|
Ignorance
is Bliss
Here's the
secret to the last seven years of foreign policy disasters coming
from Washington. President Bush has become an acolyte of Timothy
Ferriss.
Haven't heard
of Ferriss yet? He's the motivational author who champions a four-hour
work week. In order to slim down his schedule, Ferriss recommends
a low-information diet. "I never watch the news or buy the
newspaper," he
writes. "I read the headlines through newspaper machines
as I walk to lunch each day. My selective ignorance has never caused
a single problem for me."
Ferriss has
become a guru to many who are overwhelmed by the modern disease
of TMI (Too Much Information). Even the
lords of Silicon Valley, many of whom have helped make TMI an
epidemic, are now putting up little altars to Ferriss in their offices.
No one has
yet explored the impact of Ferriss on Washington. But "selective
ignorance," based on a cursory understanding of world events,
is a powerful explanation for the failures of U.S. policy in Iraq.
We knew so little about Iraq before invading it. We knew even less,
it seems, when we tried to occupy it. And we continue to be ignorant
of Iraqi realities as we desperately search for a face-saving way
out of the debacle. The low-information diet also helps to explain
the administration's inability to understand the Israeli-Palestinian
problem or why a hard-line policy toward Iran is such a disaster.
It's not just
the Bush administration, of course, that has gone on the low-information
diet. Large swathes of the media have cooperated in this strategy
by reducing the actual news content from their reporting. Ferriss
doesn't lose much by skipping the TV news, at least when it comes
to international news. But newspapers, too, have closed down foreign
bureaus as part of their own slim-fast
regimen. So it's no surprise that the Bush administration was able
to gull the public into supporting the war in Iraq through manipulation
of information. And if one only reads the newspaper headlines on
the way to lunch, the perpetuation of myths--the presence of weapons
of mass destruction in Iraq, the link between Saddam and the 9/11
hijackers--becomes feasible.
Ferriss may
be right. His selective ignorance probably hasn't caused him any
problems. By outsourcing his information management to high-skilled
and low-paid workers in Bangalore--who read and collate his email,
among other things--Ferriss is able to manage his sports nutrition
company and spend most of his time tango dancing and kick-boxing.
Of course, a prefrontal lobotomy might have done the same trick,
but brain surgery sometimes has nasty side effects.
What might
be a personal boon for Timothy Ferriss, however, is a collective
tragedy for us all. The selective ignorance of the Bush administration--and
its preference that the media and the public follow suit--has brought
us to our current impasse. I can certainly testify to the challenges
of TMI in my professional life. But when it comes to U.S. foreign
policy over the last seven years, the United States and the world
have suffered from the opposite syndrome: too little information.
Bush
in the Middle East
The U.S. president
is currently doing a tour of the Middle East. Talk about selective
ignorance: it's his first real trip to the region since becoming
president. It would be understandable if the president waited until
the final year of his two-term tenure to take a tour of the South
Pacific or the Caribbean. But the Middle East? It's like a mayor
whose policies have ravaged the inner city and who decides on a
quick tour of the blighted neighborhoods to lecture the residents
on the importance of self-reliance.
At the heart
of Bush's problematic relationship with the Middle East is the uncritical
support that the United States provides Israel. As FPIF contributor
Ira Chernus writes in Bush's
Israel Problem--and Ours, the United States has helped Israel
divide and conquer its opponents, only to discover that these policies
inevitably come back to bite Israel in the butt. And it's precisely
these divide-and-rule policies that make a two-state solution to
the Israel-Palestine stand-off so difficult.
"A two-state
solution might still win over the Palestinian public, if it requires
Israel to remove all but a few of the settlements, gives Palestine
full control over all of the West Bank and Gaza including all of
Arab Jerusalem, and offers real independence, including a genuine
army and full control over water," Chernus writes. "And
it would have to be ruled by the government the people elected,
including the full complement of elected Hamas officials. But the
fears of Israeli Jews are powerful enough to insure that no Israeli
government that agrees to such a deal can survive. That is Bush's
Israel problem."
Bush has also
used the opportunity of this belated Middle East tour to harangue
Iran. The violent extremism in the region, Bush
asserted, is "embodied by the regime that sits in Tehran."
He called Iran the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism. It's
not just rhetoric. Last week, a naval incident that was shaping
up to be a Gulf-of-Tonkin type of pretext for war turned out to
be a serious
misinterpretation of Iranian actions and possibly the result
of a heckler well known to ship drivers in the Straits of Hormuz.
Selective ignorance
has plagued recent U.S. policy toward Iran. As FPIF contributor
Nathan Gonzalez writes in For
an Iran Policy, More Nixon, Less Bush, "President Bush's
vague outlook has led to some memorable blunders. Iran's constructive
role in rebuilding Afghanistan was answered by Bush's 2002 'axis
of evil' label on the Islamic Republic. And the now-famous 2003
Iranian memo, which offered the United States comprehensive talks
on its nuclear program and support for anti-Israeli terror groups,
was met with silence."
Iraq
and the Dems
Meanwhile,
last week marked the one-year anniversary of the "surge"
in Iraq. As FPIF's policy outreach director Erik Leaver writes,
the United States is pursuing a short-range strategy to reduce violence
that may sow the seeds for greater violence in 2008. "The dominant
story in Iraq is the downward trend in casualties for both Iraqis
and U.S. soldiers," Leaver says in Iraq
Outlook 2008. "The single-minded focus on casualties however,
masks the internal problems in Iraq that could cause the violence
to rise to new heights this year. Much of the decrease in violence
is a result of the United States cutting deals with Sunni insurgents.
The United States now has 70,000 'former' insurgents on its payroll.
At the same time, the U.S. military continues to recruit and train
members of the Iraqi military and police-agencies heavily dominated
by Shiites. Arming and training these two groups has quelled the
violence in the short term but makes the chances of future fighting
between the groups to be a very bloody affair."
The administration's
mishandling of the Iraq War has certainly boosted the fortunes of
the Democrats. The surprise winner of the Iowa caucus, Barack Obama,
has been perhaps the biggest beneficiary. His early opposition to
the war sets him apart from the other frontrunners.
But as FPIF's
Middle East editor Stephen Zunes argues, Obama is not exactly Mr.
Change when it comes to Middle East policy overall. He has backed
away from supporting a rapid U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, sent mixed
messages on Iran, and taken a position on Israel-Palestine that
is largely indistinguishable from the Bush administration.
Still, Zunes
writes in Barack Obama on
the Middle East, the presidential contender might shake things
up if he wins the White House. "The Illinois Senator's intelligence
and independent-mindedness, combined with what's at stake, offers
some hope that at least for pragmatic reasons--if not moral and
legal ones--a future President Obama would have the sense to recognize
that the more the United States has militarized the Middle East,
the less secure we have become. He would perhaps also recognize
that arms control and nonproliferation efforts are more likely to
succeed if they are based on universal, law-based principles rather
than unilateral demands and threats based upon specific countries'
relationship with the United States. And that exercising American
'leadership' requires a greater awareness of the needs and perceptions
of affected populations."
Kenya
Engulfed
Protests over
recent elections in Kenya have left over 600 dead and 350,000 displaced.
How did this otherwise stable African country descend into such
chaos? FPIF contributor David Zarembka writes from Kenya that, like
the violence in Rwanda, the divide-and-rule policies of previous
colonial administrations are at least partly to blame. The British
handed over administration of the country to the Kikuyu, who made
a deal with leaders from other ethnic groups such as Daniel arap
Moi. Those who have not benefited from economic or political change
in the country have blamed the Kikuyu.
"The current
wave of violence is seen by many Kenyans as payback time,"
Zarembka writes in Kenya's
Violence: Britain's Legacy. "It's amazing how only Kikuyu
shops and homes are being burned, leaving everyone else's intact.
Those at the bottom are taking it out on those whom they feel are
on top. They have no contact with the Kikuyu tycoons and politicians,
and so they are taking the pent-up rage of 44 years of independence
out on the average Kikuyu in their community. The Kikuyu are then
retaliating by killing the other ethnic groups that happen to live
in their communities. This also explains why Kibaki (read the Kikuyu
elite) wished to stay in power by rigging the election. Otherwise,
they would be the losers."
Lee
Myung-Bak and Tom Lantos
This week FPIF
says hello to South Korea's new president and bids farewell to retiring
head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Tom Lantos.
FPIF's Stephen
Zunes looks back at the human rights record of Tom Lantos, the only
Holocaust survivor to serve in the U.S. Congress. "There's
no question that his personal history is both courageous and noble,"
Zunes writes in Lantos'
Tarnished Legacy. "Nor is there any debate that he stood
up in support for the International Criminal Court, the people of
the occupied nations of Tibet and East Timor, and the victims of
oppression in Iran, Burma, Zimbabwe, Vietnam, and other countries.
At the same time, most peace and justice activists have found Lantos--who
has chaired the House Committee on Foreign Affairs since the Democrats
regained their congressional majority--to be a very inconsistent
advocate for human rights. Indeed, the congressman has openly challenged
the United Nations as well as reputable independent human rights
organizations when they have raised concerns about human rights
abuses by certain key U.S. allies, even to the point of directly
contradicting their findings. In addition, his leadership in support
of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, and his resulting culpability
in the human rights tragedies that followed, will no doubt be the
most significant negative mark on his legacy."
Finally, I recommend that South Korea's new president Lee Myung-Bak
turn his country into the first truly Green economy in the world.
"South
Korea's new president underwent his own personal green revolution
when he became mayor of Seoul," I write in an op-ed
for the Korea Times. "In charge of major construction
projects at Hyundai for three decades, Lee Myung-bak reversed himself
in the new millennium. He made rivers spring from concrete and grass
grow where there had once been only cars. President-elect Lee now
has a golden opportunity to accomplish this same trick for South
Korea as a whole. South Korea led the world in information technology
in the 1990s. It put a cell phone in everyone's pocket and a flat-screen
monitor on everyone's computer. It is now time to harness the tremendous
innovation and industriousness of South Korea's workforce to meet
the twin challenges of the 21st century: global warming and the
looming energy crisis."
Links
Timothy Ferriss,
"The Four-Hour Work Week," Fortune Small Business, September
5, 2007; http://money.cnn.com/2007/05/04/magazines/fsb/4_hour_week.fsb/index.htm
Alex Williams,
"Too Much Information? Just Ignore It," The New York Times,
November 11, 2007; http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/fashion/11guru.html
Ira Chernus,
"Bush's Israel Problem--and Ours," Foreign Policy In Focus
(http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4877);
The fear factor prevents an easy solution to the Israel-Palestine
conflict. What are Israeli Jews afraid of?
John D. McKinnon
and Chip Cummins, "Bush Calls for Open Mid-East Societies,"
The Australian, January 15, 2008; http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23052136-2703,00.html
Gareth Porter,
"Official Version of Naval Incident Starts to Unravel,"
Inter Press Service, January 10, 2008; http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40747
Andrew Scutro
and David Brown, "Filipino Monkey' Behind the Threats?"
Navy Times, January 13, 2008; http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/01/navy_hormuz_iran_radio_080111/
Nathan Gonzalez,
"For an Iran Policy, More Nixon, Less Bush," Foreign Policy
In Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4883);
Our future president will do well to remember Richard Nixon's approach
to international politics, which, while often callous, was focused
on clear end-goals for our nation.
Erik Leaver,
"Iraq Outlook 2008," Foreign Policy In Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4882);
The current calm of the "surge" has been crafted on a
foundation that can topple at any moment, leaving its "success"
in doubt.
Stephen Zunes,
"Barack Obama on the Middle East," Foreign Policy In Focus
(http://fpif.org/fpiftxt/4886);
Barack Obama on the Middle East: Is it wise to hope that as president,
Obama would be more progressive than he is letting on?
David Zarembka,
"Kenya's Violence: Britain's Legacy," Foreign Policy In
Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4874);
Unfortunately, the current wave of violence is seen by many Kenyans
as payback time.
Stephen Zunes,
"Lantos' Tarnished Legacy," Foreign Policy In Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4880);
There's no question that the congressman's personal history is both
courageous and noble, but most peace and justice activists have
found Lantos as a very inconsistent human rights advocate.
John Feffer,
"Letter to South Korea's New President," Korea Times/Foreign
Policy In Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpifoped/4881);
Lee Myung-Bak can turn South Korea into the first sustainable Green
economy in the world.
.
. .
Published by Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF), a project of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS)
fpif.org: a think tank without walls
On content: John Feffer | Other questions,
202.234.9382
©2007 IPS |
