Foreign Political Reformers Are Also Patriotic Citizens of Their Country
Mehdi Karubi
In one of the most telling and least-perceptive columns of the year, Jackson Diehl went to hear a spokesman for Iranian opposition leader Mehdi Karoubi speak at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and came away appalled. Karoubi, you see, wants political reform in Iran and not the neoconservative political agenda for the region. But rather than inspiring any rethinking of anything, Diehl just huffs and puffs.
The basic reality that neocons are going to have to grapple with if their nominal pro-democracy agenda ever makes any headway is that opposition leaders in places like Iran, Russia, China, etc. are still patriotic citizens of their home countries. I wouldn’t go the whole realist hog and say that the nature of the domestic regime has no relevance to foreign policy, but it has much less than the American discourse often seems to assume. In general, countries that have some specific fear of being overwhelmed by a stronger neighbor (think Poland) are going to be interested in more American power in their area, whereas countries that see themselves as fighting for a place in the sun (think Iran or China) will chafe at American power. We often see a construction wherein Iranian pursuit of the knowledge necessary to construct a nuclear weapon is somehow an outgrowth of Islamist ideology when, in fact, countries such as Japan and Sweden have pursued this path and the majority of nuclear weapons states are democracies.
Political democracy is great. And it does make cooperation on issues of mutual interest easier. But it doesn’t change the fact that there isn’t always mutual interest. It’s hard to envision a Chinese government embracing the Tibet independence movement (imagine the head of a large Indian tribe raising funds in Russia for an independence drive) or a Russian government smiling at the prospect of Georgia and Ukraine joining NATO (imagine Mexico signing a military alliance with China) under any form of government.
13 Responses to “Foreign Political Reformers Are Also Patriotic Citizens of Their Country”
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November 2nd, 2009 at 4:09 pm
This seems entirely consistent with the neocon worldview. They consider their domestic opposition to be traitors rather than a competing party with different beliefs about the role of government. Is it any surprise that they assume every country has a “traitor/evil” party? (Defined as whichever group happens to disagree with neocons that month.) With us or against us, yada yada.
November 2nd, 2009 at 4:30 pm
Yeah, it’s pretty amazing people need to be told this. Whenever most people don’t like the bums in power, they work for political reform or prosecutions or voting, or at most internal revolt. As opposed to asking for a foreign army to bomb them, invade them, overthrow their government, occupy their homeland, and restructure their society. The teabaggers are about as crazy and seditious as Americans come and they haven’t been asking Canada to overthrow Obama.
November 2nd, 2009 at 4:37 pm
One obvious difference between Diehl’s Washington Post and the New York Times is that a huge number of Post subscribers have jobs in the Empire business: they work at the Pentagon, they are lobbyists for Lockheed, etc. (Heck, Lockheed relocated its headquarters from its traditional roots in Southern California to Washington DC.)
So, much of what appears in the Post is just propaganda for overseas make-work projects for Beltway denizens.
November 2nd, 2009 at 4:47 pm
a Russian government smiling at the prospect of Georgia and Ukraine joining NATO (imagine Mexico signing a military alliance with China) under any form of government.)
You should make that a lot stronger.
It’s like Mexico becoming a candidate North American member of the Warsaw Pact.
November 2nd, 2009 at 4:56 pm
“The teabaggers are about as crazy and seditious as Americans come and they haven’t been asking Canada to overthrow Obama.”
That’s true, but they do want the Confederacy to rise again and topple Obama.
November 2nd, 2009 at 5:02 pm
“So, much of what appears in the Post is just propaganda for overseas make-work projects for Beltway denizens.”
Every once in a while, Steve Sailer’s world overlaps with the real one. This is one of those times.
November 2nd, 2009 at 5:39 pm
INDEPENDENT TEA PARTY SUPPORTER
No people on earth can be held, as a people, to an enemy, for all humanity shares the common hunger for peace and fellowship and justice. No nation’s security and well-being can be lastingly achieved in isolation but only in effective co-operation with fellow-nations. (The Chance for Peace 1953).
The American-Israeli Empire is a threat to all of humanity, the past generation failed to handle the [MIC] Military Industrial Complex and now it is up to a New Generation to dismantle it.
No other nation in the world has [300] military installations scattered around the Globe and no other nation has been responsible for the deaths of so many in the name of some so called Democratic Idea, when its wars have been nothing more than wars of Resources and Markets.
The North American Map must be changed by the New Generation, and to each generation falls tasks that they must accomplish and this generations is to end the American-Israeli Empire, and its [MIC] Military Industrial Complex, close all its military bases, and build a new systems of Independent Republics on the North American Continent.
The American-Israeli Empire our way or we will send Marines to make it our way and abdicating, the government’s responsibility to govern to the [MIC] Military Industrial Complex, by just saying now you handle it must be brought to and end. Civilized rule is not done at the end of a Marine Bayonet.
Hercule Triathlon Savinien
November 2nd, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Annnnd, thank you Triathlon!
This basically proves the point though. Triathlon is calling for “a new systems of Independent Republics on the North American Continent” (?) to be built by the New Generation, and even here I’m not seeing anything asking foreign militaries to invade us. You can be against the actions of your government, even as far out as Triathlon is, without desiring foreign invasion. I imagine Jackson Diehl would understand this concept just fine applied to the US, but when Iranians don’t want to be bombed he gets thrown for a loop.
November 2nd, 2009 at 7:39 pm
New Independent Republics of North America.
This basically proves the point though. Triathlon is calling for “a new systems of Independent Republics on the North American Continent” (?) Ill informed people let their goverments do anything in their names, and Secession movement spreads well beyond Texas,BY DAVE MONTGOMERY,[dmontgomery@star-telegram.com], even as far out as Triathlon is Thomas Jefferson blazed the trail.
Never is a word that seldom has real meaning in the real world, it is the [21st] Century, and time for the Dreamers, Thinkers and Dreamers of this New Era to create a new Global Dynamic, were Iran would be free to have Nuclear Weapon as much as Israel, Pakistan, India, France, Russia, North Korea, and if the countries of South America need them to counter the treats of The American-Israeli Empire, they should strive to have them.
The Dreamers, Thinkers and Workers of the New Era MUST end the American-Israeli Empire and the [MIC] end the need one would hope of nations beyond the lead Sphere’s of Influence nations from having them, being under the umberalla of protection of that national Sphere.
It is time to dismantle this government from within before it is torn apart from without, it will happen one way or the other, Democracy at the point of an American-Israeli Empire Marine Bayonet is not Democracy, it is state terrorism.
Hercule Triathlon Savinien
November 2nd, 2009 at 8:17 pm
If it weren’t for the flag of the islamofascist regime behind him, I would have thought Karubi was Amish.
November 2nd, 2009 at 8:52 pm
[...] links a post about a surprised neo-con who discovers that the Iranian reformers are patriots not American [...]
November 2nd, 2009 at 10:47 pm
Man, Triathlon really brings the crazy.
November 3rd, 2009 at 2:54 am
“Man, Triathlon really brings the crazy.”
And Steve Sailer doesn’t? Granted, Steve is a smart guy, and he has skewed statistics that back his claims. But his warped perception of reality is based on the skewed statistics that that he cherry picks. And even the mainstream statistics are skewed against those that refuse to participate in any data collection. And that’s most of the people in the inner cities. I lived in a mixed Black-Korean neighborhood, and the Census said nobody lived there. It was only three thousand people, but how many people have to be in your neighborhood for anyone to admit it exists? If your white and 300 people, you exist. If your neighborhood isn’t white, it doesn’t exist even if you are white. And that’s what happens when you’re Black or Korean. If you’re Arab, don’t ever think you’ll ever be counted. You’re lucky you aren’t in the morgue already. Welcome to America as it is. My only reason to think God exists is because Steve Sailer hasn’t killed those people yet. But Steve is weak, so I still don’t believe in God. Maybe God restrains him. But the more likely concept is that he doesn’t have the guts to kill those he hates.