Michael Young figures out why American Middle East experts have been coming up emptyhanded.
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Comments to "New at Reason":
David | April 21, 2005, 8:03pm | #
I think the problem is that researchers prefer to see things in terms of quantifiable groups and fail to see societies as being composed of individuals, each with the capacity to choose his own destiny. As such, predicting what a person, or group of people will do is next to impossible.Admitting this would mean that an expert still has no idea what will happen, while holding to the idea that everyone else is ignorant gives the expert (false)credibility. No one will marginalize himself.
joe | April 21, 2005, 10:39pm | #
"In remaining so ambiguous about power in general and its uses and practitioners, many of those studying and teaching about the Middle East have written themselves out of the discourse on the region's future, failing even to find effective ways to oppose policies they dislike."The author is quite right about this. There are huge numbers of thinkers and scholars whose efforts to understand and explain the Middle East are completely unhinged from the advancement of a partical political program.
Having read a number of Michael Young's pieces, I can assure him that he does not suffer from this shortcoming.
Happy Jack | April 21, 2005, 10:47pm | #
Good thing that Bremer never studied any Iraqi history.Might have learned why Sistani would never meet with him personally.
Not that it matters. History is bunk.
you sound like a guy who almost lost a leg. you probably go to church a lot, too.
pragmatist | April 22, 2005, 1:15am | #
Maybe the experts have learned the limits of their expertise?Don't bet on it. I think the revolt of the priesthood is a lot more like it. And I have met some of these people.
Imperialism led us into much of this mess, did it not?
Is anyone here convinced they "know" why the Bush admin really went into Iraq? I've heard lots of debate on this, and am left with a huge cloud of dust to ponder....
The argument that we maybe never should have gone into Iraq to start with has merit.
The argument that nothing good could possibly come out of us going into Iraq has no merit.
I for one wish we hadn't gone in. Now that we have, I'm hoping for the best possible outcome. I think Michael Young has been saying that in his articles.
He's been well blasted for it by many.
But the way people debate the US invasion of Iraq, it sounds more like a theological debate than anything else. Those who oppose the invasion are opposed to the idea that any good could come out of it. Those who favor(ed) the invasion cannot concede we might have been wrong for going in.
I like Michael's take on it better than either faith.
shecky | April 22, 2005, 1:43am | #
Is anyone here convinced they "know" why the Bush admin really went into Iraq? I've heard lots of debate on this, and am left with a huge cloud of dust to ponder....Thid is the crux of the issue. It's hard to analyze the situation when nobody really knows how we even got there.
The argument that we maybe never should have gone into Iraq to start with has merit.
I'll buy this.
The argument that nothing good could possibly come out of us going into Iraq has no merit.
Too early to tell. It's still entirely possible the whole region can fall into instability. It was possible before the war, but we've got our fingers all over it now.
However, the possibility for good remains. I hope it happens. My gut feeling is that the region will improve, at least on paper, but remain the shithole it always was, for the masses that live there.
Ironchef | April 22, 2005, 8:39am | #
But will whatever good comes out of the invasion of Iraq outweight the bad that we put into it? (the "bad" being blood, money, and international "prestige")Decades too early to tell, of course, but I would doubt it.
Jason Ligon | April 22, 2005, 9:28am | #
joe:I don't think there are huge numbers. There are huge numbers in one political camp and huge numbers in the other, but huge numbers of actually neutral Middle East scholars?
a | April 22, 2005, 9:32am | #
Shecky:"My gut feeling is that the region will improve, at least on paper, but remain the shithole it always was, for the masses that live there"
Wow, the middle east always was a shithole? this is news to me, please do elaborate.
Perhaps if those masses are left alone to decide what they want for themselves, just may be the middle east will not be the "shithole" that it is.
Just to give one example, take illiteracy rates during and after French/British Colonialism and you would see what I'm talking about.
mike2039 | April 22, 2005, 9:46am | #
Is anyone here convinced they "know" why the Bush admin really went into Iraq? I've heard lots of debate on this, and am left with a huge cloud of dust to ponder....I believe the reason was oil. The left has long said that and they are right. As the world oil supplies dwindle, the United States will need a police station in the Middle east to make sure the oil flows to the right country. This is dumb policy and in fact might lead to a nuclear showdown with China.
If the United States were to take a hands off approach to the Middle East, gas prices would rise, as they are anyway. Now supposing you are a middle class family with two kids, here is what you would do about it. Your first car would be electric. It would only be able to go 35 miles without a recharge, but that would be ok because most of your travels are less than that anyway. Your second car would be gasoline powered. You would use that car on family trips and so forth when range was an issue.
joe | April 22, 2005, 9:56am | #
Jason, I don't think dividing people into camps - proo-Iraq War and anti-Iraq War - is the division Young was talking about. Rather, there are those who have a political theory for solving the Middle Eastern Problem (whether it's neo-con global "democratic" revolution from outside, communism, or whatever), and those who don't. The latter group could be described as believing in a well informed policy of muddling through - taking advantage of opportunities when they arise, putting out fires when they spring up, attacking the problem on many fronts, not putting all the eggs in one basket. Young, if I'm reading him correctly, is saying that there are a lot more of the latter than the former.Which I believe entirely. People who know the most about the messy, complicated, intricately-linked reality of a certain field are the least likely to buy into a grand unified theory of everything.
a | April 22, 2005, 10:01am | #
M. Young:revealingly--and immodestly--named "Informed Comment."
This coming from someone who is writing in a magazine called "Reason."
M. Young:
the experts in the U.S. considered, and still consider, Iraq a grand project planned by Bush administration neocons and Israel's Likud
....
The reality was that Israelis were divided on the Iraq war
That the Israelis are divided is irrelevant, you have to show that the Likud is divided on the Iraq war to refute their claim.
M. Young:
But such Iraqi opportunism will almost certainly lead to closer relations between Washington and Baghdad
and your evidence for this prophecy? We all know how the intervension in Iran ended up. Why do you think it will be any different this time?
Ken Shultz | April 22, 2005, 10:19am | #
We tend to project competence onto our leaders.I suspect there was more than one reason for invading, but I see no reason not to believe what the Administration told us at the time.
...Just because Iraq had no biological, chemical or nuclear weapons and just because Iraq wasn't collaborating with al Qaeda doesn't mean that the Bush Administration didn't invade for those reasons. That is, just because the reasons for invading were bogus doesn't mean that they weren't the real reasons.
...Incompetence seems like the simplest explanation to me.
Don | April 22, 2005, 10:57am | #
People who know the most about the messy, complicated, intricately-linked reality of a certain field are the least likely to buy into a grand unified theory of everything.That's right joe, Arab nationalism, Nasserism, communism etc., are much less of a "grand unified theory of everything" than the Bush administration/neocon position is.
One thing academic types tend to do is come up with "grand unified theories", whether they have a firm basis or not. From what I've read on the matter, it appears that the ME studies types are consistent in coming up with broad theories which appear to be loosely anchored to reality.
We all know how the intervension in Iran ended up. Why do you think it will be any different this time?
Perhaps, a, this time we know we need to fully back the Shah, and we won't ever make the mistake of electing Jimmy Carter president again.
joe | April 22, 2005, 11:34am | #
Don, are you claiming the Nasserites and communists stand out for their well informed understanding of the complexities of the Middle East? I gotta call bullshit on that - they tend to be people who put a great deal of effort into not knowing certain things. By your logic, Robert Mugabe should have a better prescription for agricultural policy than his Western detractors, because he came out the local political and economic conditions."One thing academic types tend to do is come up with "grand unified theories", whether they have a firm basis or not. From what I've read on the matter, it appears that the ME studies types are consistent in coming up with broad theories which appear to be loosely anchored to reality." Not really interested in your judgements about how reality-based the theories of people a lot more knowledgeable than you are, but the first part this quote is interesting. Of course academics come up with models to explain things. So does everyone else.
But that's not the issue, either. Academics are a lot less likely to advocate for simplistic, one dimensional politacl programs based on their models, because their understanding of the contradictions and complexities of the places they study tends to restrain them form believing their models are exhausive or directly applicable. It's sort of like the difference between the careful, nuanced prescriptions for the development of local governance in former European colonies that come out of academia and think tanks, vs. the "whites out" policies of some indigineous activists or western lefties.
Ken Shultz | April 22, 2005, 12:11pm | #
"Is anyone here convinced they "know" why the Bush admin really went into Iraq?"...For the sake of clarity, I was referring to events in the 19th and 20th Centuries when I wrote, "Imperialism led us into much of this mess..."
I should have added "within their field of expertise" to my comments. Professors and researchers who produce the most insightful, nuanced work within their specialty have been known to adopt the dumbest, most simplistic polcy prescriptions in other areas. For example, compare Chomsky's linguistics and media criticism work to his "America's bad, mmmkay?" foreign policy prescriptions.
a | April 22, 2005, 1:00pm | #
Don:Perhaps, a, this time we know we need to fully back the Shah, and we won't ever make the mistake of electing Jimmy Carter president again.
Let's see the Shah ruled from 1941 until 1979. That is 38 years (or 26 if you start counting from the coup of 1953). Carter was US president from 1977 until 1981. So, yeah Carter was clearly the problem.
a, you are correct, Carter was the problem. He withdrew support for the Shah, allowing radical Islamics to displace him.
a | April 22, 2005, 4:49pm | #
Don:He withdrew support for the Shah, allowing radical Islamics to displace him.
So you are saying that the Shah was nothing but a US pupet?
Don | April 22, 2005, 6:31pm | #
So you are saying that the Shah was nothing but a US pupet?I wouldn't classify him as such. Him and his counterparts in places like South Korea, South Vietnam, and (pre-Castro) Cuba and elsewhere were hardly puppets, in that they had their own agenda and made their own decisions. But they did require our support at one point or another, and they were very helpful to us, aligning with us on the key issues that we faced.
In fact, they were very problamatic because they were not pupits--an American pupit Shah would have been more warm & fuzzy, I'm sure.
joe | April 24, 2005, 8:57pm | #
I get it Don. No, I'm dismissing the silly contention that most area study professors are Nasserites or communists.Don's right. If we had set up a Diem Bien Phu-style perimeter around Tehran and send several thousand of our best troops, the coup regime we installed would have lasted indefinitely against the broad-based popular opposition.
"an American pupit Shah would have been more warm & fuzzy, I'm sure." Like such warm as fuzzy American puppets as Batista, Samoza, the ARENA Party...