Monday, August 11, 2008

Joe Klein and the Neo-Cons   [Rich Lowry]

It has already been well-established that Joe Klein can't see straight when the topic is the neo-cons. Another example is this post. In the scheme of things, it's a minor thing (not up there with accusing anyone of divided loyalties). But it's hilarious how Klein condemns Robert Kagan for making a Nazi analogy in his Washington Post op-ed on the Georgia crisis, then recommends the Ronald Asmus and Richard Holbrooke piece as more reasonable, when smack in the middle of it, there's this:

As Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt pointed out Saturday, Moscow's rationale for invading has parallels to the darkest chapters of Europe's history. Having issued passports to tens of thousands of Abkhazians and South Ossetians, Moscow now claims it must intervene to protect them — a tactic reminiscent of one used by Nazi Germany at the start of World War II.

Kagan's bottom line is this:

Putin's aggression against Georgia should not be traced only to its NATO aspirations or his pique at Kosovo's independence. It is primarily a response to the "color revolutions" in Ukraine and Georgia in 2003 and 2004, when pro-Western governments replaced pro-Russian ones. What the West celebrated as a flowering of democracy the autocratic Putin saw as geopolitical and ideological encirclement....

Russia's attack on sovereign Georgian territory marked the official return of history, indeed to an almost 19th-century style of great-power competition, complete with virulent nationalisms, battles for resources, struggles over spheres of influence and territory, and even — though it shocks our 21st-century sensibilities — the use of military power to obtain geopolitical objectives. Yes, we will continue to have globalization, economic interdependence, the European Union and other efforts to build a more perfect international order. But these will compete with and at times be overwhelmed by the harsh realities of international life that have endured since time immemorial.

The Asmus/Holbrooke bottom line is this:

Moscow seeks to roll back democratic breakthroughs on its borders, to destroy any chance of further NATO or E.U. enlargement and to reestablish a sphere of hegemony over its neighbors. By trying to destroy a democratic, pro-Western Georgia, Moscow is sending a message that, in its part of the world, being close to Washington and the West does not pay.

This moment could well mark the end of an era in Europe during which realpolitik and spheres of influence were supposed to be replaced by new cooperative norms and a country's right to choose its own path. Hopes for a more liberal Russia under President Dmitry Medvedev will need to be reexamined. His justification for this invasion reads more like Brezhnev than Gorbachev. While no one wants a return to Cold War-style confrontation, Moscow's behavior poses a direct challenge to European and international order.

But, hey, they aren't neo-cons, so they're by definition more reasonable—even if they agree with the neo-cons.

08/11 03:36 PMShare