A Second Hand Conjecture

Welcome Instapundit readers! This was first posted last September and I am moving it to the top of the menu. Take a gander back at the last week, we have some interesting stuff.

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As anybody who has read this blog knows I have a couple of pet peeves. One is that while you debate, at a bare minimum one needs to keep your criticism to what a particular person believes. I hate straw men. I am not being holier than thou, we all do it, but an attempt at least should be made to debate in good faith, to attack someone for what they believe rather than what is easy for you to criticize. Where this crosses the line for me, as argued previously, is when the person in one’s rhetorical sights has specifically said what they believe and it is ignored. It is all the more egregious when the suggestions are especially vile such as Walter Williams wanting to commit genocide, Charles Johnston and John Hindraker sanctioning the murder of journalists or as in this weeks interviewee Michael Ledeen being “one of the most crazed neoconservative warrior (sic) anywhere.”

Dr. Ledeen has been one of the consistently misrepresented public intellectuals I have run across. Just as with the other cases I mentioned I decided to ask him personally what his stands on the issues are? That should be the end of it, but I doubt it, it is too important for many people to feel they have enemies and that those enemies are beneath contempt. Does Michael Ledeen advocate launching an invasion of Iran or other extreme bellicose views? Does he desire “oceans of blood?” In my reading this cartoonish caricature was and is patently false.

ASHC: Thanks for taking the time to field my questions Michael.

To begin I wanted to get a little background. I am curious about your particular interest in Iran and how that has evolved over time. In much of your writing your empathy for the Iranian people is evident. Has that developed purely as a matter of your opposition to this regime or did you always have or develop over time a particular fondness for the people of Iran? Is that even an accurate characterization?

Michael Ledeen: In 1979 I was editing a foreign policy magazine, The Washington Quarterly. Obviously we had to cover the overthrow of the shah, and I commissioned an article from William Lewis, a retired foreign service officer then teaching at George Washington University. He found it difficult to get certain kinds of information, mostly from the French. I had good contacts in Paris, as a result of my work for the New Republic (I was Rome correspondent), and so we ended up writing it together. The article was well received, and we did a book for Knopf, “Debacle.”

Then, when I was consulting for the NSC in the mid-eighties, the head of a foreign intelligence service (again in Europe) told me he’d just been to Iran, and thought it was time for the United States to take a more active interest in the place. I said I didn’t think we knew much about Iran, and he said “talk to the Israelis.” I was later sent to Jerusalem to talk to Shimon Peres about Iran.

More recently, my friend Manoucher Ghorbanifar contacted me several months before 9/11, and called my attention to the many protests and strikes in Iran, and suggested I might want to write about it. I did, in the Wall Street Journal, and I’ve followed the story ever since.

As you see, it doesn’t have anything to do with any particular interest in Iran or empathy with Iranians (I don’t think in those terms. I like some of them and dislike some of them); Iran just keeps coming up. It’s important.

ASHC: You often refer to your sources in Iran and other places. Obviously mentioning many people’s names would possibly be dangerous. Can you tell us something about the various figures you have worked with in Iran and the broader Middle East? What are their occupations, roles in these countries or outside as dissidents? How have you come to know them and have you spent much or any time in Iran itself? What are the difficulties you have in assessing the accuracy and reasonableness of their information and analysis?

Michael Ledeen: I haven’t been to Iran, I am not a student of Iranian history or culture or for that matter of the Middle East. I’m a Europeanist. I’ve often said that I think Iran is an extreme case of Italy.

I haven’t “worked with” anyone in the Middle East. I’ve spoken with dozens of Middle Easterners, and I am deluged with emails and faxes from Middle Easterners, mostly, but not exclusively, Iranians.

People tell you all kinds of things, and you have to check them. I’m an historian, I’ve spent years in archives, and I know that even official documents are sometimes wrong. So I try to check. After a while—and after you make your inevitable mistakes—you learn who is reliable. No great secret there!

As for who the reliable ones are, they come from all walks of life, and they are very different kinds of people, some religious, some secular, some important at the moment, some important once upon a time, some of no particular fame or celebrity at all, but well informed nonetheless.

ASHC: Could you tell us what your view of the correct response in regards to Afghanistan was after 9/11? While most believe that it was justified, was the invasion the best course of action?

Michael Ledeen: It was important to destroy al Qaeda, I’m glad we did it. And it was important to start the process of democracy in Afghanistan, which we have also done. It will take a generation before we know if it’s working. I’m certainly rooting for it.

ASHC: I understand you didn’t support the invasion of Iraq originally. Is that true, and if so, why not? What was your belief about the best way to deal with Saddam and has your view changed over time?

Michael Ledeen: I thought, and think still, that our greatest weapon in the war against the terror masters is political, not military: it is the desire of their oppressed peoples to be free. So I want to support those people, just as we did in the Soviet Empire in the 1980s, and all over Latin America, and in the Philippines, Lebanon, Georgia…and here and there in Africa. I basically believe that democratic revolution is the most lethal weapon against the tyrants of the Middle East and elsewhere.

In the specific case of Iraq, I thought the Iraqi people would distrust us because another American president named Bush had betrayed them in 1991, and I advocated steps to show them, and the other peoples of the region, that things would be different this time. I proposed to transform the “no fly” zones in the north and south into “free Iraq” areas, defend them against Saddam, and have the Kurds and Shi’ites create free governments. Then we could say to the rest of the Iraqi people, “look, you don’t have to die for this man. Go north, go south, live like free men and women, and we will work together to bring down the monster.”

Maybe some military something would have been necessary even so. I don’t know. But it would have done two things: demonstrated out basic mission was to spread freedom, and concentrated our minds on the political side of things, which I still believe is paramount.

ASHC: You have written that in order to win this war we would need to defeat Syria and Iran. In my reading you explicitly reject major military action against these states. First of all, why are these two states the most important in your mind? Second, why would you caution against an attempt at regime change through military force?

Michael Ledeen: I’ve always said invasion of Iran would be a terrible mistake, and it would demonstrate a failure to design and conduct a rational policy toward Iran.

Iran is the most important of the terror masters (who I originally named as Iran, Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia) and always has been, because of its size and its lead role in international terrorism. Syria is an adjunct to Iran nowadays.

ASHC: In your work you speak hopefully of the possibility of democratic revolution in Iran and to a lesser extent Syria. How widespread is the resistance to the Mullahs within Iran and how likely is it that they will be able to successfully confront the regime? While internal Iranian groups may be dissatisfied with the Iranian government, it is claimed by some that they’re far from anxious to associate with the United States. How could we help them? Some feel that it is very unlikely that those groups have the popular support and strength to actually conduct a successful revolution, if so wouldn’t our intervention effectively marginalize the democratic groups and strengthen the Iranian regime? How far would the regime go to retain power, would this possibly lead only to an Iranian version of Tiananmen Square or worse?

Michael Ledeen: Hatred of the regime in Iran among the Iranian people is probably greater than eighty percent. Nobody knows how likely it is they will successfully rebel, revolutions have always surprised even the smartest analysts.

Those who say the pro-democracy Iranians are not eager to have American support have to explain why they believe that, since on the face of it Iranians are very enthusiastically pro-American, and many of them openly say they wish we would help them get rid of the mullahs.

How to help them? The usual ways: broadcasts, including those who have participated in successful democratic revolutions elsewhere; strike funds, so the workers can protest and still feed their families; communications tools such as satellite phones, laptops, servers, etc.

How far would the regime go to retain power? Nobody knows. But the regime does not believe the army would kill large numbers of Iranians, and the regime has its doubts about even the Revolutionary Guards, whose leadership changes quite often. Today the regime is shutting down any publication that expresses even the vaguest criticism, which to me suggests the regime is insecure.

ASHC: Explain your view of sanctions and how they can or cannot be useful.

Michael Ledeen: I don’t know of a single case in which sanctions caused a hostile country to change its behavior. The two cases in favor of sanctions—Chile and South Africa—were both countries that wanted to be with us, and the sanctions had political bite since the regimes were stigmatized. The Iranian regime hates us, and has ever since Khomeini seized power in 1979, so I can’t imagine sanctions will have any effect on the regime itself. They would, however, increase the misery of the Iranian people, as sanctions increased misery in Iraq. Why should anyone want that? We want to do things that help the Iranian people and hurt the tyrants.

ASHC: You speak of aiding resistance groups. How could we aid these groups, for example trade unionists, in these two states? What could private organizations in the US do? Many opponents of the Bush administration worry he will invade. Are there things such groups could do to directly help the people of Iran and thus help avoid the perceived necessity of an invasion or other military actions? I am looking for common ground in this question with many who as of now are merely opposing US policy.

Michael Ledeen: I wish the trade unions would support Iranian workers. I wish the media would support freedom of the press in Iran. I wish American Muslims would support freedom of religion in Iran, etc. etc. There are lots of things to do.

ASHC: Couldn’t it be argued that an almost exclusively antagonistic relationship with Iran is more likely to make them want nuclear weapons? If we could give them concessions that would lessen the internal economic problems that make life hard for the regime, might they consider concessions as well?

Michael Ledeen: This seems backwards to me. Iran declared war on us, and has waged war against us for 27 years. During that time we have tried every policy imaginable, from offering goodies to threatening war, and everything has failed. They do not want to be our friends, they want us dead or dominated. They say it, they act on it, but lots of people here, especially those who are against Bush, refuse to believe it.

Ditto with al Qaeda. I do not believe there are any concessions, short of mass conversion to their version of Islam and total submission to their Caliphate, that would end the state of war. Our only options are winning or losing, there is no escape from this.

A final point. I think Americans are the first people in the history of the world to believe that peace is the normal condition of mankind. It’s a dangerous conceit. War, and preparations for war, are the norm.

ASHC: It seems to many that the critical Cold War tool that Bush has abandoned is U.S. support for armed insurgencies against enemy states. Some feel the tide did not turn in the Cold War until Reagan advanced from the defensive crouch of containment and detente to actively supporting insurgencies in places like Afghanistan and Nicaragua. Is it practicable to foment armed insurgency as opposed to more peaceful resistance against the Iranians without empowering even more radical Islamist elements?

Michael Ledeen: I don’t think it’s necessary, as I’ve said. The revolutionary option seems much more likely to succeed, and in the case of supporting an armed insurgency you risk replacing one evil with another. Can you spell ‘Taliban’?

ASHC: I believe one of the reasons you are so often portrayed as an extreme hawk is your rhetoric. Would you say that a phrase like “So how come we’re not going after
them” could easily be construed to suggest that we should, in fact, bomb
Teheran? If such rhetoric is necessary can you explain why many, not necessarily leftists, people who at least originally supported the invasion of Iraq, which you did not, consider you a warmonger?

Michael Ledeen: That’s blaming the victim. These people haven’t taken the time to read the full text. I don’t think that’s my fault. (Lance: Despite my questions attempt to give some of his critics the benefit of the doubt, I have to agree on that.)

ASHC: You claim that we are at war with Tehran already, can you argue as to why that is true? Obviously the support of terrorists is one indicator, but have we heard any rhetoric that explicitly shows that they consider them selves at war with us?

Michael Ledeen: Well, when Khomeini branded us “the great Satan” that was a pretty good indication, don’t you think? And way back in January, 1979—prior to the overthrow of the shah—I wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal that contained extensive quotations from his teachings. They made it quite explicit that he hated us and would do everything possible to destroy us. And so he did. And so they do.

ASHC: One of the themes on our site is that while the Muslim world is deeply troubled and friends of modernity, democracy, and human rights are far too few, especially in the Middle East, Muslims as a whole and Islam itself are not our enemies. We are fighting an ideological war first and foremost, but Islam is not irremediably violent and anti-democratic. Our own site is composed of three authors, one of whom is a devout Muslim who believes in democracy, and whose politics lean libertarian, though with a heavy dose of G.K. Chesterton thrown in. It seems to me your entire approach rejects the notion that Muslims cannot be friends of democracy or America, though it may be difficult.

Ralph Peters said something on this that resonated with me:

I’ve been privileged to spend a good bit of time not only in the greater Middle East, but, over the past half-dozen years, on the far fringes of the Islamic world. Religions–all religions–as practiced on earth are what men and women make them. At least for now, our problem is with the stagnant, suffocating forms of Islam practiced from North Africa to Pakistan. Elsewhere, I’ve found Muslims remarkably tolerant and spiritually healthy–faiths change on their frontiers. We only hear about the handful of terrorists and extremists in Indonesia, for example. But, outside of Aceh and a few urban neighborhoods, Indonesian forms–plural–of Islam are humane and absorptive (if sometimes downright weird). In Senegal, Muslims have resisted Wahhabi missionary efforts and want no part of Bedouin Islam. I found the Senegalese startlingly pro-American (and increasingly disenchanted with the French). I believe, firmly, that the long-overdue liberal reformation in Islam is coming–in Michigan or Ontario.

My point: Blanket condemnations of Islam are stupid and counter-productive. We’ve got enough enemies in the Middle East (and we need to get a lot more serious about killing them). Why make other enemies unnecessarily? Perhaps Islam will turn violent and anti-Western elsewhere–but at present that is not the case. Let’s concentrate on the killers, not the bystanders. Why unify the Islamic world against us when it’s usefully divided?

Michael Ledeen: Obviously anyone who advocates democratic revolution, as I do, believes that Muslims are not genetically anti-democratic. I always found that point of view oddly racist, as if there were a missing ‘democracy’ chromosome or something in Muslim DNA.

First of all I want to thank Michael for taking the time to answer our questions, as well as the many people who suggested questions.

My thoughts on this are many, but let us start with how those who misrepresent Michael, wittingly or unwittingly, work. In addition to the tactics I discussed here, Michael suffers from an unwillingness of his detractors to allow for his premises to be represented fairly. An example is that Michael frequently speaks of war. He speaks of this not out of a desire for war, but because he believes that war has been declared. In Michael’s view the question is not, war or not war, but how do we fight it? In Michael’s view the mullahs declared war in 1979 and since then at least a significant part of the state has been in rhetoric and action at war with us. So speaking of war does not make him a warmonger.

The question for Michael is how to fight that war, and given his views it is hard to square that with a desire for violence. There are many ways to fight a war, and what those who for partisan reasons want to do is obscure Michael’s methods of fighting that war and substitute for their readers or listeners the methods which can be used to fight the bugaboo of the moment, neo-cons. So terms such as strike and war are pulled out of context. When I first prepared for this interview I had only read Michael through links, mostly from detractors. Inevitably I found the very text they were quoting from undermined their argument, sometimes implicitly, but usually explicitly. I am going to beat this drum again, grave accusations such as desiring mass murder, crazed belligerence or other such charges require more for evidence than tendentious readings that ignore contrary evidence. Michael shouldn’t every time he speaks have to put a string of disclaimers around everything he says. His views are publicly available and quite consistent. Once he agreed to the interview I checked back over his essays and policy papers to make sure my impression over the years was correct. I see nothing in his published work to feel this interview is not wholly consistent with his views. I should also let you know that by sheer happenstance that at Inactivist I have been discussing this very issue and the discussion touches on some additional issues. You can read the beginnings of that defense here. I asked Michael if I represented his views accurately. His reply:

Yes, you’ve been entirely accurate and fair in your remarks below.

A full discussion of Michael’s views on policy towards Iran can be found here, but I want to reproduce this section

Nobody knows with certainty whether revolution can succeed in Iran, or, if it can, how long it will take. But in recent years a surprising number of revolutions have toppled tyrants all over the world. Most of them got help from us, which should not surprise Americans. Most revolutions, including our own, required external support in order to succeed, and there is a widespread belief in Iran that a democratic revolution cannot defeat the mullahs unless it is supported by the United States. They are waiting for concrete signs of our support.

Support means, above all, a constant critique by our leaders of the regime’s murderous actions, and constant encouragement of freedom and democracy. Too many people have forgotten the enormous impact of Ronald Reagan’s denunciation of the Soviet Union as an “evil empire.” The intellectual elite of this country condemned that speech as stupid and dangerous, yet we learned from the Soviet dissidents that it was enormously important, because it showed that we understood the nature of the Soviet regime, and were committed to its defeat. In like manner, the Iranians need to see that we want an end to the Islamic Republic. We need to tell them that we want, and will support, regime change in their country, peaceful, non-violent regime change, not revolution from the barrel of a gun.

We also need to talk to them very specifically about how such revolutions succeed. We should greatly expand our support for private radio and television broadcasters, both here and in Europe, and we need to get serious about using our own broadcasts as revolutionary instruments. We should not compete for market share, and we should not be in the entertainment business; we should be broadcasting interviews with successful revolutionaries from other countries, as well as with the few Iranian dissidents who reach the free world. We should also broadcast conversations with experts on non-violent revolution. The Iranians need to learn, in detail, what works and what does not. They need to see and hear the experiences of their revolutionary comrades.

We must also provide them with the wherewithal for two vitally important revolutionary actions: build resources for a strike fund, and get them modern instruments of communication. The strike fund speaks for itself: workers need to be able to walk off the job, knowing they will be able to feed their families for several weeks. The instruments of communication include servers, laptops, satellite and cell phones and phone cards.

Finally, the president should appoint an eloquent, charismatic person to advise him on Iranian policy, and to work closely with Congress in its design and implementation. Once again, the Iranian people need to see real action. They have heard lots of fine speeches, now it’s time to move.

I find the treatment of Michael’s views disquieting. Some time back I wrote about the Euston Manifesto, a document I discovered through Norm Geras, expressing the hopes of a truly democratic left. I want to quote from various sections of that document again:

The founding supporters of this statement took different views on the military intervention in Iraq, both for and against. We recognize that it was possible reasonably to disagree about the justification for the intervention, the manner in which it was carried through, the planning (or lack of it) for the aftermath, and the prospects for the successful implementation of democratic change. We are, however, united in our view about the reactionary, semi-fascist and murderous character of the Baathist regime in Iraq, and we recognize its overthrow as a liberation of the Iraqi people. We are also united in the view that, since the day on which this occurred, the proper concern of genuine liberals and members of the Left should have been the battle to put in place in Iraq a democratic political order and to rebuild the country’s infrastructure, to create after decades of the most brutal oppression a life for Iraqis which those living in democratic countries take for granted — rather than picking through the rubble of the arguments over intervention.

We have no truck, either, with the tendency to pay lip service to these ends, while devoting most of one’s energy to criticism of political opponents at home (supposedly responsible for every difficulty in Iraq), and observing a tactful silence or near silence about the ugly forces of the Iraqi “insurgency”. The many left opponents of regime change in Iraq who have been unable to understand the considerations that led others on the Left to support it, dishing out anathema and excommunication, more lately demanding apology or repentance, betray the democratic values they profess.

It is vitally important for the future of progressive politics that people of liberal, egalitarian and internationalist outlook should now speak clearly. We must define ourselves against those for whom the entire progressive-democratic agenda has been subordinated to a blanket and simplistic “anti-imperialism” and/or hostility to the current US administration. The values and goals which properly make up that agenda — the values of democracy, human rights, the continuing battle against unjustified privilege and power, solidarity with peoples fighting against tyranny and oppression — are what most enduringly define the shape of any Left worth belonging to.

Please take the chance to read the post and the document itself, and feel free to leave comments. I am moving it back up near the top of the home page. I still think that was and is the proper way to conduct oneself in these matters. Whatever the policy our government chooses and our view of that policy, we should all be reaching out and helping the people of these oppressed societies if only rhetorically. As all of us here at A Second Hand Conjecture have been arguing in posts such as this, and this the only real hope for ending the threat that fascism and radical Islamists pose (and we can all agree it is a threat, if not the extent of it) will be when the Muslim world reforms itself, but it goes past that, because we feel we should care about the fates of these people as well.

When Jon Henke set up Inactivist he claimed it was an effort to get people who may disagree but believe in liberty to identify common ground and work towards it. So when I look at someone like Michael Ledeen, I see someone who is saying things we all, whether conservative or liberal, libertarian or socialist, Republican or Democrat should be able to get behind. If our focus is more on defeating Bush (who can’t run again) or defeating Democrats that we cannot sit down and agree that sending the people of Iran laptops, communications equipment, money for strike funds, etc., as a way to avoid a larger more brutal war, to work for democratic change, then we cannot claim that we are part of a left, a right or any other description worth belonging to.

For those who imagine we are going to invade Iran is this not a better path? A path that fits your values? Why not work with someone such as Ledeen and find the common grounds for action? Isn’t that more productive if the goal is avoiding a wider war? If the goal is to relieve the suffering of the Iranian people? Does painting someone who could be your ally as a crazed lunatic out to conquer the Middle East help? Wouldn’t turning US policy in the direction of encouraging democratic change be more effective with people such as Ledeen at your side rather than ignored as a pariah? Wouldn’t all the time, money and human capital spent on marches and other campaigns vilifying Bush, Blair and others for a war already fought be better spent organizing to help encourage peaceful democratic change? Do you think for one minute that if you were to organize a worldwide movement in support of the people of Iran being allowed a truly democratic government that Ledeen wouldn’t give up the few things that he actually supports such as hot pursuit of terrorists that bother the more dovish amongst us? I bet he would strike that deal in a minute. It would certainly be more productive than painting Michael Ledeen as a warmonger.

Technorati Tags: Michael Ledeen, Middle East, Islam, War, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Norm Geras, Euston Manifesto, Jihad, Shiite, mullah, democracy

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