Why Today's American Foreign Policy is So UnRealistic

By Barry Rubin

One of the main features of this misguided contemporary foreign policy debate is the corruption of the concept of Realism.  In some ways, the school called Realism was simply a way of teaching principles long regarded as obvious in Europe to Americans, whose idealism about the world had both good and bad implications. Both isolationism and the idea that America's mission is to spread democracy are typical non-Realist patterns of how American exceptionalism plays into foreign policy thinking. That’s why the concepts that made up Realism were introduced to the United States by Hans Morgenthau, a refugee from Germany, and most clearly practiced in office by Henry Kissinger, ditto.

But American policymakers--with notable and often disastrous exceptions--have mostly used a Realist approach in their work to the point that they take it for granted. At times, of course, ideology has overridden Realism, with the two most obvious cases being Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama. Republican presidents, for a reason we will see in a moment, have tended to be more universally Realist because they have accepted the idea of the predominance of national interest and power. The one who was probably least so was George W. Bush.

And, no, Barack Obama, John Kerry, Chuck Hagel, and John Brennan are not Realists or realists either.

This is a complex subject and one discussed at some length in my book, Secrets of State. It is important to emphasize that Morgenthau articulated ideas  already widely held and practiced but never so effectively put into words.  In his writings, Morgenthau stressed that the making of foreign policy lay at the juncture between human nature, the characteristics and views of leaders, and objective factors of geopolitics. The assumption of international affairs' thinking was that strong countries want to stay strong and be stronger; weaker countries want to survive. They thus must analyze how to achieve these goals.  A good Realist disregards ideology, which gets into the way of objectively viewing this situation.

The problem that many who claim to practice this view today don’t understand is that the Realist knows that ideology does get in the way of objective interest all the time. The first question a Realist asks is: asks "How does this policy affect the power and interests of the nation?" But the Realist knows that this is the way things should be done, not necessarily the way that things happen.

Today, Realism has been corrupted into a bizarre reversal of its principles which begins by asserting that it doesn’t matter who rules a country; they must follow a policy that maximizes the country’s interest. Note the distinction:

The Realist says, “If I were making policy this is what I would do….” Or: “This is what the government should do.”

The contemporary misunderstanders say that this is what a country will do.

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A simple example. Egypt has national interests. These include maintaining peace with its neighbors, focusing on stability and development. It can seek Arab or Islamic leadership but what will that bring but instability, violence, and the waste of resources? That would be an ideological deviation from Egypt’s national interests. After all, Egypt tried such a policy (Arab nationalist version) for decades and it was a disaster. The Realist says: Egypt shouldn’t do it. The pseudo-Realists who control much of the Western debate today say: It is impossible for Egypt to be radical or governed by an ideology that runs against the objective national interests. Therefore, the Muslim Brotherhood must become moderate. [For a picture of the Brotherhood that shows this isn't true, see Eric Trager's excellent lecture.]

At the same time, though, Realism understands that conflict is a natural part of the international environment and can be very useful for a regime. If you stir up people, get them obsessed with foreign enemies, and engage them in international adventures—as dictators including Hitler and Saddam Hussein understood—they are more likely to support the current government, excuse its failings, and ignore domestic problems. This is the role that the Arab-Israeli conflict has played in Arabic-speaking countries.

Wiser leaders like Egypt’s like Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat and Jordan’s King Hussein understood that the fanatical pursuit of this conflict was not in their country’s true interests. But such is the power of ideology, the opportunism of their opponents, and the value of such a policy for radical regimes that they received scant praise for their objective and pursuit of national benefits.

This is also why the Israel issue is so often misunderstood. The pseudo-Realist reasons: The national interests of Arab states dictate that they be peaceful, focus on development, and cultivate friendship with the West. But they don’t behave that way. Since it is impossible that internal forces can be to blame it must be because Israel’s existence and the conflict with it have derailed the natural course of things.

Such an analysis, of course, leaves out ideology, personal ambitions of leaders, the uses of demagogically stirring up xenophobia for gaining and staying in power, the Islamic factor, and lots of other things. Yet this is what we are faced with: the argument that if Arab or Muslim-majority or other states don’t act “normally” it must be the West’s fault. Arrogance, mistreatment, and imperialism have driven them into temporary insanity.

For example, there is a new book by Raymond Baker, a professor and consultant to the U.S. government which blames revolutionary Islamism on “our own reckless militarism and our blind support for the expansion of others [Israel];" why the September 11 attacks were caused by U.S. policies; an explanation of why the Muslim Brotherhood is centrist, and why Hamas and Hizballah aren’t bad at all.

If such things were merely academic discussions, it wouldn’t be so disturbing. If they became the hegemonic stance in Western foreign policy debates it would be disturbing. That such ideas govern the policies of most Western states is horrifying. Yes, it does matter what ideology governments hold in shaping their policies.

And, yes, internal forces generate revolutionaries (even in America!) who want to fundamentally transform their societies and are not just driven by foreigners treating them badly

And yes, too, centuries of Western history should have taught people about the drive of some to hold power, to conquer their neighbors, and to hate those who are different from them. Contrary to the implicit claims of Political Correctness, such things are not restricted to Western civilization. It was just better at these things for a whole than were others. Now the torch of being primary in national ambition, imperialism, aggression, and racial hatred has been passed.

In fact, though, as the--forgive the pun--real Realists know, the key factor governing countries’ international behavior is how their leaders perceive national interest. There are certain commonalities between Russia/USSR/Russia; Republic of China/People's Republic of China (Maoist)/People's Republic of China (revisionist); Imperial Germany/Weimar Germany/Nazi Germany; Federal Republic of Germany-German Democratic Republic/Germany; Iran/Islamic Republic of Iran, but the differences are rather significant, don't you think? Here’s a quick example, chosen deliberately to be rather distant in time, and thanks to my esteemed colleague Dr. Wolfgang G. Schwanitz.

In 1880s Germany, the chancellor Otto von Bismarck warned that his country should focus on peaceful development at home and purely economic diplomacy abroad, avoiding aggression and imperialism. He pointed out—as a Realist—that Germany was surrounded by potential enemies: Britain, France, and Russia and could be attacked on three fronts. In geopolitical terms, for Germany to seek expansionism in Europe would lead to a losing war. Abroad, attempts to seize land as colonies would produce a reaction by the other strong powers, bringing them into alliance with each other and thus ending in a losing European war. That was a Realist assessment.

Then, Kaiser Wilhelm II came to the throne and disagreed. His policy led to World War One and German defeat. Adolph Hitler agreed with the kaiser and his policy led to World War Two and German defeat. Bismarck was correct; the kaiser and Hitler were wrong. But they were the ones who actually made policy and tens of millions died, much of the world was wrecked, Germany was defeated. Contemporary followers of mainstream thinking would say that such a history was impossible. That of course the kaiser and Hitler would pursue Germany’s real interests. Just as they would say that contemporary dictators—including Islamist ones—will face reality and become moderate. That view is neither realistic nor Realistic.

Footnotes:

--Yes, I’m aware that one can say that the fact that Britain and France didn’t allow Germany a fair share of colonies before World War One and persecuted Germany afterward set up conditions forcing Germany to behave differently. Yet as Bismarck understood, the ultimate geostrategic realities still applied. Hitler's policies ultimately didn't sever German interests..

--And if U.S. policy is responsible for September 11 and radical Islamism it would be equally valid to assert that American policy was responsible for Japan’s Pearl Harbor attack or that Czechoslovakia’s policy was responsible for Hitler’s seizing it. That game can be played with any event in history.

--One of the things the contemporary pseudo-Realist thinking does is to drain all of the specificity out of every country’s society and history. Contrary to the claims of Multiculturalism, the same people who advocate that also act as if each country is identical, just a matter of different foods, languages, and clothing but with no basic difference in critical ideas and experiences.

--If a weak country's policies fail that might well be because it was overwhelmed by the power of a stronger foe and never had any chance. But if a strong country's policy fails it is more likely that its leaders did not perceive its true interests and carry out the best possible strategy and tactics.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University Press. Other recent books include The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center  and of his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.

The Broader Implications of the Petraeus Resignation: Personal Behavior and Public Office

By Barry Rubin

General David Petraeus was the hero of the victorious surge strategy in Iraq. But he also has the distinction of becoming America’s first Politically Correct field commander. His strategy in Afghanistan was in line with that of the Obama Administration by putting the emphasis on winning Muslim hearts and minds as a higher priority than military victories or even at times the safety of American soldiers. There’s a reason why President Barack Obama made him CIA director.

Leaving aside the question of the resignation’s relationship to the Benghazi debacle, in some ways, his fall is more discouraging than the election results. Don’t these powerful people feel that their duty is more important than their personal self-aggrandizement or pleasure? We should remember, too, that Petraeus’s predecessor in Afghanistan was brought down because of some incautious things said in a magazine interview.

Gary Hart, Bill Clinton, Herman Caine, John Edwards, Ted Kennedy, Larry Craig, Richard Nixon, and other politicians supposedly represented certain ideas, policies, and the hopes and dreams of millions of people who have worked hard for them and put their trust in them. Can’t they put aside what they might also desire for the sake of those things?

I have seen with my own two eyes Kennedy drunk on the floor of the Senate and I know a lot from first-hand observation about the private adventures of former Senator Chris Dodd and Hart. And all of the above hasn’t begun to touch on financial corruption.

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Of course, many do behave differently and far better. A few years ago I’d have said that perhaps the media has become too willing and able to expose the foibles of those at the top. Yet after the spectacle of a Teflon Obama and his entourage it would be more correct to say that the media only exposes those it wants to for political purposes. Then, too, Clinton and Kennedy didn’t suffer at all from their amorousness and bad driving.

If I’m not mistaken, there are now Democratic senators from Connecticut and Massachusetts who lied about their military records. The latter one, Senator John Kerry, may soon be secretary of state, which will be a global disaster of major proportions. There is also now a Democratic senator from Massachusetts who clearly lied about being a Cherokee in order to get preferential treatment in getting a job.

I have seen in the National Archives the OSS report during World War Two that a Danish journalist was a Nazi spy. And this is the woman with whom John F. Kennedy had an affair and for that reason was shipped out by his father to the Pacific front, where he would be made a hero through a combination of his bad navigation and subsequent brave behavior in the sinking of PT-109. General Dwight Eisenhower’s and President Franklin Roosevelt’s affairs during World War Two are today well known. But those were times when things remained quiet.

Why, though, are these personal matters anyone else’s business? The debate usually focuses around an argument between what is proper morality and whether Americans are too puritanical. The French, we are told, rejoice when their politicians get naughty.

But there is another far more important issue altogether that is rarely aired. If a politician or major public figure believes in what he’s doing and knows that exposure of his misdeed would destroy that mission, how can they give in to temptation if they really believe in the importance of that mission or of the importance of keeping faith with those who are relying on them?

And if they don’t care at all about those things, how can they be worthy of wielding power? It is not so much a question of personal morality as it is of character, not an issue of private life but of whether one takes seriously the concept of duty.  If, for example, Bill Clinton was willing to risk his presidency for having some sort of relations--even if he could define them as not having had sex in some physiological sense--with Monica Lewinsky and then, according to the court finding, committing perjury about his behavior, that is not the sort of person one should want to be president. The fact that he escaped impeachment for the latter offense is not the point. His being willing to take that chance is the issue.

There is also something in the character of those who lust for power and fame—and I write this from long observation growing up in Washington DC—that very much distorts one’s personality. Such people almost inevitably feel superior to others, arrogant that they can get away with anything, coming to take for granted that they deserve privileges but that the rules don’t apply to them. That’s why the founders of America wanted to limit government and the power of those who ran it.

Such wisdom is even older, though it has only rarely done humanity much good. “Put not your trust in princes,” says Psalm 146. Rabbi Hillel said almost two thousand years ago that the obsessively ambitious end up by destroying themselves.

Today, it isn’t so much that Republicans are more upstanding. The difference is that they pay for their sins because the media is so quick to devour them.  If, say, a Republican candidate for the Senate in Missouri says something stupid once, he’s finished. If a Democrat does so, even repeatedly racialist statements, he gets to be vice-president for another four years. That’s reality.

Before the revolution it was clearly defined in France which classes whose members could or could not be legally tortured. This distinction now applies to public figures along partisan and ideological lines as well.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University Press. Other recent books include The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center  and of his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia

The Trickiness of Fate and the Life of a Man

This article is published on PJ Media. 

By Barry Rubin

When I think about the strange twists and turns life takes, I'm reminded of the strange story of my great uncle Julius Lowenbein. Although fully true his story could have been written by O’Henry. Listen and hear it.

Gyula (Julius) Lowenbein was born on March 11, 1869, in a small Austro-Hungarian village now located on the western end of Slovakia just across the border from the Czech Republic.  At the age of 20 he went into the clothing business with partners in another town but either the business didn’t do well, the partners quarreled, or he had an itch to leave.  So in 1894 they wound up the business and he immigrated to New York, with a second-class ticket bought with his share from the sale.

I have a picture of the family, about 20 people, taken at some resort just before he left. He is a young handsome man with light brown hair and a serious but slightly mischievous expression. In New York, where he would soon greet his arriving sister (my great-grandmother) Julius went right back to his trade of selling clothes.  By 1900 he was a boarder at a building at 1074 Lexington Avenue.  He was engaged to a woman named Sophie. His future looked bright.

Then disaster struck. He didn’t feel well and the doctor diagnosed his problem as tuberculosis, a dreaded disease in those days that one could not be expected to survive long. What could he do? There were new sanitaria opening up in the beautiful little town of Asheville, North Carolina, where the air was pure and clean. Perhaps he could be saved by going there.

Shattered, and expecting not to live very long, Julius fled New York without telling his sister or Sophie. My great-grandfather, Julius's brother-in-law, wrote after Julius finally sent his new address from Asheville, that the family wasn't the least bit mad at him but that Sophie was shocked to hear the news of his departure for an unknown destiatnion only after searching for him at the Strauss store where he'd been employed. Julius was a real gentleman in the best sense of the word and didn't want to cause Sophie harm. But in his view that meant not giving her the choice of marrying a man who had no future, even if she'd wanted to do so. They never spoke again.

For a couple of years Julius lived in a sanitarium. He had no friends, no one visited him, and he was so very lonely. Finally, they released him but warned him to be careful.  There was no cure. And so he virtually never left Asheville again. He moved into a nice little house right next door to a boarding house owned by the Wolfe family, and was almost certainly the first Jew ever met by the owner’s son, a budding novelist named Thomas Wolfe, who would head for New York--influenced by stories told him by Julius--and become famous for such books as Look Homeward Angel and You Can't Go Home Again.  

Julius became an American success story on a more modest level. He worked in clothing stores, then became a partner, and then bought a four-story building for his own store, Lowenbein’s Smart Shop. He was hit hard by the Depression which rendered the stocks he owned worthless. Julius lost his car and store, but didn't give up and went into the manufacturing end on a small scale.

He never married, doubting his health and worried as to what fatal malady he might pass on to any children. His niece, Charlotte came to live with him in the early 1920s after her mother, Julius’s sister, died. In 1941, after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, he begged my mother and grandmother to join him in Asheville to escape what many thought to be an imminent Japanese invasion of California. They did and lived with him for several years, leading to a process that would eventually result in my existence and thus you reading these words.

Julius was active in his Reform synagogue, president of the Zionist organization (my only relative ever to have any such involvement), and a member of many local organizations. Everyone liked him; many loved him. But because no one had visited him, for the rest of his life, every Sunday Julius devoted to going to see sick people in the hospital. He became nationally famous for this practice and there were even radio programs done about his good deeds.

On August 2, 1944, at age 75, Julius died. The autopsy showed that he had never had tuberculosis. The whole thing was a misdiagnosis. His life had been based on a total mistake. Yet what a noble life it had been!

A few days after he died, a young man arrived in Asheville looking for Julius. He found my aunt who explained that he had come too late. The young man sighed and a tear wound down his cheek. He was, the man explained, Sophie’s son. She had never forgotten Julius and on her own deathbed bid him somehow find Julius and tell him goodbye.

And now here I am trying to survive a correct diagnosis of lung cancer, living in an age far more advanced in so many material ways and regressed in some other ways.   I salute you, Uncle Julius, may you be in a better place where your good deeds will be rewarded. And may we all remember how the strange roads that fate and accident send us down challenges us to be virtuous people nonetheless.

A Middle East Policy for President Romney

This article is published at PJ Media.

http://pjmedia.com/barryrubin/2012/09/04/a-middle-east-policy-for-president-romney/

A Middle East Policy for President Romney

By Barry Rubin

There was virtually no discussion of foreign policy at the Republican National Convention. This was entirely appropriate given the crisis and priority of domestic issues. Yet I haven’t even seen a single article discussing this issue at all, and it is going to be important.

Here is the key factor:  Mitt Romney, the Romney-Ryan ticket, and Republican congressional candidates have a variety of choices on foreign policy. Some of them can be bad and because there are different and complex issues the line taken will not—and arguably should not—be consistent.

Of course, there are the general principles: make America strong and respected again; support the soldiers; help friends and make enemies sorry that they are enemies. There must be an end to apologies and the defense of legitimate U.S. interests. Popularity is okay but respect and trust are far more important. Avoid either isolationism or excessive interventionism and get over the democracy-solves-all naivete. Don't be chomping at the bit to go to war with Iran as a supposed panacea. 

These are important but these principles don’t necessarily tell us how to do things. An average Arab citizen put it best in private conversation: “We don’t want an American president who acts like an Arab. We want an American president who acts like an American.”  The old diplomatic virtues of credibility, national interests’ protection, preserving alliances and promises, recognizing friends and enemies, and so on need to be reinstalled.


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The easiest theme is to stop helping anti-American dictators in Venezuela and several other Latin American countries; the Muslim Brotherhood (everywhere, including Hamas as the ruler of the Gaza Strip); and Hizballah; as well as many small terrorist groups and al-Qaida.

The basic grand strategy for the Middle East should be to form and lead a very broad and very loose—not institutionalized—alignment of forces opposing Islamism. These include showing real leadership to the Europeans, many of whom are better on this issue than Obama. It also means supporting Israel, of course, but there is a long list of others:

Governments: Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain (despite its faults), Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya (we hope, Obama can claim credit for that one), Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia (despite its faults), and the United Arab Emirates. You can add some other former Soviet Muslim-majority republics.

Opposition and democratic moderate movements: Iran, Lebanon, Syria (where the United States is supporting the Islamists!), Tunisia, and Turkey (see Syria, above). Let’s also keep in mind the Berbers, Christians, and Kurds in general as communities that overwhelmingly link their survival to fighting revolutionary Islamism.  Such ethnic communities can also be found in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

This cooperation to defeat radical Islamism, however it disguises itself, should be the backbone of U.S. policy. It can be implemented in a thousand different ways. Post-victory planning, which better start soon at least among independent analysts, needs to define these.

There are some Middle East problem countries that require special consideration.

It is time for a withdrawal from Afghanistan and a clever policy of backing—with a mixture of covert and financial as well as other assets—those who will fight to keep the Taliban out of power. Afghanistan is not going to be democratic or a nice place. But it must a place that does not threaten America again.

Yemen is a mess and, like Afghanistan, will continue to be a mess. The U.S. policy should cooperate to the maximum extent with Yemen on fighting terrorism without illusions about the nature of the regime and its willingness to betray the United States at any moment.

Qatar must also be treated with great caution. For reasons of local pride and ambition, it likes to stir up trouble and often supports Islamists, as well as playing footsy with Iran. Qatar should be treated with extreme suspicion not because its interests are different from America’s (everybody’s are) but because it likes to play the role of joker in the deck of cards.

Unfortunately, there is a parallel here with the far more important case of Pakistan. This is a headache without resolution. On one hand, the United States must ensure that the regime is not overthrown by radical Islamists. On the other hand, the United States cannot trust Pakistan at all to cooperate in fighting terrorism. Indeed, Pakistan is a major world sponsor of terrorism, not only against India but also to help the Taliban in Afghanistan, even—as we’ve vividly seen—al-Qaida! As the United States withdraws from Afghanistan the relationship with Pakistan should be reduced.

Obviously, the United States should not get into a conflict situation with Turkey but the whole romance with that stealth Islamist regime should come to an end. The Obama Administration hasn’t seemed to notice that Turkey has become a major sponsor of Hamas, Hizballah, and the worst elements in Syria. Turkey is not an appropriate intermediary with Arabs or Muslims for the United States. The current regime is part of the problem and the only reason things aren’t worse is that Arabs generally prefer to keep Turkey out.

A word on Syria: the issue is not whether America should intervene or what specific actions it should take. That is of secondary importance. The issue is that America should be on the side of the moderates: the urban Sunni middle class, the Kurds who want autonomy, the Christians who want to survive, the defected army officers who are nationalistic, and even Sunni Muslim traditionalists. It should devote every ounce of effort in battling the Brotherhood and the jihadists. Not one gun should go to them; not one bulletproof vest, not one dollar.  The Syrian civil war has more than two sides to it.

Regarding the Israel-Palestinian issue, it doesn’t matter what the United States does as long as it finally recognizes this is no longer (if it ever was) the central issue in the Middle East. There isn’t going to be any progress in negotiations. Despite its shortcomings, the Palestinian Authority under Fatah has to be helped to survive in the West Bank and keep Hamas from taking over. But there should be no illusions. Anything done by U.S. policy should be recognized as being purely cosmetic.

Of course, I’d like to see a strong U.S.-Israel relationship. If you think Obama has maintained such a thing you are living under an illusion that isn’t visible from within Israel. But today, beyond aid and cooperation on a range of issues, what is most important is not the details of bilateral relations but an ability to work together on regional strategy. And this has been 100 percent absent under Obama outside of limited cooperation on some aspects of the Iran issue.

I’ve left the two giant problems for last: Iran and Egypt. I’ll leave Iran mostly for future articles. I am not enthusiastic about attacking Iran militarily but this is a complex issue. At a minimum, it should be isolated far more effectively. The problem is not just the nuclear drive but Iran’s strategic ambitions in the region. What is needed is not just sanctions but a full-court press that challenges, undermines, and covertly battles Iranian influence in Lebanon, Iraq, Bahrain, Syria, and everywhere else.

This is a long-term battle that is not going to be settled by a single air strike and even though Iran has very dangerous and fanatical aspects to its leadership we should not become hysterical and fail to see the factors holding Tehran back from a suicidal nuclear war.

Finally, Egypt. In some ways, it is too late to do some really effective policy. Strategy must begin with the concept that Muslim Brotherhood Egypt is an enemy of America but that it must be handled cleverly to limit the damage.  What’s truly tragic is that it is now probably too late even to work with the army (as in Turkey) since the army which should be a force for moderation and an American ally has been destroyed as an independent force.

The most dangerous thing about the Obama Administration, as on other issues, is the illusion that the Brotherhood wolf is dressed up in a lamb suit and will eat out of Obama’s hand without taking any of his fingers, too. The Brotherhood must know that subversion of U.S. allies, promoting terrorism against Israel, and other such activities will be costly.

Even under the best circumstances, the Middle East is tough. Due to Obama it is a nightmare (and, no, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were only a small part of the issue). Indeed, a Romney Administration’s inheritance from Obama in the Middle East is very equivalent to its inheritance of a terrible economic situation.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University Press. Other recent books include The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center  and of his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.

Wake Up, America, It Ain't 1895

By Barry Rubin

I had two interesting responses to my article on Baltimore and the decay of America and because my energy level is very low now as I begin treatment for cancer allow me to respond briefly.

One friend asks why you believe that Romney and Ryan have answers for fixing America. Because America must decide whether it is going to be a society of productivity, making new things and wealth, or merely looting and passing around the ruins of Rome. A city like Baltimore will not be rebuilt by taking money to lower living standards in the suburbs but by creating great new enterprises that produce goods and services people want.

Another polite reader put the following in the nicest possible way—I’m not being sarcastic—don’t the Republicans and Romney just represent nineteenth century plutocratic greedy capitalism dressed up as free enterprise? Millions of Americans believe this and unless they change their minds America will not change.

Yes, that evil Romney who wants to buy another 100 Rolls Royces not like those modest-living Kennedys, Gores, and all the rest, including a serious Democratic presidential candidate who betrayed his cancer-stricken wife after making a fortune on rather questionable legal actions. And I seem to recall a great lionized hero who--let's face it there's no doubt, murdered a poor young working-class woman and left her to drown without ever paying for his crime. Sure there are bad conservatives and bad Republicans, corrupt and immoral people, but for goodness sake you aren't treating them as great tribunes of the masses, as the friends of the exploiters, as they line their pockets from yours.

It's time to rethink the reality we live in.

Look, it ain’t 1895 any more. Does the American government tremble because of Ford, General Motors, U.S. Steel, Standard Oil of New Jersey, the Pennsylvania Railroad and other mighty enterprises many of which have collapsed completely?

No. It is the opposite, the corporations tremble before the government regulators who have the power to tie them into knots. And their main response is not to fight but to flee abroad.

Oh, mighty General Motors saved by the great Obama (hooray! Hooray! For the great messiah of business) with billions of your taxpaying dollars in order to create employment…in China!

Do workers living in hovels fear the boss telling them they are now out of work with no unemployment or pension; that their hours are increased, that they are going to be thrown out of their company homes because they were ten minutes late at work?

No, it is the unions—at least where such things survive in the heavy industry—that have the whip hand. The government is 100 percent on their side.

Do the big-bellied capitalists blow cigar smoke into the faces of newspaper editors and threaten to cut off advertising unless scandals are covered up? No, it is the government’s scandals that are covered up. And if anything the companies are made to face unfair charges.

The corporate executives want to look good. They want people to say and write nice things about them. They want to be regarded as good corporate citizens. They spend money running image ads about how they feed songbirds rather than on doing breakthrough research.

They can’t even get oil-drilling going off most of the coast at a time when America has no energy independence, prices are sky high, and the economy needs a boost.

What is reality here? Yes, there were such times in America of bullying plutocratic greedy polluting capitalist super-villains but that just isn’t 2012.

And yes, too, there was a time when some redistribution of wealth was needed. That was decades ago, too. Know why? Because working stiffs had to buy all those cars, toasters, refrigerators, and other consumer goods rolling out of the factories. That’s why advertising was a good thing. That’s why America flourished after World War Two.

Tell me, is America’s problem today that there is a vast working class—even a vast poor class—that cannot buy cheap computers and expensive sports’ shoes?

And finally don’t forget small business, all those millions of people who aren’t big moguls trying to make a living for themselves and their families and their employees.

What’s essential here is this:

--It’s not that the conservatives were always right and the evil liberal statists were destroying America.

--It’s not that the liberals were always right and the evil, greedy moguls wanted everyone but themselves to be poor.

It’s that American values work—some are liberal; some are conservative but they must work together to be productive, not based on looting, not based on a more and more powerful state; not based in regulating everyone to death, not based—although this sometimes happened wrongfully—on setting groups to hate each other.

You can put the emphasis on making the pie bigger while paying attention to a reasonably fair distribution or you can gobble it down as fast as possible and then complain there isn’t any more.

The choice is yours, America. But for goodness sakes wake up and realize you’re living in the twenty-first century, not the Victorian age of dark satanic mills and brutal capitalists who laugh while watching children starve. No, now we are in the age of power-hungry, ice-cold, detached-from-reality bureaucrats and those with graduate degrees who write reports and new rules while watching a civilization go down. 

Baltimore, Babylon, Babel

By Barry Rubin

"And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there."  --Francis Scott Key, "The Star-Spangled Banner"

Well, is it still there? Is it? Or has it been lowered over Fort McHenry? Have Baltimore and other American cities surrendered to blight, to an irreversible downward spiral? Is America going to go cheering into decline, praising itself for its environmental purity, high-mileage autos, pristine multicultural manners?

A few years ago I was on a book tour in Baltimore. They put me in a nice downtown hotel and I had some time before the evening event. So I decided to eat something at the coffee shop in the lobby. But it was a bit cool so I went upstairs to put on a jacket. When the elevator opened on the lobby the door was blocked by a gurney. Medics were wheeling out a dead body. Police guarded the entrance of the coffee shop, not letting anyone go in. Someone had been shot dead.

I went on to the bookstore and begged a sandwich there. Well, that’s not fair to Baltimore, of course. But it’s a true story. It is a wonderful city and fond to me for two reasons.

First, growing up in the artificial, tax-payer funded paradise—well, no, but that’s another story—of Washington DC, for me Baltimore was the real America. A harbor, a real baseball team (postpone discussion of Washington Senators); industry and real workers, people who actually did something productive for a living. Not to mention Fort McHenry; and later the aquarium; the science museum; and the USS Torsk, a World War Two submarine that played a very important part in my life (that story for another time); the USS Constitution and the USS Constellation.

Second, I fell in love with the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and industrial history. The B&O was American first railroad. Its task of crossing the mountains was so daunting that the history of the B&O is called Impossible Challenge.   It was at the center of the Civil War and to this day I am editor of the Sentinel, the B&O Historical Society journal.

BUT THAT’S NOT WHAT THIS ARTICLE IS ABOUT. This article is my very angry equivalent of an indictment of contemporary “Progressive” “liberalism” and the greedy SOBs who are wrecking America as they sip cocktails like so many pre-revolutionary French aristocrats and sneer at the peasantry.

Al-Jazira, the revolutionary Islamist, anti-American, pro-terrorist television network (praised by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton!) has made a documentary on Baltimore. I haven’t seen the documentary but I’ve been to Baltimore.

The theme is basically this: You Americans are a hypocritical joke. Your society is a wreck; you’re going down and you dare preach to us about liberty and democracy! Look at Baltimore! Its industry is gone; its buildings are decaying; its street corners are full of African-American unemployed men with nothing to do with their lives.

And you dare preach to us?

You know what? Al-Jazira is right.

And what is America’s first black president, a phony “community organizer” doing about it? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.  Hire more teachers and even more important more useless administrators. Save obscure fish. Make damn sure nobody explores for oil off the coast. Build high-speed rail nobody needs.

And what about rebuilding the cities? What about creating jobs? What about putting America back together again: Detroit, South Los Angeles, East St. Louis, and the list goes on. Here are the great heroes of the poor and downtrodden, with their John Kerry tax-cheating yachts; their Harry Reid corrupt land deals; their Nancy Pelosi multi-million-dollar vineyards; their destruction of the American auto industry, and the energy industry.

These people are not liberal heroes. They are reactionaries in disguise. They don’t give a damn about the American people, including the poor, especially the poor. They are not lifting a finger to rebuild America, to save the country.

Now here are two novel ideas. First, this is not about liberals versus conservatives. That’s all outdated. This is about those who want to build a productive America that can rebuild the cities and create jobs and those who profit from looting the productive sector until the camel’s back breaks.

We are not talking about rich, fat-cat, greedy, arrogant and elitist conservatives. We are talking about rich, fat-cat, greedy, arrogant, and elitist radicals pretending to be liberals who care about the average American.

And I have a name for them: DINOs, Democrats in name only, and you can note the similarity to the word dinosaur.

Do you know what's really happened in America? Under the banner of humanitarianism it is an alliance of the worst political elements: the corrupt big city do-nothing, steal-,money political machines; the corrupted old-style good-government upper middle class movements; the do nothing in exchange for welfare lobby )with Obama having unilaterally eliminated workfare), and the crony capitalists who cannot make money on their own so have to loot it from the public trough.

And what is their solution to Baltimore and Detroit and the other urban blight? Not to increase productivity but to loot the suburbs to lower the entire country to a more minimal level. And this is what passes for compassionate liberalism?

Second, here’s a novel idea for you. If you are looking for courageous “liberal” reformers, forget about this crew of poseurs and think of a couple of guys named Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. If you are a Democrat, if you are a liberal, if you really care about saving America from a long slow decline then think a moment: what’s needed is real change, not phony slogans. People who know how to get things done; not how to tell pretty lies.

Think about it. This is going to be the most important political decision you ever make. Do it so there’s some hope for change in Baltimore and everywhere else.

Notes from a Ward Yud Hospital Bed

By Barry Rubin

Given the various medications I an on, the need to hold down pieces of cotton stopping blood tests from leaking, etc, please forgive my typos  

It is 301 pm and my eyes suddenly pop open right onto the clock. Looming above me is the chief thoracic surgeon who looks like an aging Green Bay Packers' linebacker about to sack a quarterback, me. Fortunately I already met him, respect and trust him. '"This is Dr ---" says the orderly "and he’s going to remove your tube draining blood from your lung."

And remove it he does. His teeth are bared, he growls, his huge hands reach out and literally tear it out of me. It hurts but I must admit he is skillful and the pain is gone in seconds, before the sting ends he sews me up. The orderly puts on the gauze and for the first time I enjoy in three days the ultimate human luxury—not being tied to some piece of medical equipment bya tube. It Is heaven.

The staff is good, though not all charming. I don't like talking to doctors, they bring out the pessimism in me, even despair. I am kept on a steady line of safety and good advice thanks to my mother in law who is a lung expert, who has flown over from New York and keeps giving her calming professional opinion. 

I quickly realize two things. First, most of us are years ot of date in our medical knowledge and thus don’t realize how much progress has been made. My mother-in-law muses that her own father wrote a book about lung cancer 40 years ago.

And I ask, "There must have been a lot of progress since then?" "

"Oh no," she says, "there hasn’t." My heart sinks. "But there’s been incredible progress in the last 5-10 years."

The other is that the best intended doctors often don’t know what they are talking about outside their own speciality. My two thoracic surgeons overruled my two general internalists and proved to be 100 percent right. On the other hand, those two internests did save my life so I am grateful to them also.

The great weakness of the Israel system—and it has many strengths far beyond the British and the American—is going from the level of general practitioner to specialist. When I f irst made my lung doctor appointment it was supposed to take one month off. That might have killed me. I went to my wife’s doctor and he had me in the emergency room within 3 hours getting proper treatment. The women doctor from the health fund was wonderful getting me fast appointments, too.

I am not joking: your life in future may depend on getting rid of Obamacare. The Israeli system has reasonable prices but of course it is also small enough to be managed and not so easy to abuse. Yes there are incompetents, indifferent personnel, and worse hospitals, too but Ichilov—despite the often callous night floor staff--is the only hospital I’d want to be in. And many of the most talented of these doctors and others left the USSR because they just weren't welcome there.

It’s also only the hospital where they start asking you about contemporary Middle East developments while treating you. I have great genealogy discussions with some medical personnel about our ancestors. And for the multiculturalist fans, at least three of the kindest technicians were Arabs--two men with crosses and a woman with a hijab, perhaps more I don't know.

Mr Ibrahim my neighbor to the right is a real gentleman. Born in Istanbul of an Ashkenazic family he is  a lean distinguished gentleman perhaps in his early 80s. He went to French schools during Istanbul's golden age and speaks Ladino- fifteenth-century Judeo-Spanish--native-level Turkish, perfect English, beautiful French and not one word—not one—of Hebrew. They moved him next to me so I could translate for him. He never loses his cool or dignity. He tells me his life story. His father had  a good American appliance franchise which he inherited. He loves Turkey--but with no illusions about its current rulers--and he has many Turkish friends. But one day he realized his family had no future there so they came to the land of Israel.

His two happily married beautiful daughters obviously dote on him. He had fallen in his garden but is released after a few days. W find we know people and event s in common since I wrote a book about Istanbul. One night I read him to sleep with passages about the labor battalions where Turkish Jews, Armenians and Greeks were looted and forcibly sent during World War Two into virtual concentration camps, first-person accounts his own father had never told him. I also tell him about the secret Jewish museum in Istanbul, built since he left, which he had never seen. Soon he is released.

My other neighbor is Mr. Meir, another fine gentlemen—these men only a decade older than me have such wonderful manners. How much we have lost! He was born in Casabalanca and he speaks Arabic, French, and Hebrew with equal facility. He offers me a cup of tea which I find touching but fear the hot drink. He, too, is surrounded by his loving family. He tells me a story that makes me sob a moment. I ask when he arrived in Israel. As a refugee, he responds, in the week of his bar mitzah. And the first thing he did was to celebrate his bar mitzvah here. My son is so to celebrate his bar mitzvah this week and I fear I will not be there. Yet I find something g comforting in the coincidental symbolism.

He too is released.

Then comes the ordeal. A very elderly man is brought into my left side. He is tall and spare, wearing a narrow black silk skullcap, looking every inch like a Biblical portrait of Abraham, so straight and stiff as to resemble a human log. All night long he moans, piteously, he recounts the story of his life, a few words at a time, his daughters and perhaps sons in law or sons gather around, they respond back, praising him for an incident, expressing their love, begging his pardon.

"No, we love you, father," they say. You could not have been better to us. We are so grateful to you!" On and on, hour and hour it goes as he mumbles a paragraph and then another. I listen fascinated, harrowed by every word, my double-sleeping pill has no effect at all. Finally, at midnight all leave, long before the visiting hours end though no one dare ask them to leave. But one fateful young religiously garbed daughter remains to tend him all night. She wears the hairnet covering of the religious. Her face is ravaged with sadness.

The entire century of a family is laid out before my unwilling ears. It breaks my heart but there is something inspiring in it,, something of the essence of life beyond all the foolishness and externals which we divert ourselves. Only family matters; only love matters; only good deeds matter. I finally can forebear no more and go around the curtain and I address the young hollow-eyed daughter the traditional Hebrew words of hope for the mercy of the Creator of the Universe, for full healing, and for a miracle.

But I see by the look of hopelessness in her eye, even her deeply religious, believing with a perfect faith eye, that no miracle is expected here. I fall asleep. Three hours later I awake briefly and hear him still mumbling.

Again, I fall asleep and when I wake up ten hours later he is gone. She is gone. And someone else is in his place. May the creator of the universe comfort this fine man's family and bring him his true reward for having lived such a good life.

My eyes open precisely onto the clock on the wall opposite me. It is 3:01 PM. The two giant men loom above me, "This is your thoracic surgeon," says the mighty orderly. Rip, tear, and the hole in my side is healed. But the holes in our hearts, the pain in our souls are not so easily remedied.

A few minutes later they take me down to the Catscan. I wait for the results as they confer, begging for the half-dozen conferring doctors to just give me one sentence of summary. The kindly deputy director--a wonderfully decent man--looks at me a mment, says, "You are much better now""and returns to the conference. Frustrated, I fall asleep. Three hours later my wife wakes me. They cannot find any more damage, she explains. Just the tumor on the lung, the emptied out blood, the scar tissue.

After a bit of bureaucracy, the kind desk nurse holds up a brown envelope. You can go home, she explains. Come back each week for an x-ray. Begin your therapy. I can barely walk but my wife helps me down the hall, into a wheelchair, out the door, and into the ever startlingly bright Tel Aviv sunshine. Myself, Mr. Meir, and Mr. Ibrahim have been given another chance to go into the world and do some good, to do some right. Mr. "Abraham" is on his way to somewhere else, somewhere better I hope where he will reap the reward of his long life of good deeds.

They release me to go home, rest, and begin my therapy. Thanks to our Creator for our lives and thanks to our Creator for the chances we are given--often more than we merit--to transcend those lives by good deeds, integrity, solidarity with those who stand for the just and the free, and love for our fellows. This is not about fame, this is not about wealth, this is not about power. It is about how--or whether--at the end those who know us best love us best. I am back at my desk and I will continue to do my best to serve you.