Toward a realist embrace of liberal intervention

The “fault line” being portrayed in the media between those in the Obama administration who supported the creation of a no-fly zone and those who did not seems to me, well, faulty. There’s little debate which officials are most skeptical of American intervention, and they are SecDef Bob Gates, National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen, and Chief of Staff Bill Daley. The major proponents are Hillary Clinton, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice, and NSC director for multilateral affairs Samantha Power.

What irritates me is the way that this debate over intervention is being cast in realist vs. idealist terms. Check out this New York Times “news analysis” that subjects Obama to the way a 19th century British prime minister might be judged:

“Striking a very balanced, and in many ways, neutral approach is recognized by many people in the region as not being with them, or on their side,” said J. Scott Mastic, the head of Middle East and North Africa for the International Republican Institute. “It’s very important that we be seen as supporting the demands of the people in the region.”

How Mr. Obama manages to do that while also balancing American interests is a question that officials acknowledge will plague this historic president for months to come.

Are we to believe that appearing to side with the protestors is not in the national interest? Hasn’t this whole process of Arab awakening taught us that 19th century conceptions of realpolitik and influence no longer apply like they used to?

The realist-idealist framing of foreign policy is an unsophisticated tool of analysis and a relic of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. Joe Nye, who’s done more than almost any other scholar to help redefine the idea of “interests” in foreign policy, writes compellingly in his latest book, The Future of Power:

As Machiavelli, the ultimate realist, described five centuries ago, it may be better for a prince to be feared than loved, but the prince is in the greatest danger when he is hated. There is no contradiction between realism and soft power. Soft power is not a form of idealism or liberalism. It is simply a form of power, one way of getting desired outcomes. Legitimacy is a power reality. Competitive struggles over legitimacy are part of enhancing or depriving actors of soft power, and this is particularly true in the information age of the twenty-first century.

In other words, preventing the massacre of Libyans is not altruism. It may be morally imperative, but it is not a pure act of charity at American taxpayer expense.

So, even setting aside the moral case for intervention, our national interests are at stake in Libya. And no, I don’t just mean oil. I mean our credibility as an interlocutor with the Arab world, which will be immensely important if we want to have any hand in shaping the new regimes of North Africa. (And if you think our credibility — how we are viewed by Arabs on the street — doesn’t matter, I have some two-month-old Al Jazeera footage to show you.)