Criticisms I Wouldn't Have Made

One of Rudy Giuliani's foreign policy advisors is Martin Kramer (about which more later), who has a blog called "the Sandbox" from which he propounds his view that the problem with US Middle East policy is that it's unduly influenced by people who are knowledgeable about the Middle East, and insufficiently under the thumb of people like Kramer who recognize that the only thing these brutes understand is force. At any rate, from Kramer's sidebar I followed a link to Eli Lake's New York Sun article in which Giuliani criticizes Bush's foreign policy for being too favorable to the Palestinians.

This is, perhaps, not entirely unexpected from a man whose entire foreign policy resume consists of having been rude to Yasser Arafat once, but still: It's inane.

Comments

Matt, I don't think you see the full appeal of Rudy.

One of the sickening things - in my gut, anyway - about this administration is that for all of their blustering and chest-thumping, you really get the idea that Rove-Bush-Cheney, the people who finance their campaigns, and even a large part of their base following, wouldn't really mind if the War on Terror became a War without End. War gives them a sense of purpose, a sense of relevence in a world that has long since passed them by.

One of the appealing things about Rudy, and Norman, and the people who surrond them is: you don't get the sense that they take this as a ploy to increase their own personal political power. They really, truly, hate these people. And would like nothing more than to see them dead, and soon.

And frankly, good riddance to bad rubbish.

Posted by JFD | August 15, 2007 4:56 PM

I notice McArdle's coming over. I'm sure my comment about it won't be published.

Posted by SavageView | August 15, 2007 5:10 PM

Mr. Yglesias, this post of yours is disgraceful.

If you've got proof that it's Kramer's view that "the problem with US Middle East policy is that it's unduly influenced by people who are knowledgeable about the Middle East," or that "the only thing these brutes understand is force," than you should have provided it. Immediately.

These are strong and highly inflammatory claims. A vague promise of "more later" simply doesn't cut it.

Shame on you.

Posted by Steve Burton | August 15, 2007 6:08 PM

What a complete hatchet job on Martin Kramer. I guess we should all just listen to Edward Said disciples who think Israel shouldnt exits.

Posted by Dave | August 15, 2007 6:10 PM

No, they mean policymakers to closely tied to the Saudi and emirati funders; who really think that
getting rid of Israel will solve the multiplicity
of issues, that the Arab world suffers from. Whose
perspective is not to use one example; Richard Bulliet's concern over perceptions that Arabs were behind first WTC bombing; but not the fact
that they carried it out.

Posted by narciso | August 15, 2007 6:17 PM

You have to love how the crazies always bring out their random bogeymen, such as Said, without any actual reason. Basically the criticism devolves into we should never listen to what Arabs or any group of Arabs actually want.

Posted by Reality Man | August 15, 2007 6:59 PM

Matt, you say his resume seems to consist only of being rude to Yasser A. But if wikipedia is right, his resume also includes connections with Israeli-lobby friendly institutions like the Washington Institute for Near East policy and Israeli-lobby friendly professors like B. Lewis and F. Ajami, as well as well as 'campus watch' efforts to keep track of scholars and scholarship critical of Israel. You misunderestimate his credentials.

Posted by otto | August 15, 2007 7:10 PM

Kramer's posted a response on his blog, which is right on the money:

I have my share of critics, especially in Middle Eastern studies, but I don't recall a criticism of my views as crude as this one. So I eagerly look forward to the substantive sequel to this glib little sentence...

Matt basically calls Kramer a racist without providing any evidence at all. I also look forward to Matt's future posting. I hope Matt at least has the decency to show some embarrassment for his unfair name-calling.

Posted by Ragout | August 15, 2007 7:42 PM

Martin Kramer? Oh, the guy who complained that,

"At any moment in time, it is Israel that can turn Nasrallah either into a cinder or a shadow figure like Osama bin Laden, reduced to sending defiant missives from some basement or cave. And Israel can scatter the big chiefs of Hezbollah like the United States scattered the Taliban. This has to be the objective--bin Ladenization of Nasrallah, Talibanization of Hezbollah--and it is not beyond reach. Of course, bin Laden and the Taliban still exist, but they aren't a regional or global factor. That is the objective here as well."

Precisely the sort of insightful and pragmatic advice that we need for the next president of the US.

Oh, and don't forget this gem about collective punishment:

"Of course, no one faction in Lebanon is in a position to disarm Hezbollah, and neither is the government. Only Shiite opinion can achieve this. So it is up to Israel to demolish Hezbollah's argument that its arms deter Israel. Israel must demonstrate the opposite: that Hezbollah's arms invite Israeli attack, especially against Shiites. Only if the Shiites themselves realize this, and only if they become the main source of criticism of Hezbollah's strategy, will Hezbollah feel compelled to modify it. This will not happen overnight; it could take months or years."

Because there's nothing in the world that more bombs can't solve. Matt nailed him for exactly what he is.

Posted by faux facsimile | August 15, 2007 7:50 PM

Mr. facsimile: you seem to have a hard time providing quotations that actually support your position. What are you on about?

Posted by Steve Burton | August 15, 2007 8:53 PM

Have a little faith, Mr. Burton. MY has stated his intention to more thoroughly explain his opinion regarding your little hero.

Posted by Gordon Lightfoot | August 15, 2007 9:12 PM

Mr. Lightfoot: my "little hero?"

Wha-huh?

Posted by Steve Burton | August 15, 2007 9:56 PM

What a complete hatchet job on Martin Kramer. I guess we should all just listen to Edward Said disciples who think Israel shouldnt exits.

"The gist of the neo-conservative attack on Middle East scholars is that MESA has been taken over by a crowd of post-colonial studies/post-modernist extremists inspired by the late Edward Said's book, Orientalism ... Martin Kramer's Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle East Studies in America , is the fullest expression of that argument. Kramer argues that Edward Said is responsible for what went wrong in American Middle East studies, and a good deal else besides.

Kramer explicitly denigrates several scholars whose approach to modern Islam he deems faulty: John Esposito, John Voll, Richard Bulliet, and Fawaz Gerges. But any careful reading of their work will reveal that while they differ with Kramer's understanding of modern Islamic movements, their work does not reflect the slightest intellectual influence of Edward Said, cultural studies, post-colonialism, or post-modernism – all things Kramer abhors. Similarly, Kramer pours scorn on Roger Owen, Philip Khoury, Robert Fernea, Elizabeth Fernea, Michael Hudson, Rashid Khalidi, and Augustus Richard Norton for their interpretations of modern Arab politics. But, with the partial exception of Khalidi's Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness , their rather traditional, empiricist methods also reveal no evidence of Said's intellectual influence. What is common to all these scholars is that despite the variety of their work and their negligible affinities to post-anything, they are more critical of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians than Kramer and his enthusiasts are willing to tolerate. And since their opinions are also more critical of Israel than the views commonly presented in the U.S. mass media, it is possible to make a case – a woefully uninformed one to be sure – for Kramer's position."

http://www.stanford.edu/~beinin/New_McCarthyism.html

Posted by Peter H | August 15, 2007 10:02 PM

Let's be honest, 99% of all MESA members are hostile to Israel and the surest way to tenure in middle eastern suddies in the US is to deny Israel's right to exist.

That is why Nadia al-haj is up for tenue at Baranrd based on her sole publication that includes no original research that argues that ancient Israel is a total fabrication made up by modern day israeli archaeologists.

Posted by Dave | August 16, 2007 1:10 AM

"At any moment in time, it is Israel that can turn Nasrallah either into a cinder or a shadow figure like Osama bin Laden, reduced to sending defiant missives from some basement or cave. And Israel can scatter the big chiefs of Hezbollah like the United States scattered the Taliban."

Yeah, that worked REAL WELL last summer.

Which is why they're going to try it again soon, in coordination with the US attack on Iran. This time, the Israelis want to take out Syria, too, since they blame Syria for arming Hizballah (when they're not blaming Iran for being the source of the arms they say Syria is allowing to be transported across Syria to Hizballah,)

Colonel Pat Lang says the IDF may attack Syria from the Golan Heights, roll on to Damascus, then cut left and try to come in on Hizballah's flank in the Bekaa Valley.

Good luck with that one! The end result will be Hizballah handing Israel it's head from the front, while the remainder of the Syrian military uses guerrilla warfare to Israel's rear. Apparently the smart boys in the IDF never heard of the notion that fighting a "two front war" is not a good idea. Apparently they want to copy Hitler's military strategy as well as his racial policies.

As for Israel not having the "right to exist". let's see whether Matt can pull a Josh Marshall and ban me for having that position (even though I actually didn't at that time.)

Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish state. The UN had no legal authority in 1948 to partition Palestine in any way except to establish the goals of the Palestinian Mandate. The UN ignored its own commission set up to explore that issue, and went ahead because it felt the issues on the ground could only be dealt with by partition. The partition failed.

It's time to reconsider that decision. In my view, the Israeli State is a rogue, terrorist nation. It should be declared such, disarmed of its nuclear weapons under pain of total economic isolation, and forced to return to the borders set for it during the 1948 partition - not even the 1967 borders, the 1948 borders - pursuant to the establishment of a Palestinian nation. The right of return of all Palestinians should be guaranteed by the international community. The sovereignty of the Palestinian state to be set up should be guaranteed by the international community against any Israeli military actions.

I'd go further - in my view the Israeli state should be utterly dismantled and its military disarmed. Security of Jewish citizens of the resulting Palestinian state from any punishment by that state should be guaranteed by the international community in the same manner as the security of the Palestinian citizens from punishment by the Israeli state (prior to its dismantlement.) And of course, given the number of Jewish citizens of the new Palestine, the Palestinian state will be required to secure the security and civil rights of those citizens in exactly the same manner as the Palestinian rights are secured.

And this time the UN needs to enforce civil rights in the resulting state - unlike the present situation where, due to US veto, Israel can ignore any UN vote it doesn't like.

In other words, the international community needs to say to the resulting Palestinian state, "Screw up - total economic boycott until you collapse."

And right now, they need to do the same to the Israeli state: total economic boycott until it disarms, eliminates the occupation of Palestine, pulls back to the 1948 borders and agrees to the establishment of a replacement Palestinian state.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | August 16, 2007 1:16 AM

And this time the UN needs to enforce civil rights in the resulting state - unlike the present situation where, due to US veto, Israel can ignore any UN vote it doesn't like.

Actually, the US Veto is part of the UN Charter. It sounds like you want the UN to be something like the comic-book Justice League.

Posted by Ragout | August 16, 2007 4:55 AM

Actually, the US Veto is part of the UN Charter

Indeed it is. Though the part where the US veto is delivered with an Israeli hand up the US Ambassador's rear end isn't stipulated.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | August 16, 2007 6:06 AM

Actually, the US Veto is part of the UN Charter

Actually, the great power veto was put in the Charter at the insistance of the Soviets, and it used to be a point of US pride (and propaganda) that we didn't use it. Reagan changed all that, however, beginning the abandonment of this country's commitment to being a good global citizen . . .

Posted by rea | August 16, 2007 8:42 AM

If a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged by reality, a lot of liberals have been mugged by forces in the Middle East multiple times but have come away none the wiser. They still remain pathetically attached to a view of human nature that considers people to be naturally good and rational. Anyone who is not acting morally and reasonable is acting that way because of something that somebody did to them. If the "somebody" would stop doing the "something" to them, then the "bad actors" would behave better. These assumptions about human nature affect liberal arguments with regard almost all areas of public policy: 1) criminals are criminals because of something society did to them; they could never have free will and make their own decisions to become criminals 2) poor people are poor because rich people made them poor; they could never be poor because of personal decisions that they made 3) people become alcoholics or other kinds of drug addicts because our society is so awful that they feel compelled to do so to escape the miserable life that has been forced upon them. I am generalizing here but assumptions about human nature are what fundamentally divide liberals and conservatives. A conservative does not think that all people are naturally good or rational. A conservative believes that a few people might be naturally good and rational but not all. Most, if not all, conservative thinkers believe that a large minority of people are irrational, thinking reeds who can be bent to almost any course of action imaginable, no matter how heinous or unreasonable.

Posted by Mentat | August 16, 2007 10:05 AM

Er, Mentat? It is my understanding, furthermore, that white folks be drivin like this and black folks be drivin like this.

(Mentat: Hee, hee! It's funny 'cause it's true!)

Posted by ajay | August 16, 2007 11:40 AM

Ajay:

But we are thinking reeds, not rational creatures. Our patterns of thought and action lead to destruction and brutality as often as to kindness and enlightenment. I do not wish to speculate about the sources of our dark side: Are they evolutionary legacies of "nature red in tooth and claw," or just nonadaptive quirks in the operation of a brain designed to perform quite different functions from the ones that now regulate our collective lives? In any case, we are capable both of the most unspeakable horrors and the most heartrending acts of courage and nobility - both done in the name of some ideal like religion, the absolute, national pride, and the like. No one has ever exposed this human dilemma, caught between the two poles our nature, better than Alexander Pope in the mid-eighteenth century:

Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, a being darkly wise and rudely great ... He hangs between; in doubt to act or rest; In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast; In doubt his mind or body to prefer; Born but to die, and reasoning but to err;

Only two possible escapes can save us from the organized mayhem of our dark potentialities - the side that has given us crusades, witch hunts, enslavements and holocausts. Moral decency provides one necessary ingredient, but not nearly enough. The second foundation must come from the rational side of our mentality. For, unless we rigorously use human reason both to discover and acknowledge nature's factuality, and to follow the logical implications for efficacious human action that such knowledge entails, we will lose out to the frightening forces of irrationality, romanticism, uncompromising "true" belief, and the apparent resulting inevitability of mob action. Reason is not only a large part of our essence; reason is also our potential salvation from the vicious and precipitous mass action that rule by emotionalism always seems to entail. Skepticism is the agent of reason against organized irrationalism - and is therefore one of the keys to human social and civic decency.

Stephen Jay Gould

From the foreword to Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition and Other Confusions of Our Time by Michael Shermer

Posted by Mentat | August 16, 2007 12:54 PM

Matt,

I was similarly displeased, although not surprised, when I dug up information on Kramer and Chris Hill. If you're interested take a look here on my post re: Team Giuliani:
http://jungleland-jdext.blogspot.com/2007/08/briefly-on-team-giuliani.html

Posted by Jeff Dexter | August 16, 2007 3:05 PM

Kramer responded on his blog. He called Matt "glib". Kramer pointed Matt to one of his lecture's last fall. The lecture show's how 'serious' Kramer is. Here's a representatively brilliant quote from Kramer:

"I could give you lots of examples of "engagement-think," but I will confine myself here to one relating to Hamas. U.S. policy toward Hamas has been to isolate it, sanction it and give Israel a wide berth to punish it. None of this has moderated Hamas, but it has arguably diminished its popularity.

So is the "arguably" supposed to establish Martin Kramer's intellectual honesty? But, give him credit, this is closer to "the only thing these brutes understand is the cold-shoulder" rather than "the only thing these brutes understand is brute force". Regardless, it did seem inane when I read it.

Posted by keatssycamore | August 16, 2007 3:10 PM

You're not making sense now, Mentat -- in your first post it would appear that you are singling out the Middle East, sans Israel, as a group that does not exist under the 'good and rational' umbrella. Ignoring the jingoistic elements of that statement, this flies in the face of your ascribing 'darker motives' to mankind in general, regardless of the vagaries of national identity, in your second post. What gives?

Posted by EpicureanQuaker | August 16, 2007 3:44 PM

EpicureanQuaker:

If you read Kramer's speech, he describes how the incurably optimistic views of mankind that many people have lead them to try the big ideas, as Kramer describes them, of peace, globalization and democracy, to try and "fix" the Middle East. The newest big idea, "engagement", is, as Kramer points out, also "... another case of unfounded, unwarranted, unjustifiable optimism about the Middle East."

As Kramer concludes in his speech: "A process has to start of disabusing Americans of the notion that the pathologies of the Middle East have one root cause and one grand fix. There are many different pathologies in the Middle East and no single fix. For some of the pathologies, alas, there may be no fix at all."

Thus the connection between my two posts is this: the view of human nature that liberals tend to have (that people are naturally good and rational) have led them to constantly make mistakes about the Middle East. It really is a problem of cognitive egocentrism:

http://www.theaugeanstables.com/reflections-from-second-draft/cognitive-egocentrism/

COGNITIVE EGOCENTRISM

The projection of one’s own mentality or “way of seeing the world” onto others, e.g., the teenager who is obsessed with sex, and assumes the same about everyone else. In the current situation of globalization, cognitive egocentrism has its greatest impact in the political relationships between people coming from civil societies and those raised in prime divider societies. Since the basic political principle of Prime divider societies is “rule or be ruled,” “do onto others before they do onto you,” political actors from those cultures assume the same zero-sum, domineering intentions in their opponents (the “enemy”). Since the basic political principles of civil societies is “I’ll give up trying to dominate and trust you to give it up as well,” “if I’m nice to you, you will be nice in return,” assume positive-sum attitudes in their opponents (the “other”). The current situation testifies to a dangerous mis-apprehension that works to the distinct disadvantage to civil society. The media, in particular, as the representative of civil society, emphasizes its role as empathizer, often failing to defend civil society, even exposing it to danger.

LIBERAL COGNITIVE EGOCENTRISM (LCE):

The projection of good faith and fair-mindedness onto others, the assumption that “other” shares the same human values, that everyone prefers positive sum interactions. In a slightly more redemptive mode, LCE holds that all people are good, and if only we treat them right, they will respond well. This is a form of empathy that, like MOS, aspires to the radical victory of justice, and robs the “other” of his or her own beliefs and attitudes. It projects onto rather than detects what the “other” feels.

Posted by Mentat | August 16, 2007 5:09 PM

"Apparently they want to copy Hitler's military strategy as well as his racial policies."

Class.

You're waking up with fleas, Matt.

Posted by Knemon | August 16, 2007 5:55 PM

Matt,

Listening to your commentary on the Middle East is a lot like listening to Barry Melrose's commentary on basketball -- surface knowledge and a profound lack of understanding.

So please -- will MY or any of the MY supporters on this Board please tell me -- by name - one "moderate" member of Hamas and what qualifies such person as moderate?

I'm waiting.....

Posted by ILP | August 16, 2007 5:59 PM

Well, the neighborhood bully, he's just one man,
His enemies say he's on their land.
They got him outnumbered about a million to one,
He got no place to escape to, no place to run.
He's the neighborhood bully.

The neighborhood bully just lives to survive,
He's criticized and condemned for being alive.
He's not supposed to fight back, he's supposed to have thick skin,
He's supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in.
He's the neighborhood bully.

The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land,
He's wandered the earth an exiled man.
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn,
He's always on trial for just being born.
He's the neighborhood bully.

Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized,
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize.
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad.
The bombs were meant for him.
He was supposed to feel bad.
He's the neighborhood bully.

Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim
That he'll live by the rules that the world makes for him,
'Cause there's a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac.
He's the neighborhood bully.

He got no allies to really speak of.
What he gets he must pay for, he don't get it out of love.
He buys obsolete weapons and he won't be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side.
He's the neighborhood bully.

Well, he's surrounded by pacifists who all want peace,
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease.
Now, they wouldn't hurt a fly.
To hurt one they would weep.
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep.
He's the neighborhood bully.

Every empire that's enslaved him is gone,
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon.
He's made a garden of paradise in the desert sand,
In bed with nobody, under no one's command.
He's the neighborhood bully.

Now his holiest books have been trampled upon,
No contract he signed was worth what it was written on.
He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth,
Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health.
He's the neighborhood bully.

What's anybody indebted to him for?
Nothin', they say.
He just likes to cause war.
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed,
They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed.
He's the neighborhood bully.

What has he done to wear so many scars?
Does he change the course of rivers?
Does he pollute the moon and stars?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill,
Running out the clock, time standing still,
Neighborhood bully.

Posted by ILP | August 16, 2007 6:01 PM

"…1) criminals are criminals because of something society did to them; they could never have free will and make their own decisions to become criminals 2) poor people are poor because rich people made them poor; they could never be poor because of personal decisions that they made 3) people become alcoholics or other kinds of drug addicts because our society is so awful that they feel compelled to do so to escape the miserable life that has been forced upon them."

Mentat, this is a ridiculous stereotype; liberals don't actually believe these things all. If 1) was the case liberals would actually be out there calling for prisons to be torn down.
In your twisted mind, you may think you're referring to the process of rehabilitating those in prison who are not there for life. Of course, I happen to believe it's good to try to give people who are not in prison permanently job skills so they have less of a chance of ending back up in prison.

2) Yes, of course poor people can be poor because they made choices. (Your mentality doesn't seem to leave room for the possibility of luck, however--you agree that someone could work really hard and still be poor because of bad luck, right?)
What we're saying is that it's probably better for everyone involved--better for America-- if these people don't A) starve or B) get poor-quality medical care just because some of them *may* have made bad choices. You remember that kid in Maryland who died because his mother couldn't afford a $40 tooth pulling? Or are you saying he deserved to die? If not, what would your solution be? (bear in mind as you answer that 18,000 American per year die because they don't have health insurance.)

3) Addiction is of course, a medical disease. Those who commit crimes while addicted should be held accountable and sent to prison. Those who are only addicts should have the addiction--alchoholism, drug addiction-- treated, by whatever means necessary, so they can function better in society.

There. Glad you got a look at the worldview of an ACTUAL liberal. (I doubt it'll make a difference.

(I don't suppose you have any quotes to support any of your "liberals believe" proposition.)

… Most, if not all, conservative thinkers believe that a large minority of people are irrational, thinking reeds who can be bent to almost any course of action imaginable, no matter how heinous or unreasonable.

Oh, trust me, after 7 years of the Bush administration, we've come around on this one.

"The second foundation must come from the rational side of our mentality. For, unless we rigorously use human reason both to discover and acknowledge nature's factuality, and to follow the logical implications for efficacious human action that such knowledge entails, we will lose out to the frightening forces of irrationality, romanticism, uncompromising "true" belief, and the apparent resulting inevitability of mob action."

Jesus God. YOU'RE talking about rationality? A guy from the party that supports creationism, doesn't believe the scientific evidence on global warming, a guy whose party by and large believes that the WMDs that never existed has actually moved to Syria?? Tell me what, Mentat--tell me what you're doing to help improve the rationality of the deranged members of the Republican party. Otherwise, STFU. Seriously.

(I guess this is what happens when you get linked to by NR, Matt…)

Posted by Greg | August 16, 2007 7:53 PM

Greg:

You are assuming that I am a Republican and that I belong to a political party. I do not belong to any political party and believe that those who do check their brains at the door as they join. I think that every public policy issue has to be examined on a case by case basis. Although I have generalized above to make a point, my views are not so simplistic as you would suppose.

Posted by Mentat | August 17, 2007 1:11 AM