Black Coffee

Everyone admired George Kennan and his famous "long telegram" and, indeed, everyone wants to be the George Kennan of the post 9/11 era. One thing that's little noted, however, about Kennan's piercingly insightful essay on how the United States should structure its policy toward Russia was that it was written by America's ambassador to the USSR who was, in turn, a longtime specialist on Russian and Eastern European issues, and his analysis was based on deep engagement with and knowledge of Russia and the Soviet Union. In other words, as US policymakers turned from a focus on Germany (World War II) to a focus on Russia (the Cold War) they turned to Russia experts for their insights. One might have expected something similar to happen after 9/11, but it didn't, overwhelmingly because what longtime students of the Middle East had to say wasn't convenient for the pre-existing political agendas of America's bipartisan national security elite. Instead of getting analyses representing the range of views actually existing in the field, we got Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami, two people ready to tell policymakers what they wanted to hear.

This is all by way of lengthy introduction to Qahwa Sada ("Black Coffee") "a new blog-journal by Middle East experts, edited by Marc Lynch of Abu Aardvark." Lynch and his blog have been an invaluable resource for me as I've tried to understand these issues and he has a great roster of contributors lined up. I expect it to become a must-read resource.

Comments

If I understand you, you are claiming that Bernard Lewis is not an expert on the Middle East?
Sk

Posted by Sk | October 13, 2006 9:49 AM

It's just a small point but Kennan was not the US ambassador to Moscow at the time although he was a diplomat at the embassy there. He was briefly the ambassador a few years later, although it didn't work out so well.

Posted by pt | October 13, 2006 9:51 AM

Bernard Lewis is a total hack. He knows very little about the Middle East and has a decidedly pro-Israeli and Orientalist outlook, an outlook that is in the extreme minority within Near Eastern Studies departments at the top universities. It is for this that he is sought out by MSM as a "mid-east expert". The fact that his son is/was an AIPAC staffer also helps his cause.

Posted by AA | October 13, 2006 10:32 AM

Sk, that's a highly slanted reading of what Matt actually said. He's not contrasting Lewis and Ajami with people with expertise, he's contrasting their advice with "analyses representing the range of views actually existing in the field". (And I'll note that Lewis's scholarly expertise is centered around the Ottoman Empire, while Lynch's is centered around contemporary Middle Eastern politics and Arabic-language media. If you were looking for someone to explain the dissolution of the Soviet Union to you, would you first ask someone who knows everything there is to know about the downfall of the tsars?)

Posted by Steve | October 13, 2006 11:49 AM

Everyone admired George Kennan and his famous "long telegram"

Actually this is false. The same sorts of people who say "if the Democrats want to be taken seriously in terms of foreign policy, they should be more like Truman and JFK" back in the day vehemently criticized Kennan, either for being too soft on the Commies or for being insufficiently isolationist. Let us liberals not forget the fundamental dishonesty of the "bring back Truman" crowd who view the proposals of those of us urging "containment" as tantamount to capitulation as if the only choice was between isolationism/capitulation or constant military intervention.

Of course, given the bifurcated nature of the criticisms of Kennan and his modern heirs, let us not forget the degree to which those who display this dishonesty are merely projecting their view that containment=capitulation onto us. What's truly pathetic is how much these people lack imagination: if anticipating 9/11 was a failure of imagination, why do so many still consider the most banal voices in foreign policy to be the only serious ones? We'll never have a better foreign policy if our society keeps rewarding those with bad ideas and punishing those with good ideas.

Posted by DAS | October 13, 2006 1:04 PM

Bernard Lewis' status as "hack" was reaffirmed when he predicted -- based on a cryptic reaqding of an old Khomeini speech -- that the world would end this past August 22. That he continues to be taken seriously is one of the great mysteries of our age.

Posted by d | October 13, 2006 2:54 PM

I think there is and was a low opinion of "regional experts" generally. I remember talking to an Iran expert at Georgetown University, who had published two books on Iran, and he was explaining to me that learning Farsi (much less Arabic) did not offer a good return on time invested. Apparently he relied on CIA translations for all his info. And look at what a typical political scientist like Dan Drezner said (before the war) about the uselessness of regional expertise. All you need are you rational choice models, not the ability to read right to left.

Posted by kmpbj | October 13, 2006 4:40 PM

The example of Kennan illustrates just how American foreign policy experts are utilized by our government. Kennan's views were misused to justify a hardline containment, involving force if necessary. His actual regional expertise was ignored, just as Chinese experts were ignored in constructing policy towards China, Southeast Asia experts were ignored in Vietnam, Middle East experts ignored in the case of Iran and Iraq, and so on.

Posted by Clark | October 14, 2006 9:53 AM