Correspondence
CORRESPONDENCE Michael Ledeen's Foreign Policy Michael Ledeen's essay "The Future of Foreign Policy" (TAS, June 1987) is deeply disturbing in its lack of proper historical understanding of our...
...His flawed understanding of American history and constitutional rules illustrates the folly of leaving for-eign policy to self-appointed "experts...
...Certainly, some sort of counterforce has to be found to combat the growing influences of Soviet Communism, Sandinismo, Islamic fundamentalism, and other pestilential ideologies gaining ground in the Third World...
...Nowhere is this more evident than on Central America...
...Right now, considering what the Reagan Administration is cranking out, I'm not so sure how it looks...
...The trouble is that they also amaze conservatives, or should...
...Ledeen clearly thinks of himself as one of the experts on foreign policy who knows more than ordinary citizens as to what U.S...
...Ledeen's distaste for "narrow principles of American domestic law," which, he says, "are often out of place in the dangerous world at large...
...training camps...
...When he writes that "democratic revolution" is my private vision, not a cause embraced by the American people, one can only wonder in what world he is living, and what people he lives among...
...Or does he believe that words like "man is endowed by his creator with certain unalienable rights" refer only to people in New Jersey...
...As for Mr...
...The problems stem from other causes: first, that the lawyers are forever trying to apply American legal standards to international problems, where the proper standards are determined by a variety of traditions, and not just our own legal code...
...He has fallen prey to one of the most facile and misleading of the current slogans: to attack the terrorists, we are told, is to lower ourselves to their level...
...Believing as I do that responsible choice consists mostly of opting for the lesser evil, I'm about ready to opt for my neighborhood liberal Democrat...
...Removing terrorists from the world is a noble calling and is not to be compared with the slaughter of innocent civilians in airports or taking Mediterranean cruises...
...Anthony Harrigan wants furtherevidence, I commend him to the dust-pile of history, where he can interview Messrs...
...Here we have the president of an "Educational Foundation" lecturing us on the one hand that "Ours is a profoundly conservative society" that does not wish to export the democratic revolution, and, on the other hand, that "[conservatives] are dedicated to the rule of law under a system of republican government...
...While American politics in general and recent pieces of legislation in particular have forced him to distance himself from many of the concrete manifestations of his policy, it seems clear from testimony emerging before the Select Committee that the President has at all times been in full control of his administration...
...Steele bemoans the weak sisters and congressional imbeciles, he is certainly right...
...Mere love for country and the desire for self-preservation aren't good enough...
...the best I can say for Mr...
...Reagan had taken the major fallacious tenets of liberalism—deficit spending, rhetorical overpromising, ethical over-reach—and pushed them to such berserk extremes as to amaze even liberals...
...Schuyler G. Steele...
...Finally, Mr...
...This Napoleonic project, having become a pillar of the Reagan foreign policy, causes that policy to look more and more like Jimmy Carter's policy, only with muscle added—and partaking of the same moralizing, the same posturing, and the same delirious tub-thumping...
...Ledeen's recommendation that we repeal the ban on assassination is out of order for a democratic society...
...Anthony Harrigan, he caricatures my arguments and then lambastes the caricatures...
...While the President may have made some errors, he has consistently followed policies very close to those that Mr...
...His criticism is properly directed at weak sisters in the executive branch who are unwilling to take necessary risks and at the congressional imbeciles who in the first place passed the various overly restrictive laws...
...He is quite passionate about domestic questions, and has basically sound instincts about the world, but lacks the fund of understanding that normally underlies vigorous policy design and conduct...
...With regard to terrorism, Mr...
...If he means no referendum, he is technically correct...
...There have certainly been moments of American isolationism, but by now we know that such spasms have produced our greatest catastrophes...
...Our (continued on page 51) THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR AUGUST 1987 7 CORRESPONDENCE (continued from page 7) new allies must hold beliefs that are not totally repugnant to our own populace, but I doubt that their ideals, in the end, will or can include democracy as we know it...
...Ledeen is that his preposterous proposals are an attempt to overwhelm this opposition by superseding it...
...Whether it's being done by Mr...
...Anthony Harrigan's concerns: he admirably documents my claim that American education poorly prepares us for dealing with the world at large...
...Anthony Harrigan writes that there has been no vote on the issue of democratic revolution...
...But I wouldn't recommend that any member of Congress—much less any presidential candidate—run for election on a program of isolationism or cold-blooded geopolitics...
...That things are at a serious turn is demonstrated by recent events...
...Anthony Harrigan thinks that conservatives favor the use of the armed forces to strike at terrorists, and that therefore it is out of order for us to consider the assassination of terrorists...
...They are to be found, rather, in the panic-stricken salons of the 1970s: when intellectuals, horrified at the poisons they had let loose on society and realizing that a sinking America would sink them too, decided that they had better repair the damage fast and concocted a new propaganda line consisting of "human rights" and "democratic revolution...
...Schuyler G. Steele Portland, Maine Michael Ledeen replies: To start with Mr...
...Whatever may be the history of Michael Ledeen's essay in the June American Spectator, I disagree strongly with his ideas...
...D. F L'Hommedieu not only partakes of the same misunderstandings as Mr...
...that is a worthy task...
...foreign policy but they are dedicated to the rule of law under a system of republican government...
...Ours is a profoundly conservative society, judging by the letter and spirit of the U.S...
...I do note three errors, one minor and the others more serious...
...Unfortunately, it's not good enough...
...His lack of foreign policy experience prior to his assumption of the presidency makes his accomplishments all the more admirable...
...This is a non sequitur...
...While it is absurd to blame legal counsel for telling governmental officials that illegal activity is in fact illegal, Mr...
...American democracy is the result of a unique historical experience and did not just pop up over night...
...There are echoes here of the old Puritan exceptionalism, but I don't think the roots of this would-be policy lie in America's distant past...
...And I doubt that the, situation can be dramatically improved by any President, no matter how brilliant...
...CORRESPONDENCE Michael Ledeen's Foreign Policy Michael Ledeen's essay "The Future of Foreign Policy" (TAS, June 1987) is deeply disturbing in its lack of proper historical understanding of our governmental system and its absence of respect for constitutional requirements...
...It's as though Mr...
...That, I think, particularly defines Mr...
...If Mr...
...Ours is a national problem, caused by a series of shortcomings in our national culture and our institutions...
...But his denial of the fundamental American belief in the universality of the democratic revolution is simply wrong...
...he is in fact an amiable man, and not particularly engaged on the subject of foreign policy...
...F L'Hommedieu Kearny, New Jersey I was, on the whole, impressed by the argument set forth in Michael Ledeen's article on the future of foreign policy...
...Ledeen's private vision, not a cause embraced by the American people...
...policy should be...
...There's nothing in American constitutional history to warrant such a statement...
...has he never read the Declaration of Independence...
...Thoughtful conservatives ought to be concerned with Mr...
...Ledeen dismisses out-ofhand conservative suspicion of revolutionary movements...
...First, Eisenhower knew a good deal about the world, which Reagan didn't...
...Constitution, and the history of our diplomacy shows our commitment to parliamentary government which is distinctly non-revolutionary...
...The politicians, lawyers, judges, bureaucrats, and journalists are firmly in control...
...And that brings us to Mr...
...the issue is whether the current anti-assassination Executive Order serves our interests or, as...
...I believe, compels us to choose between verbal protest and bombing terrorist targets (headquarters...
...We don't want to become a carbon copy of the enemy...
...When we are lucky enough to lure a lawyer experienced in international problems to the State Department and he brings real wisdom and understanding to bear on foreign policy, the "establishment" flies into a rage, as has befallen Judge Sofaer, the legal counsel to Secretary of State Shultz...
...Indeed, the very existence of American society is a threat to our most determined enemies, who realize that so long as we flourish, they are challenged...
...Unfortunately, Reagan did not "shield himself behind a mask of bland amiability...
...but he must not forget that they are hiding behind the legal mantle of the judges and barristers, who, whatever their individual courage and brain power, are generally devoid of the proper policy qualifications and experience...
...Few Americans would agree with his statement that "Ours is a revolutionary society, and we are committed to the spread of the democratic revolution...
...Finally, on this very important point, Mr...
...Steele believes him to be, then Reagan would have moved in the first year or two of his presidency to deal with the Central American crisis, rather than ordering Secretary of State Haig to stop alarming people with all that belligerent talk about "going to the source," etc...
...The record of our national history makes clear a continuing commitment to evolutionary policies...
...Anthony Harrigan, President USIC Educational Foundation Washington, D.C...
...to the liberal scheme of transforming our containment of an expansionist adversary into a competition with that adversary for the right to impose our own global political monoculture...
...When Mr...
...This President is certainly an improvement over the last two...
...All those who agree with Harrigan should spend an hour or two with the family of Leon Klinghoffer, the man murdered by Abu Abbas's Palestine Liberation Front on the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro, or the family of Robert Stethem, murdered on a TWA aircraft in the hands of terrorists en route to Beirut...
...Ledeen's oblique attack on President Reagan is more distressing...
...and finally that the lawyers and judges are quite clearly attempting to make policy—even foreign policy—and rarely have the qualifications to do so...
...Moreover, there has never been a vote of the people in support of what Mr...
...Ledeen advises...
...Ledeen's policy...
...Wrong...
...Thus our dealings in foreign affairs take place in a kind of liberal thought-warp...
...If we don't act for the most exalted reasons imaginable, we can't act at all...
...He was denounced by the New York Times because he dared to write a clear-eyed analysis of the ABM treaty, and has been one of the Administration's toughest thinkers on the subject of international terrorism...
...Now, as though bowled over by this rush of flaming language, conservatives have acquiesced (again...
...foreign policy, he need not worry...
...Certainly, it is unfair to lump him together with the peanut farmer...
...It is pot a matter of who should attack the terrorists...
...where civilian casualties are inevitably maximized...
...with no limits of time, space, or circumstance...
...There is no quick political fix for such matters, any more than-one can quickly remedy our lack of expertise in foreign languages or geography...
...Anthony Harrigan's concern that self-appointed experts like me are in danger of taking over U.S...
...It is his view that the United States, as a "revolutionary society" committed to defending not only its geopolitical interest but also the ideal of democracy, has an a priori obligation to foster and sustain a worldwide "democratic revolution...
...Finally, Mr...
...Ledeen's lawyer-bashing is annoying but does not detract from the content of his analysis...
...I share with him a horror of the sort of abstract moralism that Carter gave us, agree that one must often choose the least of available evils (and said so, in those very words), agree that the congressional liberals have used abstract moralism as an excuse for inaction, and deplore a policy consisting of good words and ineffectual acts...
...My complaint about the lawyers is not that they remind the policy makers about legal constraints...
...Reza Pahlavi, Babydoc, Marcos, Somoza, and others of their ilk, who found themselves abandoned by the United States because the American people would no longer tolerate an alliance with a dictator, and demanded instead that the United States government support the democratic revolution (or something perceived or hoped to be that, or something closer to that) in their countries...
...Nowhere does he offer the slightest support for this idea other than the bald statement, itself unsupported, that America has and has always had a "commitment" to it (Q.E.D...
...Like Eisenhower before him, he is a shrewd and capable geopolitical player who shields himself behind a mask of bland amiability...
...Perhaps this says something about the Reagan Administration's overall strategy, which seems to consist of going va banque in every conceivable area...
...Every serious poll of American attitudes finds profound support for peoples striving for greater freedom and democracy, and American reactions to foreign crises in which we are involved invariably revolve around a judgment of the "democratic qualifications" of the people we support...
...Instead, the problem was set on the back burner, and has boiled over in the second term...
...He, at least, can be counted on to make conservatism look intelligent instead of stupid...
...second, that the lawyers, in their effort to acquire greater power (or, if you're sympathetic to them, in an attempt to hold our officials to higher standards), are imposing a legalistic praxis on government which produces greater paralysis rather than good behavior...
...How marvelous to live in a metaphysical entity instead of a mere country...
...If the President had been the "shrewd and capable geo-political player" that Mr...
...Democratic revolution" is Mr...
...Steele compares Reagan with Eisenhower, which I believe to be wrong on several counts...
...All of the above goes for the pseudonymous rantings of the so-called D. F. L'Hommedieu (it's good to see there are still Nietzscheans in Kearny, N.J., however...
...Ledeen on an important and thought-provoking contribution to the foreign policy debate...
...It is precisely that dedication to the rule of law under republican government that makes us a revolutionary society, for these principles are truly revolutionary for most of the rest of the world...
...The assumption that its structure, or even its core values, can be easily transplanted into another historical setting is unsupported by world history...
...Like many of the other problems we face, this one can only be overcome over time, if we somehow educate a new generation of Americans with real knowledge about the world, and who enforce reasonable standards of accountability.' Meanwhile, it's going to be tough...
...He overrates the role of attorneys in creating paralysis in government, he underrates the achievements of our current President, and he shows some real naivete about the exportability of democratic ideals...
...Instead, America must save everybody, lecture everybody, interfere with everybody, provide an example for everybody, take responsibility for everybody, supervise everybody, play the messiah of history, and in general fulfill the urges of every progressive missionary society and democratic gospel-spreader—or it must do nothing at all...
...He laments the fact that "we cannot recruit terrorists to our side . . ." Conservatives favor the use of the armed forces to strike at terrorists...
...Reagan himself or by people who work for him to whom he pays no attention, the result is a roller-coaster ride of reckless and desperate gambles sustained by faith in the efficacy of chutzpah...
...Criticisms aside, I would certainly congratulate Mr...
...Ledeen describes as "the kind of revolutionary policies we should pursue...
...Ledeen is quite right in stressing that, for reasons of state, laws must occasionally be stretched...
...Conservatives favor changes in U.S...
...Congressional liberals, the "do-nothing" faction, say our motives aren't pure enough...
...They don't believe the United States should resort to counter-terrorism...
Vol. 20 • August 1987 • No. 8
