Is it the purpose of American foreign policy to force democracy on Iraq through long-term occupation?

Other observers have commented on the influence of Leo Strauss on the conservative wing of the Republican Party and on a handful of  political appointees within the Bush Administration.  Paul Wolfowitz, for example, was identified as a disciple of Strauss.  Having attended some of Professor Strauss' classes at the University of Chicago, it amazes me that an esoteric classics scholar can have political influence years after his death.  It perplexes me, however, that there has been no comment on the influence on the Bush Administration of a colleague of Strauss.  The colleague, of course, was Hans J. Morgenthau.

It is trite, I suppose, to comment on the influence of Morgenthau on the foreign policy of the Bush Administration.  He influenced everyone.  He was the most influential scholar of the twentieth century on the subject of international politics.  His reputation was the reason I attended the University of Chicago for graduate work in political science during the academic year 1959-60.  (As "luck" would have it, he was visiting elsewhere that year.)  I returned to Chicago during the summer of 1961, and he became my thesis advisor.  I met him one time for about twenty minutes in his office.  He approved my M.A. thesis after going over it with me in as much detail as twenty minutes would allow.

As is well known, Morgenthau was the principal proponent of the realist school of international politics.  His message was that each country guides its actions in the international community by its own national interest.  And this national interest is to gain power for itself.  This conclusion on his part was arrived at by empirically observing the actions of countries throughout history.  Moreover, his message was not only that countries do act this way, but also that they should act this way.

Given the nature of this message, it is difficult to prove its influence by looking for "confessions" of politicians that they practice real politique.  We must look at their actions rather than their words for this proof.  (It is noteworthy that Colin Powell did accept, while a member of the Bush Administration, the Hans J. Morgenthau Award from the National Committee on American Foreign Policy on September 12, 2002.)

As with Strauss, a scholar of Morgenthau's stature continues to have valid advice for us years after his death.  Indeed, it was one of the teachings of Morgenthau that human nature hasn't changed over time.  Lessons from classical antiquity can help us today, he argued.  With this thought in mind, I set out to re-read Morgenthau's The Purpose of American Politics written over 40 years ago.  Would a book written before the Beatles invaded America have anything to say to help us understand and evaluate our invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq?

The invasion of Afghanistan should not be judged by our intentions.  We may have good intentions or bad intentions, but what we need to evaluate are the results obtained in terms of our national interest.  It is in our national interest not to allow a haven where terrorists can train and from where they can launch suicide missions against us.  We removed this haven.  Afghanistan is now under our influence.  Our power position in this area of the world has been enhanced.

It was not our purpose to remove the Taliban because it was cruel.  It was not our purpose to change the regime to a more democratic form of government.  It was not our purpose to influence their economic system so that they would have a higher standard of living.  Our objective in terms of our national interest was to increase our power in the area.  The Bush Administration obtained this objective.

Likewise, the invasion of Iraq needs to be judged in terms of political realism.  The intelligence given the Administration indicated that Iraq's leaders were hostile to us and that they were developing weapons of mass destruction.  A preemptive attack may well have been in the national interest.  The mission of forcing a regime change was accomplished.

Morgenthau teaches us that we are not in Iraq to make the government less cruel and more democratic or to help them reach a higher standard of living.  Cruel and undemocratic countries can be good allies.  And in terms of the balance of power, it may well be to our advantage that a country not have a high standard of living.  With these teachings in mind, why is it in the national interest to stay in Iraq "for the long haul," as is the Administration's asserted policy?

My concern in trying to evaluate our actions is to see if they square with our national purpose.  Power politics may be the procedure to use in acting in the international community, but what are the substantive goals that this procedure is designed to reach?  What is the purpose of American politics?

Perhaps less known about the political theory of Morgenthau is his rejection of relativism.  It was his view that there are absolute moral principles and that politicians should follow these principles rather than the latest public opinion poll.  Somehow, it seems that an advocate of power politics would also want his political actors swaying with the winds of the wishes of the majority.  Not so for Morgenthau.  He wanted his political actors to be leaders and to follow their beliefs rather than following the majority of the moment.

Morgenthau passionately believed in absolute truths.  Even though he advocated the procedure of power politics, he held a vision for America that was mystical.  He extrapolated from the history of the founding of our country a social contract to create a new society.  And this new society had as its unending purpose the achievement of equality in freedom for its members.  Yet this achievement was also procedural in nature.  "Equal and free for what?" he asked.  The substantive purpose of this American quest for equality in freedom is the subject of my review, with particular attention to international politics and our actions post-9/11.

Morgenthau viewed the importance of knowing our purpose as inextricably tied to our ability to continue to exist as a nation.  Our public policies, both domestic and international, must be guided by our purpose.  If our public policies lack meaning and purpose, they will falter and leave a vacuum for private sectors to operate for private gain.  If we are uncertain what America stands for, we will not recognize impending dangers.  Having a clear vision of our purpose allows us to act when opportunities present themselves.

He also warned that America could no longer go it alone.  The world has changed so that a nation can no longer isolate itself the way we did after World War I.  We tried to isolate ourselves again immediately after World War II, but we soon realized that our national interest was tied to Europe.  In the world today, we can only achieve our national purpose working with other nations in the international community.

Morgenthau noted that the leaders of some countries in the past have fraudulently announced a national purpose for political reasons.  Such abuse of the concept of national purpose does not prove that it is not real.  Countries do have national purposes.  The way to discover what a nation's purpose is cannot be done by looking at the pronouncements of politicians or the metaphysical dreams of philosophers.  We have to look at a pattern of actual deeds in the history of a country.

A national purpose that survives in the memory of history is one that contributes to civilization in some way beyond just insuring a country's own survival. A great nation should assist mankind in the realization of our potential to become all we are capable of becoming as human beings.

The United States at its inception as a nation collectively thought about its purpose.  The path that we took, and the path we are still on, is for the members of our society to be equal in the freedom of opportunity to rise vertically to the top of our society.  At the same time, our society minimizes any political control of its members by the machinery of the state.  In addition to the opportunity to rise vertically in our society, the history of our country has been one of horizontal movement as our frontiers have been constantly expanding.  This horizontal expansion added to the vitality and dynamics of our citizens being equal and free.

Not many nations have tried our approach.  And very few that have tried have had any degree of success.  We have not yet fully succeeded either, but the degree of success we have obtained is an example for the world.  Indeed, because the horizontal expansion of our frontiers is no longer possible as a practical matter, this factor of vitality and dynamism for our national purpose has been replaced by a new frontier of opportunity and responsibility — being an example for the world to emulate so that the area of equality in freedom in the world is expanded.  This approach to the world community is not entirely altruistic.  It is in our national interest because it will result in increasing our power position in the world and will allow us to maintain the equality in freedom of our citizens.

It is inconsistent with America's distinctive purpose to conquer countries to expand our frontiers.  It is by the force of our example, rather than the force of our arms, that we will change the world.  If after the Spanish-American War we had kept the spoils of war, then we would have become a "Spain" rather than maintaining our distinctive American identity.  The only possible avenue to take, consistent with our national purpose, was to let Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines work out their own destinies.  It is the American purpose to help undeveloped countries to achieve the degree of happiness that we enjoy and that all should enjoy.  We used our power to free Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines from Spain, and we relinquished control over them.  We kept them for a time, but then it was embarrassing for us to be rulers over conquered peoples.

At what point will it be an embarrassment for us to be occupying Iraq?  Is it the purpose of American foreign policy to force democracy on Iraq through occupation?

It is clear that in the twentieth century it became untenable in terms of our national purpose to expand our territorial borders by annexation.  We did engage, however, in a number of interventions in the Western Hemisphere for concrete objectives in response to specific threats.  Our invasion of Iraq can be viewed as an intervention in response to a specific threat in the same manner as President Wilson's interventions in Central America.

Under Wilson, the American purpose became a crusade to save the world for democracy.  World War I gave America the opportunity to bring equality in freedom to the world.  And America would not seek any political advantage from its participation in the war.  Rather, we wanted to eliminate power politics from the international scene.  The world expected the continuation of American power behind its words after the conclusion of the war.  The world was to find out that America did not "walk the talk."

Morgenthau viewed this as naive to think that power politics could be eliminated from international relations.  As historians of the twentieth century have detailed, the failings of the United States to apply our resources to coherent and sustained foreign policies resulted in a vacuum in which Hitler rose to power leading to World War II.  This lesson has been learned well by the United States.  Our invasion of Iraq as an intervention in response to specific perceived threats has now been followed by the application of considerable resources so that such a vacuum does not develop.  The word is that we are going "to stay the course."

We can be idealistic in the formulation of our national purpose, but we still have to be realistic in the practice of power politics in the world.  Wilson's failure was to put the cart before the horse.  We cannot be idealists first and hardheaded realists afterwards.  We have to be first practical and after we have secured our power position we can be idealists.  We have to be successful as a nation, both domestically and internationally, before we can be an example for the world to follow.

Prior to World War II, the United States relied on the balance of power in Europe for our own security.  The rise of Nazi Germany changed all that.  There were debates between isolationists and interventionists as to whether we should enter the war in Europe, but Pearl Harbor ended the debates.  Ever since Pearl Harbor, the United States has been an integral part of the balance of power in Europe, rather than just an interested observer.  We now "send in the Marines" not only in Central America but all over the world.

Just as we intervened in Europe during World War II for our own survival, we intervened in Afghanistan for our survival in a war against terrorists.  It is unclear that the military action against Iraq can be so justified.  In hindsight, it does not appear that Iraq was a terrorist haven.  As America had annihilated its enemies in WWII with the war cry of unconditional surrender, is it now the American purpose to remake the world in our image by destroying political enemies in the international community who are not making credible threats against us?

After World War II, we suddenly realized that the Soviet Union was a threat to us.  We had not anticipated this threat.  If we had, we would have made different military moves at the conclusion of World War II.  We were hoping to live in a world without power politics.  Likewise, at the conclusion of the Gulf War we undoubtedly made military miscalculations.  In hindsight, it would have been easier to go all the way to Baghdad at that time while we had the entire world on our side.  Morgenthau would call this failure to go all the way to Baghdad, similar to the failure to go all the way to Berlin, a "crisis of perplexity" — we are too eager as a nation to get back to normal.  We wanted to bring our soldiers home from Europe as fast as we could at the conclusion of World War II.  Likewise, we wanted to bring our troops home after the Gulf War.  Now, there are protests to bring our troops home from Iraq.  We need to calculate realistically in terms of power politics when our troops should come home from Iraq and to avoid mistakes motivated by wishful thinking.  Interventions in the world usually require sustained action of more than a one-week assault by the Marines as in Panama, Granada, and Haiti.

The United States has had some difficulties in dealing with complex foreign policy issues.  We have had an inclination to simplify complex issues into simple military solutions.  Morgenthau gave the United States failing marks for our actions in Korea and China during the Korean War.  He argued that we should have made peace with Communist China as an acknowledgement of reality rather than maintaining the fiction that the Nationalist government somehow legitimately represented the Chinese people.

The anxiety the American public experienced over its ability to survive in the Cold War allowed us to be seduced by Senator Joseph McCarthy.  The complex problems of foreign policy were simplified to the one issue of finding traitors.  All we needed was the FBI.  We didn't need the State Department or the Defense Department.  The current anxiety is over terrorism.  We must never allow ourselves to be seduced again because of our anxieties.  We need more than the Department of Homeland Security.  We must survive, but we must also remain true to our national purpose.

Morgenthau observed that America has difficulty dealing with subtle threats.  We tend to do nothing in response to such indirect threats that don't fit neatly into categories with which we are familiar.  We don't take such threats seriously.  It seems obvious now that we didn't take the threat of terrorism seriously pre-9/11.  The threat was subtle and indirect and did not fit into a familiar category for our policymakers.  At other times, Morgenthau observed, our nation reacts in a blind frenzy.  Did we unrealistically feel ourselves threatened by Iraq?  Did we respond in a blind frenzy against our former friend, Saddam Hussein, simply to lash out against supposed terrorists?

Americans still have an emotional tug at their heartstrings to go back to an isolationist approach to the cold, cruel world outside our borders.  This emotion is a stumbling block to pursuing persistent and consistent foreign policies.  It is easier to withdraw inside our shell.  In our fight against terrorism, I am sure Morgenthau would argue that we have to steel ourselves against these emotions and take risks and pursue daring policies on a sustained basis.  Prior to 9/11, these old emotions undoubtedly were a factor for our leaders in not wanting to take terrorism seriously.  Terrorism was a problem for the rest of the world and not for us.

In a very real sense, terrorism in the twenty-first century has replaced Communism as the source of our current national anxiety.  Morgenthau's calls to action against the threat of Communism to our national existence can be translated into war cries against terrorism.  He called for a national effort to redirect our economic, educational, and governmental systems.  There had to be a broad spectrum of our society awakened to compete in novel ways against Communism.  Also, the American purpose of minimizing governmental control of its citizens just was not workable in a struggle with an enemy bent on our destruction.  We also must reconsider this purpose when we are at war against terrorism.  The Patriot Act, I submit, is one such reconsideration.

Morgenthau criticized our approach to our allies in Europe after World War II.  We gave our allies equal voice and control over the alliance.  This approach would work if we all had the same objectives.  Each country in the alliance, however, had its own agenda.  We should have exercised our influence and leadership over the alliance commensurate with the realities of the superior power position we held relative to each of our allies.  The leadership that we did exercise was almost entirely in the military realm, and this was exercised reluctantly out of necessity in the face of the Communist threat.

When the Cold War came to an end in 1991, there was no longer a need for us to exercise leadership.  Is it just a coincidence that the rise of terrorism began at the same time as the Cold War came to an end?  Did the retreat from our leadership on the world stage allow terrorism to go unchecked?  Our historical pattern was to expand into empty spaces.  Our humility did not allow us to exercise political leadership over the Western alliance to stop terrorism pre-9/11.  The absence of a clear vision of our purpose prevented us from even seeing the problem.

When we needed our allies in our current intervention in Iraq, where were they?  Our equalitarian approach to our allies allowed them to snub their noses at us.  If we had been consistently exercising our leadership role commensurate with our superior power within the alliance, this rejection by our allies never would have happened.

In our relations with a country like Saudi Arabia, we hold all the trump cards.  Why didn't they do more pre-9/11 to prevent terrorist attacks by their citizens against us?  The answer is because we didn't ask them.  We were not exercising leadership.  We are shy to bring our superior power to bear on an ally to get what we need.  Indeed, we just collect allies for the sake of being able to list the country as one of our allies.  What happens is that the ally uses us for its purposes.  We have a list of allies who have joined us in our current intervention in Iraq.  These allies are so ephemeral that if one of their citizens is threatened with execution, they pack up and leave Iraq.

Morgenthau was concerned that political decisions affecting domestic issues and foreign policy tended to be made by committees that compromised to maintain the status quo.  Nothing new or exciting can come out of a committee recommendation.   Was there a committee mentality by the international community toward Iraq?  The United Nations was passing resolutions, but nothing was getting done with respect to a definitive determination as to the existence of weapons of mass destruction.

Rather than a committee approach that maintained the status quo, Morgenthau would opt for leadership based on principles without regard to public opinion.  Such leadership, in his opinion, would not need concealment or misrepresentation of the facts.  Did the Bush Administration lead public opinion in a certain direction through concealment and misrepresentation?  Or was President Bush acting as a leader following principles based on the purpose of America when he militarily invaded Iraq and forced a regime change?

To find our national purpose, we cannot simply have a symposium of professors theorize as to what our purpose is.  We have to find our purpose in observable actions.  This is the way our purpose was created, and this is the way it will be renewed.  Our purpose is ever-changing as we progress through time.  The conservative philosophy of politics to defend the status quo has no place in the fulfillment of the American purpose.  There is no status quo to achieve.  We are striving to achieve the future.

There is no substance to our purpose.  It is purely procedural.  It is an approach, a mode of thinking.  No slogan can encapsulate it.  In terms of competition, it is really a competition with ourselves.  If our purpose were to stay ahead of the Russians, then we become Russians and not ourselves.

We have to make clear to the world that equality in freedom still has a home in America.  We do this by deeds, not proclamations.  We are still worthy of emulation.

The key political actor to carry out the deeds of our government is the President.  We cannot be afraid of his power; we need to support his power to act.  We cannot have a government by consensus of committee recommendations resulting in the status quo.  Likewise, we cannot permit our government to be run by his assistants who are not accountable.  It has to be the President who is the initiator and architect of public policy.  He has to be provided information that is accurate and complete.  He has to be given alternative solutions rather than just one committee recommendation arrived at by compromise.

The action of the President to invade Iraq was bold and daring.  Was it based on accurate and complete information?  Were alternative solutions given to the President?  Was it a decision of a committee arrived at by compromising various points of view?  Was the President controlled by his assistants in making the decision?  Was he just following public opinion or did he manipulate public opinion to support this course of action?  Or was he following principles based on the purpose of America?

We were faced with a national election in 2004 to pick our leader for the following four years.  Did we evaluate which leader had a vision for our future that would carry out our national purpose?  Did Bush deserve passing marks for his four years in office entitling him to another four years?  Has he responded to the events of history based on principles that steer our ship of state in the right direction?  Or has he been like Captain Ahab, roaming the seven seas hunting for the whale of evil?

We are now faced with a national election in 2008 to pick our next captain to steer our ship of state.  Are we evaluating the candidates as to which has a vision for our future that will carry out our national purpose?  If we don't, we risk four years of hunting for Moby Dick.