Strange Praise

Much like the Iranian exiles Anne Applebaum praises today, I think the Holocaust did, in fact, take place and that Holocaust deniers are bad people. The lead of Applebaum's column, however, is fairly strange. She analogizes these Iranian exiles to the exiled Bolsheviks of pre-WWI Russia, and criticizes those who doubted the Bolsheviks could bring revolution to Russia. The German government eventually decided that since Lenin and his party supported surrender in the first world war, that Germany should sponsor the Bolsheviks, and provided transportation for Lenin to return to Russia along with funds and other forms of support in the very early days of the revolution. Lenin took over Russia, signed the treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany, and managed to set into motion in Russia a series of incredibly horrifying events that Applebaum herself has documented.

Nevertheless, she appears to be arguing that this German policy toward Russia should serve as a model for America's approach to Iran. Why not count on exiles? After all, they might turn out to be just like the Bolsheviks! An odd, odd woman.

Comments

Even setting aside that irony, is there really much point in comparing the chances of revolutionary success in a feudal country and a modern, if theocratic, state? I would have thought Soviet or Czech exiles would have been a better point of comparison. It's a rather bizarre piece, in that its only discernible point seems to be that not all Iranians are anti-semitic Ahmadinejad followers. Which is hardly news.

Posted by Ginger Yellow | January 23, 2007 12:36 PM

I was curious why the more obvious analogy didn't leap to mind - Ayatollah Khomeini was an exile in Iraq when the Shah was overthrown. He is almost a direct analogy to Lenin/Trotsky - an exile who came home to take over a revolution that began without him. Of course there are many, many exiles who never succeed, generally these are the ones trying to restore an older older. Unfortunately the White Russian generals making utopian plans in Berlin cafes are probably a much closer analogy to today's Iranian exiles than Trotsky.

But no one would ever lose money betting on Applebaum to get the issues all muddled up.

Posted by vanya | January 23, 2007 12:42 PM

Vacuous, yes, but it could be worse. It's not like she's spinning these noble exiles into an argument for war against Iran. She's obviously ignorant of the German angle from WWI (since she doesn't mention the Germans at all) so I don't see where you get that she want to use that as a model for US policy. Not in this column, anyway. A columnist who writes about Iran these days and *doesn't* rattle the saber -- well, I'd say there are worthier targets.

Posted by Ryan | January 23, 2007 12:46 PM

Trotsky, almost single-handedly, signed the treaty of Brest-Livotsk, if my memory of Isaac Duetcher's masterpiece is accurate.

Posted by rickm | January 23, 2007 1:32 PM

Remember when we supported all those Iraqi exiles, and now we have a peaceful, democratic Iraq? That was awesome.

Posted by M. Duss | January 23, 2007 1:34 PM

I think it's just an example of pundits getting the Obscure Reference Bug. It isn't important that the reference be apt. It's that the reference should exist. Points for trying. She writes for a newspaper.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | January 23, 2007 2:09 PM

Good lord, Jeff Davis - the Russian Revolution now counts as an obscure reference? How about some more of those recondite figures of historical lore, like George Washington?

vanya gets it exactly right: Iran already had its revolution led by a weird exile who was ridiculed during his days in Paris. His name was Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Posted by brooksfoe | January 23, 2007 2:35 PM

Well, she does hang out with a lot of people who are apparently ex-Trotskyites.

Posted by brendan | January 23, 2007 2:43 PM

I'd never really noticed Applebaum's columns in the WaPo until the morning after the 2004 election, when she said in her column:

I need to point out that even if you are a die-hard Bush supporter from rural Texas or an angry pro-Kerry liberal from urban Boston, the worst possible outcome today would not have been the victory of your opponent. The worst possible outcome would be, and will always be, a repeat of Florida 2000: lawyers, spin doctors, courts and protests that would drag out the result past last night. That is because a disputed outcome, whoever is doing the disputing, would do far more damage to the country in the long term than anyone's worst Bush nightmare or anyone's worst-case Kerry scenario, whether a declaration of war against Syria or the nationalization of private medicine or the appointment of a Supreme Court justice who believes in creationism.

That, of course, was bullshit even then - Bush had done far more damage to the country by late 2004 than anyone would have dreamed the Florida 2000 fiasco did. How anyone could have seriously thought that, I still have no idea. But that morning, I went from being essentially unaware of her, to regarding her as a joke.

Posted by RT | January 23, 2007 3:03 PM

I'm starting to suspect there's some kind of contest among MSM pundits in which points are given for coming up with the silliest, most intellectually half-assed material. The field, long dominated by the heavyweights Dowd, Friedman, and Hitchens, has broadened greatly in recent months.

Posted by James Gary | January 23, 2007 3:25 PM

Ahmed Chalabi. Need I say more?

Posted by Alex R | January 23, 2007 3:58 PM

Vanya's observation (12:42) is probably correct wrt the relative status of today's Iranian exiles. However, my take, reading through Anne Applebaum's piece, was that her main thesis was not that said exiles were a lot of latter-day Bolsheviks waiting for the "sealed train" home; but that they served, rather, as a sort of voice-of-conscience: in pointed contrast to Pres. Ahmadinejad's cheapjack hate-mongering. Unfortunately, leading off with an anectdote about Trotsky tended, imo, to skew the whole point of the column: towards "Huh?" rather than "Hmmm...".

Posted by Jay C | January 23, 2007 5:56 PM

The crux of the matter is that the German general staff during WWI sponsored Lenin's return to Russia when Russia was in the midst of a revolution, to try to eliminate their (Germany's) eastern front problem. The difference with Iran situation is that there is no ongoing revolution against the current ruling powers in Iran. Lenin and his revolutionaries did not foment a revolution, they took advantage of an ongoing home-grown revolution--and it was not that early on when they did so. So there was actually something of a power vacuum in Russia that Lenin could take advantage of. As far as I can tell, there is nothing similar currently going on in Iran.

Posted by raj | January 23, 2007 11:10 PM

Why are we even discussing Anne Applebaum?

That sick, confused bitch sacrificed all claim to credibility the day she decided to smear Adam Michnik (!!) as some kind of Communist sympathizer because he didn't support the McCarthyite 'lustration' programs in eastern Europe.

Fuck her.

Posted by moron | January 24, 2007 10:41 AM