Return to realpolitik
Updated on 21 November 2005
Uncomfortable as it is to agree with a man cast in the Kissinger mould, in these dangerous times I find realpolitik has a certain appeal, writes Lindsey Hilsum
Lindsey Hilsum is international editor for Channel 4 News. This article first appeared in the New Statesman.
Henry Kissinger gave realpolitik a bad name.
His was a doctrine of expediency that disregarded moral imperatives; he will be remembered for bombing Cambodia, which many regard as a war crime, as much as for shuttle diplomacy and detente between the Soviet Union and the US. Yet these days we might be grateful for a little more cynicism and a little less ideology.
"The United States... must temper its missionary spirit with a concept of national interest," wrote Kissinger in his memoirs. But when George Bush says his goal is "ending tyranny in our world" and Tony Blair gets that Messianic glint in his eye, we know we may be heading for even more trouble than Kissinger feared.
Osama Bin Laden tells his followers that recreating the caliphate is an attainable goal; Bush tells us that the global march towards freedom is unstoppable. We are living in a world not of competing interests, but of competing utopias, where ideological fervour leads to danger and bloodshed.
Ideology for real
Many on the left would say realpolitik isn't dead, that all this talk of spreading democracy across the Middle East is a smokescreen for the real aim of securing Iraq's oilfields, testing American weapons and asserting imperial power.
I disagree. I think they really do believe their own ideology and are determined that everyone else should, too. A recent visitor to Washington told me how a CIA operative he met said the agency had been given three "strategic tasks" - counter-terrorism, counter-proliferation and "bolstering the growth of democracy and forging relations with incipient democracies".
This should make the left sit up and think. During the cold war, while our governments were supporting dictatorships out of realpolitik, human rights groups could urge intervention on behalf of oppressed communities safe in the knowledge that it would never happen. They had the guns; we had the moral high ground.
Then came Bosnia and Kosovo, and the doctrine of "humanitarian intervention".
Suddenly the do-gooders were on the side of the warmongers and nothing would be the same again. The left was split between those who were willing to go along with Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright and those who could never support anything made in Washington. The latter found themselves uncomfortably backing Slobodan Milosevic.
Lindsey Hilsum is international editor for Channel 4 News. This article first appeared in the New Statesman.
Iraq was different - I believe the US aim was to change the strategic equation in the Middle East, to secure oil-rich Iraq in case Saudi Arabia should become dangerously unstable or hostile.
But the idea of exporting democracy, by force if necessary, is a central part of the neo-con agenda and was a compelling secondary aim. As the Iraq project has foundered, the ideological element has been elevated.
As Blair said when he lost the vote on the terrorism bill, "Better to lose and be right, than win and be wrong." The missionary spirit is running rampant and driving the agenda.
"Iraq feeds terrorism"
A recent New Yorker profile of Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to the first President Bush, highlights the ideological shift from father to son.
Scowcroft - a protege of Kissinger - sees nothing but danger in the current experiment in the Middle East. "What the realist fears is the consequences of idealism," he said. While many criticise the first Bush government for leaving Saddam Hussein in power when coalition forces invaded in 1991, Scowcroft sees the chaos in Iraq today as proof that they were right to stop before Baghdad. His analysis of the impact is not dissimilar to criticism from the left. "This war was said to be part of the war on terror, but Iraq feeds terrorism," he said.
It is uncomfortable to agree with a man cast in the mould of Kissinger, but in these dangerous times I find that realpolitik has a certain appeal. Realpolitik would have meant leaving Saddam in power. My Iraqi friends, all of whom welcomed the war, now wonder if that might have been better - those that haven't been kidnapped and murdered in the current chaos, that is.
Realpolitik calculation
The powerless, suffering the consequences in Iraq, have no real policy choice.
In a remote area up near the Syrian border, I met a mayor who was trying to ensure that the people of his small town got food and medical attention. The only way was to work with the Americans, because they controlled the area. The US marines told me the mayor was "a good guy", as if he had made some ideological choice between them and the insurgents. In fact, he had made a realpolitik calculation - the Americans were the strongest force, so the best deal for his people was to collaborate.
Realpolitik is the philosophy of the least worst option - Saddam Hussein is bad, but anarchy is worse.
The Saudi royal family may be a bunch of corrupt autocrats, but their rule is less damaging than letting al-Qaeda take power. If the US policy of exporting democracy prevails, we may yet see the alternative utopias collide.
It is an article of faith with the neo-cons that, faced with a democratic choice, the peoples of the Middle East would vote for western-leaning democrats. In fact, such is the resurgence of extreme Islam and the hatred of America across the region, a majority might well elect Islamist leaders. Come back Kissinger, all is forgiven. Bush's ideology may lead straight into the arms of Bin Laden.
