"Beware the Soft-Line Ideologues." That was the headline
of David Frum's and Richard Perle's column in the Wall Street Journal
on January 7. The authors, fellows at the American Enterprise Institute,
complained vociferously about the failure of prominent Americans and
the media to understand the wisdom of the neo-conservative hard-line
foreign and security policies.
They advocate "vigorous, decisive action, including readiness to
use military power, against the terrorist enemy," the very same
policy President Bush has been pursuing all along. Frum served him as
special assistant, Perle as chairman of the Defense Policy Board. Their
column identifies other prominent hard-liners: "Cheney, Rumsfeld,
Wolfowitz, Abrams, and so on."
Hardliners, the authors explain, oppose the soft-liners' advocacy of
conflict resolution by way of diplomacy and the United Nations. Soft-liners
predominate among "the professionals at the State Department championed
by Secretary Colin Powell and his deputy, Richard Armitage; some veterans
of the first Bush administration, like former National Security Adviser
Brent Scowcroft; and some current and former intelligence and military
officials." The former chief of the Central Command, General Anthony
Zinni, is also identified as a soft-liner. Actually, most Americans
who have served their country in the Mideast tend to favor accommodation
over military intervention.
Frum and Perle claim, albeit without documentation, that soft-liners
"are driven by ideology, who ignore or deny inconvenient facts
and advocate unworkable solutions. It is the hard-liners who are the
realists, the pragmatists."
Regrettably, the authors fail to give a single example of a neo-conservative
position that helped reduce terrorist attacks worldwide and diminished
the seething anger among Muslims about the Bush administration's unilateral
interventions in the Middle East, particularly the injection of money
and weapons in support of Israel's hardliners.
Frum and Perle severely criticize Secretary Powell's call for dialogue
with Iran. On the Palestinian issue, they speak essentially with the
voice of Prime Minister Sharon. To them the root cause of the conflict
is not the oppressive and bloody occupation of the West Bank and Gaza
but the Palestinian resistance to it. To them, it is the unarmed Palestinians
who are bent on destroying Israel. What happens to the Palestinians
in the face of an Israel armed to the teeth is apparently of no concern
to Frum and Perle.
No development since September 11, 2001, supports the neo-conservative
view that the war against diffuse, widely dispersed, and clandestine
terrorist organizations can be won with armed force alone. When, for
example, Allied troops invaded France in 1944, the victorious end of
the war was predictable. Now, although American troops occupy Afghanistan
and Iraq and hundreds of real and potential terrorists have been incapacitated,
nobody can predict when, where, and how terrorists might strike next.
The end is not in sight.
The neo-conservatives in the U.S. and Israel do not seem to understand
that conquests and occupations ultimately cannot reduce hatreds and
tensions between peoples. Only patient public diplomacy--dialogue and
acts of good will--can bring about rapprochements. The world learned
that convincingly after World War II in the relations between the Allies
vis-à-vis Germany and Japan.
America's neo-conservatives are actually neo-contrarians, throwbacks
to the discredited colonialists and imperialists of a bygone era. They
are unwilling or unable to see the non-military openings on the present
world scene: dialogues with Libya, Iran, and Syria; collaboration on
the prevention of terrorism between the U.S. and most governments worldwide;
and support of the pacification programs for Afghanistan and Iraq in
various ways by virtually all Western allies.
All too often the Bush administration has failed to accentuate the positive
in order to improve the political climate and create incentives for
more support. What used to be a major tool of American foreign policy
is now woefully lacking: public diplomacy that promotes our national
interest through understanding, informing and influencing other societies
on the grassroots level.
Ironically, none of today's leading hard-liners have ever served either
in a peace corps setting or in military combat.