If you are an intellectually-honest liberal, you have to be offended by W's shots at gays to score political points, his unrelenting devotion to the failed Iraq war and his opposition to stem cell research--just to name a few points. If you are an intellectually-honest conservative, you have to be offended by W's fiscal irresponsibility and his habit of rubber-stamping 100% of the bills that come across his desk.

I have not heard an impassioned defense of the W presidency in over a year. Are any of you conservatives still backing this guy? On what basis do you support him? Hypothetically, if he could run for re-election would you really vote for him over Barack Obama or John Edwards? Why?

Reader: please again.

Righties also don't believe that we should intervene internationally when the only motives are greed and power.

Your "normative framework" has simply repeated the self-serving self-understanding of leftists. But it can't explain why leftists favor some wars yet oppose all wars sought by the right -- even when the motives are so clearly (as in the case of Iraq I) benevolent, or (as in the case of Iraq II) self-defense mixed with benevolence.

There's a yuck. Barack Obama and John Edwards? Wow. Talk about two of the lowest democrat common denominators. I know that was contrived to make your point Reader. Pretty funny.

Skeptic:

Thanks for that second "please." I imagine you must have good table manners. Now on to the merits of your last post.

"Righties also don't believe that we should intervene internationally when the only motives are greed and power."

No kidding. So what? Is that an observation? Who said otherwise?

"Your 'normative framework' has simply repeated the self-serving self-understanding of leftists."

Too many selfs there!

"But it can't explain why leftists favor some wars yet oppose all wars sought by the right -- even when the motives are so clearly (as in the case of Iraq I) benevolent, or (as in the case of Iraq II) self-defense mixed with benevolence."

Very easy. Leftists oppose wars unless the wars are for humanitarian reasons--i.e., a government is committing wholesale genocide. I already wrote that. Please re-read above.

ASDF:

Glad you have a sense of humor.

And, obviously, so do you Reader.

The media will prop up the leftist framework for war whereas they will do their utmost to tear the framework down if the person in office is of the right. If a Republican had invaded Yugoslavia like Clinton did then media reports would have stressed that we didn't get UN approval, oil was a possible factor, and the claims of the administration were exagerrated (100s of thousands murdered vs 2k in what was a civil conflict).

Obi Juan:

I think that the Clinton administration overstated the case for attacking Yugoslavia, but the misstatements were nowhere near on the scale of those we heard from the Bush administration with respect to Iraq.

In Yugoslaiva there was a humanitarian crisis. There was genocide. There was one ethnic group trying to wipe out another ethnic group. These are reasons why lefties typically believe attacking another country is justified.

It is true that the Clinton administration did not get U.N. approval for attacking Yugoslavia--which lefties have pointed out--but you neglect to mention that the operation was carried out by NATO rather than the United States.

In short, I will agree with you that the media should have been a little more critical and skeptical of the Yugoslavia attacks than they were. However, the media gave the Bush administration a free pass! In general, the mainstream media takes a wait-and-see approach with invasions. That was true in both Yugoslavia and Iraq (where there were not calls opposing the war initially).

This double-standard you people are imagining is fanciful.

Reader: was that supposed to be a response to me? Hardly convincing.

You repeated a vane self-portrayal of leftists, and then called it a "normative framework" that supposedly explains why and leftists do or do not support a war. My point is very simple: saying "letists don't like wars for greed or domination" doesn't explain shiit, if we grant that rightists also don't.

But thanks for the hilarious example of how polisci works as an academic discipline. Repeat a biased leftist BS-line, and then use some fancy phrase to describe it so that it seems like its "science" or "theory". "normative framework" my foot.

All you really need to know about our two relatively diverse political groups is demonstrated by how their leaders handle conflict and controversy.

Clinton is still absolving himself by lying for past indiscretions and deflecting any critcism of his failed and flawed administration.

Bush, weather you agree with him or not (and I don't agree with him most of the time), has the gonads to make very tough decisions and act on those decisions. And when he fails, he admits it.

These are the obvious differences between a lying spineless weasel and an adult MAN who takes responsibility for his actions and not coincidentally the differences reflected by members of the parties.

Skeptic:

You are missing the forest for the trees. My normative framework is that liberals tend to favor invasions/attacking foreign countries only where there is a humanitarian issue. Conservatives tend to favor invasions/attacking foreign countries when the United States is in danger or a vital interest of the United Stats is in danger.

You have yet to provide a counter-example that would rebut this framework. Instead, you have provided lots of rhetoric lacking substance. Your rhetoric, by the way, is on the order of what I would expect from a third grader.

ASDF:

Your last post has a delusional quality to it. Bush may be headstrong and quick to make decisions, but he is not one to apologize. It took him how many years after the Iraq invasion to admit he didn't exactly get that right? And how is he remedying the mistake he now admits he made? By sending 20,000-40,000 more of our troops over to Iraq to dodge sniper bullets, exploding cars and land mines!

If the mark of a good president is the number of American soldiers he has sent to needless deaths, then Bush is easily better than Clinton.

You say that Bush has gonads. Perhaps that is why he put his own life on the line by serving his country in Vietnam. Actually, wait a minute...

Delusional? I would consider that and more to be a supreme quality of the left. Typically you guys resemble children who won't accept responsibily and choose to deflect blame by pointing the finger at somebody else. All the while feeding off of either actual or perceived failure. You and your ilk are doom and gloomer, glass is always empty folks and are typically afraid to make real stands on anything that you might fail at. Gutless.

This was an expectedly smug response Reader. And don't go talking about war heroes when your guy was avoiding service at Oxford while heading up the campus Socialist Club and smoking dope. Without inhaling.

Nice ad hominem attack you made there. Hey, I guess when the facts and logic are against you all you can do is insult the person you are debating.

Your attempted rebuttal completely misses the mark. You claimed that Bush has "gonads" (your term). I stated that he does not, and I explained why he does not. Rather than defend your man, you attack Clinton! What does Clinton have to do with the question of whether Bush has gonads?

Fess up. Bush has no gonads. If he had gonads he would have served in Vietnam. He has taken the easy road his whole life. He attended his father's prep school, attended his father's college, relied on his father to get his first few jobs, relied on family connections to dodge the draft, etc. Now you are saying that he has "gonads" for sending 20,000-40,000 more troops into Iraq to be shot at and blown up? How does that take a lot of "gonads" on his part? I think "spineless" is the word you were looking for; "gonads" does not cut it.

Reader: Let me first say that there is really no arguing with you folks thus no legitimate rebuttal. In an argument, the possibility has to exist for one side to see the other side's point of view and to potentially come to some agreement. As was demonstrated in the old Monty Python skit, your tact is contradiction.

As President of the United States, there are some very difficult decisions that have to be made. Bush was thrown into a unique place in our history and, whether he wanted to or not, and based on the best information and advice available to him found it necessary to make certain difficult decisions. This is what World Leaders do. Right or wrong (and isn't hindsight wonderful that we all now know that some of those decisions were wrong) he cast off political expedience and forfeited popularity, and probably any chance to be favorably remembered by history, to do what he considered to be the right thing to do to protect this nation.

"You say that Bush has gonads. Perhaps that is why he put his own life on the line by serving his country in Vietnam. Actually, wait a minute..."

You know as well as I that the term "gonads" means that he had the spine and fortitude to make the tough decisions where Clinton would not. I really don’t think that any President sits in the White House rubbing his hands together gleefully and uselessly sending troops into battle. As neither one distinguished themselves, using the military service example was just the same old typically dumb liberal smoke and had nothing to do with the point.

You know what Reader, I'm not enamored with this guy either but you Lefty A-holes just hate him just to hate him. Wouldn't matter what he did.

Again, you are unhappy, miserable doom and gloomers who are not even happy with your own. This is why your party tends to implode. And, you probably kick small animals as well!

ASDF:

Actually, Clinton made some tough decisions. What about his work on welfare reform? His welfare reform proposals were not popular with the black community or with liberals but he shepherded them through regardless. In that instance he put his neck on the line and did what he thought was right regardless of political
expediency.

In contrast, invading Iraq was politically expeditious when the decision was made. The Neo-cons in Bush's administration were all on board and indeed wanted to invade Iraq within minutes after the first plane crashed into the first Tower. The National Review was on board. The Weekly Standard was on board. Cheney was certainly on board and advocated the invasion. Almost all of Bush's constituency was on board. Bush did not have the gonads to oppose those within his own party and administration who were beating the war drum. Rather, he surrendered to the mob and made the easy decision to placate the mob and invade Iraq. It did not take gonads to do that--quite the opposite.

Most liberals do not hate Bush to hate him. I would not mind having a beer with the guy personally. But I think he has proven to be a terrible president and his record is simply atrocious. Financially, he has set us back about fifteen years in terms of national debt. His poor decisions have caused the deaths of thousands of American soldiers, and he has turned many of our former allies (such as Britain) into our enemies. We are now hated around the world (including in Iraq).

To respond to your last point: actually, I'm very happy with my life. I make lots of money, I love my job, I have a very attractive girlfriend, I live in a beautiful apartment in an exclusive area and I am in great health. I love animals, and pet dogs when they rub up against me in the elevator. You are the one that seems bitter.

Yeah, he really stuck his neck out on welfare reform. National Security issues took a major backseat because those would have required taking very tough politically incorrect stands. Something that the "polling" President would never do.