History Lesson

Fred Kaplan's Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power won't be in stores for a few months yet, but it's terrific stuff, mostly focused on how the disasters of the Bush foreign policy stem from Bush's bad ideas rather than some lack of "competence" and that what's needed to replace them isn't just better people, but better ideas. Some of it, though, is good old fashioned mocking of the dumb stuff Bush says and does. For example:

For several months afterward, as the insurgency morphed into sectarian civil war between Sunnis and Shiites, President Bush invoked the elections to dispute that anything of the sort was happening. "I hear a lot about 'civil war,'" he said at one press conference. "The Iraqis want a unified country. . . . Twelve million Iraqis votes. . . . It's an indication about the desire for people to live in a free society."

But it indicated no such thing. Had Bush looked at his own country's history, he would have seen that the election sporting the highest turnout ever, with 83 percent of the eligible population voting, was the election of 1860 -- the election right before the American Civil War.

Get it? At any rate, I'm afraid you may buy only one Eric Nelson-edited book about American foreign policy published by John Wiley & Sons in 2008, and if so I want to make sure it's my book and not Kaplan's that you buy. So whatever else you do, don't buy Fred Kaplan's book! But if you can borrow a review copy from a blogger friend or something, it'd be well worth your time to read it. Might even whet your appetite for someone else's book....

Comments

I don't understand the disjunction between the quality of ideas and competence. I've always thought (and found in experience) that a large part of competence consists in revisiting one's original ideas as they conflict with reality and making sure that you never act on "ideas" that as often as not simply gut-level prejudices. That and forming and carrying out policy by welding the abilities of people who start with different "ideas" but a common goal.

You (or maybe I should say "some of us") saw something similar with John Paul II's terrible bishop appointments in Germany and particularly Austria -- it wasn't that Ratzinger and JP II had different ideas, the difference was that Ratzinger was a far more competent manager and judge of personnel.

Posted by Gene O'Grady | November 11, 2007 1:32 PM

Gene:
How do you know Ratzinger is a more competent manager?

Posted by Joe Klein's conscience | November 11, 2007 2:08 PM

It seems like the subject is weighty enough that it shouldn't come with a title that has me humming.

Posted by DonBoy | November 11, 2007 2:12 PM

Gene says "I don't understand the disjunction between the quality of ideas and competence."

Obviously incompetents are more likely to have bad ideas, and to stick with them. The point is wether or not the initial attack of Iraq was a bad idea, or was it a good idea that is failing do to incompetence. If you want more attacks of other countries by hopefully more competent commanders, then you need to convince people the idea was good, only its execution was poor.

Posted by Grogor | November 11, 2007 5:45 PM

Two replies I owe:

Grogor (?) -- I'm not quite talking about "The idea was good, the execution was poor." The "ideas" I'm interested in are things like promotes the interest of the country, makes the world a better place to live, and such. Invading Iraq per se isn't really an idea, it's a strategy or tactic to reach that kind of goal, and only an incompetent sticks with it or uses as a model for the future.

But then I suspect that the idea behind it all was that in response to what -- the sixties? feminism? -- there was a deep and abiding faith in the transfiguring power of violence. That's not so much an idea as simply worshipping a false god, an irrational action based on irrational sentiment, but a motive that was more likely to be correctly analyzed (as it was) by the pope and the archbishop of Canterbury than by a team of "International Relations" professors.

Mr. Klein's conscience -- It's hard to be very precise about why I feel Ratzinger is a better manager than John Paul II, but that seems to be the reputation both of them have. Part of the reason it's hard is that so much of what one "knows" about the Vatican and its workings is based on tendentious leaks (when does one believe John Allen, and about what?) and repeated stories, sometimes the same story told about three different people. However, I was involved enough in the Catholic Church in 90's ("Bankruptcy John" Vlazny has driven me to another church, a la Rod Dreher but in the opposite direction, but that's a different story) to know at least that the appointment of bishops was an utter mess, and it seems Ratzinger as pope is really rethinking the process.

On a more public note, the reopening of the Maciel process (where John Paul's handling was sort of a less ethical version of Bush's treatment of Scooter Libby) and its disposition does indicate to me that Benedict is much committed to the integrity of the process and had the skill to bring about what was almost certainly the best resolution without giving the guy a chance to be a martyr as a 93-year old on trial without being able to defend himself. Note also that he moved Levada to Rome, who distinguished himself in San Francisco by being able to make most people happy on the issue of gay partner benefits for people employed by Catholic Charities.

Apologies to Mr. Yglesias for horning in on his real estate.

Posted by Gene O'Grady | November 11, 2007 10:52 PM

Sorry, Matt. I'm going to buy Fred's book. At least he, unlike you, knows the facts about how we got into Iraq in the first place.

After twelve years of trying to bring the war we were dragged into by Saddam Hussein to a satisfactory conclusion, "regime change" was not a bad idea. At least not as bad as spending tens of billions of dollars and not a small amount of blood enforcing a sanctions regime that killed perhaps a million of the most vulnerable Iraqis while enhancing the regime's grip on power and enriching its collaborators. It was also not a bad idea to insist that in an increasingly dangerous world, Chapter VII Security Council Resolutions should mean what they say.

It was an extremely bad idea to invade Iraq without sufficient troops, then throw away "ten years of work" (according to Anthony Zinni) that had been done by the State Department and Central Command on how to occupy the place, and substitute some combination of the College Republicans and FEMA to do the job. It was evidence of the same kind of partisan myopia and total innocence of history that I often see in this column. Having read some of Kaplan's posts from Iraq, I expect he'll fill in whatever blanks remain.

American voters appear likely to be, again, presented with a choice between the lesser of two evils in '08. I'm at least somewhat hopeful this time based on the fact that none of the leading Democrats anticipate "getting out of Iraq" before 2013.

Posted by Robert Powell | November 12, 2007 8:22 AM

Robert is half-right, which is actually saying a lot for folks around here. The "sufficient troops" issue raises the question, from where? The ten years of work he mentions didn't include, you know, actually planning to have enough troops and enough equipment to do the job.

MY, you've written a book on foreign policy? Yikes. What's next? A book on brain surgery?

Go ahead and get to law school already. With time you can be the next Sandy Berger.

Posted by Thomas | November 12, 2007 9:32 AM

We have nearly three million people in uniform, Thomas. This was never something we couldn't do, just something we couldn't do with both hands tied behind our back and a public that's been mobilized to support the war effort by going to the mall.

Posted by Robert Powell | November 12, 2007 5:42 PM

Robert, tell me what troop rotation schedules look like in your world. How many on the ground in Iraq, and for how long? Oh, I know, if we'd sent 500,000 to begin with, we wouldn't have needed any to stay. Right, that's the way to plan. (Was that the plan you referenced?)

What was the plan, pre-Bush, for mobilizing the public to support the war? I don't recall anyone from the Bush administration linking support for the war in Iraq with "going to the mall"--what on earth are you referring to? Some statement made in the immediate aftermath of 9/11? If that's what you're referring to, you must see that it's moronic.

Posted by Thomas | November 13, 2007 1:24 AM

The plan went under the title of "The Future of Iraq" in the State Dept. CentCom had significant input, and plans of their own. They involved better security initially (including a list of important sites to guard), local sheiks and other notables with whom to manage a transition to an Iraqi provisional government, and a reasonably expeditious move of US combat troops to "over the horizon" deployments in support of it. This was the plan Gen. Jay Garner went to implement before he was inexplicably replaced by Bremer & Co.

Posted by Robert Powell | November 13, 2007 2:20 AM

Oh yeah, the "shopping plan" was a Bush statement encouraging the public to keep consuming. Nothing I'm aware of beyond this was ever suggested as a way for the public to be mobilized in support of the war--no new taxes, no increase in the number of available infantry (until it was too late), really nothing. Yes, moronic.

Posted by Robert Powell | November 13, 2007 2:23 AM

Robert, was the "shopping plan" related in any sense to the war in Iraq? The answer is no, isn't it? I do like the suggestion that the answer to ever question is new taxes. For some, opposition to the war comes down in some way to the fact that it didn't serve as an excuse to raise taxes. But, tell me, what sort of tax would have "mobilized the public"? Surely not an increase in marginal rates--that would be too narrowly cast to really mobilize people. No, I think only an increase in a regressive tax, like the payroll tax, would really serve the purpose you intend. Is that what you think should have been done? Maybe a 1% increase in the payroll tax, capped at $100,000, so everyone gets to pay their fair share.

Why would we need an increase in the number of available infantry, if, as you say, we'd been planning for 10 years? Why wasn't that part of the plan during those years, instead of something to think about after the war went wrong? Why won't you say how many troops would have been required to implement the plan, and what troop rotation schedules would have looked like? Is it now your suggestion that if the "right plan" had been adopted, we wouldn't have had to worry about such questions? (Isn't that itself a failure of planning--if this plan relied on finding a certain kind of Iraq and thus insisted on an occupation force that couldn't be sustained over time, it isn't a good plan.)

Posted by Thomas | November 13, 2007 9:06 AM

Good questions. I think we're overtaxed in general, but in this case a surtax on petroleum transportation fuels seems a pretty useful way to fund the war while educating the public about the connections between energy use and war in the Persian Gulf.

I think you're right that the Bush "keep shopping" statement came after 9/11 but before the invasion. But since at least Bush sees this as all one big campaign, I don't see any difference. That's still the only thing he's asked us to do beyond voting for him and walking through airports barefoot.

Rumsfeld's reforms ran exactly opposite to the idea of building up more infantry, but we could certainly have assembled a force of "several hundred thousand" as recommended by Gen. Shinseki at the time. The problem was the Administration didn't want to do nation building, and by the time they figured out there was no other choice, we had already burned through a good portion of what was initially available. Doing things back-asswards is always a problem, and that's certainly the case here. It's not so much exactly how many troops as when, and what they're tasked with doing. If we had been heavy initially during occupation, and paid attention to the things in the plan that are being done now, we would be in a much different situation today and wouldn't need nearly as many boots on the ground, at least not American ones.

Posted by Robert Powell | November 13, 2007 12:09 PM