A Hollow "Faith"

Most of the liberal websites have been running critiques, some of them quite thoughtful, of the article “A Fighting Faith” by Peter Beinart, editor of The New Republic. In response to overwhelming public demand (in a form of a question from my friend Dick before last Tuesday’s book club meeting), I want to share some of my reactions. They don’t rise to the level of a coherent alternative view, but maybe they’ll edge the conversation in a useful direction (at least in our little corner of the blogosphere).

For those who haven’t read the article, Beinart challenges today’s liberals to emulate the 1947 group that founded Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) by taking up the cause of resistance to Islamic fundamentalism much as the ADA took up the cause of anti-communism. In Beinart’s view, this would be both morally right and politically astute, since a Democratic Party that supports the promotion of American values of freedom and pluralism on the world stage--by force when necessary--will gain credibility with an electorate that today assumes that most Democrats are squishy on defending our people against terrorism.

Beinart’s evocation of the feisty, proudly internationalist liberalism of the 1950s and 60s has a strong emotional appeal. And Beinart may be right about the political calculus. It’s possible Kerry might have won if he’d been much more consistent about criticizing the weakness of Bush’s war on terror, including the failure to capture Bin Laden, the absence of any genuine effort to propagate democracy in the Middle East, and the preference for giant tax cuts over meaningful investments in either homeland security or international efforts to oppose terror.

Nonethless, I feel there are big holes in Beinart’s prescription.

First of all, try as I might, I can’t see radical Islam as a threat to America on a par with fascism and communism. Joshua Micah Marshall says it well on his blog, Talking Points:

Let’s survey the world stage the ADA folks faced in 1947 for some points of comparison. Having vanquished fascism, the democratic world faced in world communism a political movement that in its basic hostility to democracy and liberalism was more similar to than opposed to fascism. Russia, half of Europe and (in a couple of years) China were all communist. The communists controlled the largest land army in the world and would soon have nuclear weapons. Communism had substantial minority support across Western Europe, including vast support (active or passive) among the most articulate in society. And in the United States many on the left saw communists less as enemies than as errant allies, with whom cooperation was possible on common goals.

Placing context or limits on the danger posed by Islamic terrorism is a hazardous business these days. But unlike communism in 1947, militant Islam simply does not pose an existential threat to our civilization. It just doesn’t.

It’s true that the jihadists killed 3,000 Americans on September 11. And yes, they would kill more if they could. Even so, the Islamist threat still doesn’t measure up to the threat posed by Stalin’s armies.

Second, today’s world is different from the world of 1947 in a lot of other ways. I was reminded of one of those ways when Beinart tried to separate the war on terror, which he supports, from the war in Iraq, on which he is apparently ambivalent:

But, even if Iraq is Vietnam, it no more obviates the war on terrorism than Vietnam obviated the battle against communism.

Beinart forgets that, for millions of Americans as well as people around the world, the war in Vietnam did obviate the battle against communism, in that the dishonesty, brutality, and corruption of that war taught them a new, profound, and unfortunately justified mistrust of the US and its government.

Today, because of both Vietnam and Iraq (as well as other misadventures of the past three decades), it’s very difficult to recapture the unclouded moral fervor of America in 1947--an America still celebrating its recent victory in a plainly moral crusade which left our country both the most powerful and the most admired nation on earth.

In 1947, I might have felt relatively few misgivings about handing Harry S Truman the power to wield America’s might on behalf of freedom around the world. I sure as hell don’t feel comfortable handing the same power to George W. Bush in 2004. And would it be different if the president were a liberal Democrat? A little. But Lyndon B. Johnson was a liberal Democrat, and he led us into Vietnam.

The last thirty-five years have convinced me of the need to keep our crusading impulses--and our presidents--on a short leash.

Finally, even if I grant Beinart’s analogy between world communism and radical Islam, his article leaves unanswered the most important question: What would he have us do?

Truman and his successors fought communism in a variety of ways. At home, they sought to purge communists and fellow travelers from government posts, labor unions, and universities. Abroad, they supported non-communist regimes in Europe and the Third World with development aid (such as the Marshall Plan), military assistance, and at times US troops. They created a network of alliances, from NATO to SEATO, to deter communist attacks. And they mounted a major propaganda effort on behalf of US-style democracy around the world, including people-to-people programs like the Peace Corps and the Alliance for Progress.

What sort of parallel strategies does this list suggest for today’s battle against radical Islam?

Would Beinart suggest we focus on purging America of radical Islamist influences? I don’t believe there’s a single significant US institution that's in danger of falling under the sway of radical Islam. Of course we need to arrest people who are plotting violence. But would a McCarthy-style witch hunt against those who espouse “anti-American” philosophies really make us safer?

Overseas, does Beinart want us to shore up non-Islamist regimes that are under attack from the jihadists? We are already doing that, with results that are mixed at best. This strategy puts us in bed with a pretty unsavory crowd, one that is almost as totalitarian and anti-Semitic as the jihadists themselves, with damaging effects on US prestige and credibility around the world. Worse still, it seems to be encouraging the spread of radical anti-American sentiment rather than slowing it.

Does Beinart advocate the creation of alliances to deter jihadist attacks? The biggest difference between radical Islam and world communism is that the terrorists are seemingly impossible to deter, since they don’t control nation states and in many cases are happy to die for their cause. So this plank in the anti-communist platform seems largely irrelevant today.

Finally, does Beinart call for a massive effort to spread the ideas behind American-style democracy around the world through propaganda and humanitarian programs? I’d support this item enthusiastically.

But what does it all add up to? What is the substance of the “fighting faith” Beinart’s Democratic Party would espouse? The closest he comes to answering this question is this passage near the end of his article:

Methods for defeating totalitarian Islam are a legitimate topic of internal liberal debate. But the centrality of the effort is not. The recognition that liberals face an external enemy more grave, and more illiberal, than George W. Bush should be the litmus test of a decent left.

Well, okay. If it's necessary to pass Beinart's litmus test, I’m happy to stipulate that Osama bin Laden is a worse guy--a much worse guy--than George W. Bush. But then what? Is Beinart simply saying that we liberals need to get better at making growly noises in the direction of the jihadists?

I’m sure he has something more specific in mind. But I can’t tell what. And until I know, I can’t agree that Beinart has the answer for what ails our party--or our nation.