[Debate] Trita Parsi on Libya, Syria, and Iran

[Peter Waterman]

Yoshie

It is very difficult to have a discussion with you, far less a dialogue 
(a discussion, for me, is where both parties listen and possibly adapt 
to the other, a dialogue where both parties learn from and incorporate 
arguments of the other).

I am reminded of the public performance of Joma Sison, lider maximo of a 
Filipino revolution which, thanks to the Goddess, has been repeatedly 
postponed due, in part, to the self-defeating behaviour of Sison. 
Whatever the title of the presentation he was invited to make, or the 
subject of the dialogue he was invited to contribut to, Joma repeatedly 
uses the platform as an opportunity to pontificate about whatever 
limited vision he has in his head.

I am sure you - unburdened with the leadership models of Marx, Lenin, 
Mao or D.N.Aidit (leader of the Indonesian CP)  can do better.

Pw

On 28-8-2011 16:45, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> There's nothing progressive or emancipatory about backing the men with
> guns shooting up urban neighborhoods, rounding up migrant workers, and
> terrorizing public-sector workers, hoping that such men will create
> "more space to organize unions, political associations, and struggles
> for what they need."  I do not know if it is ignorance or deep
> psychological denial that motivates the author of the article that
> Patrick just had us read.  I really don't know what virtue Patrick
> sees in such ignorance or denial either.  What I do know is this:
> unless leftists get over that, they can't have any intelligent
> discussion about anything.
>
> On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 10:02 AM, Peter Waterman
> <peterwaterman1936 at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> I see, Yoshie, but I was hoping to move the discussion from 'errors of
>> much of the left regarding the overthrow (or not) of one or other
>> Arabic/Muslim dictatorship' to issues of general significance for
>> left/progressive/radical-democratic/emancipatory/socialist theory and
>> practice.
>>
>> We have, for example, seen various detailed reports/intensive exchanges,
>> often on Debate, concerning the riots in England and the anti-corruption
>> issue in India. Despite worlds of difference between these waves of
>> disorder, there is clearly occurring a breakdown of capitalist
>> normality, whether in the North or the South or globally. This breakdown
>> does not seem to to express itself with even as much similarity as there
>> was worldwide in 1968. The traditional and new lefts seem to be neither
>> in control of these, nor to have a limited number of alternative
>> interpretations, nor to have a similarly limited number of agreed
>> positions concerning those actors that do seem to have more influence
>> inter/nationally.
>>
>> I just thought this called for the kind of comparatively serious debate
>> that seems to be taking place just now in India.
>>
>> pW
>>
>>
>>
>> On 28-8-2011 15:17, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>>> I'm just trying to give a helpful suggestion here to those leftists
>>> who believe that Iran is a dictatorship that must be overthrown "at
>>> (almost) any cost."
>>>
>>> On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 4:07 AM, Peter Waterman
>>> <peterwaterman1936 at gmail.com>    wrote:
>>>> Yoshie
>>>>
>>>> You are losing me (only?) in your Intro here, assuming a familiarity
>>>> with Iran - and left relations within and to it - that I (only?) do not
>>>> have.
>>>>
>>>> However, you do here repeat your disparagement of 'leftists' - here
>>>> either a 'lot of' or 'anti-IRI' - that leads me to wonder about your
>>>> understanding of 'left' and, indeed, the left understanding of 'the left'.
>>>>
>>>> In part, of course, your violence against
>>>> the...umm...Not-Yoshie-Approved Left?... has to raise questions about
>>>> your own mode of relating to the Other or to your Others. I do recall,
>>>> 1951 in the Hampstead, London, Young Communist League, that our attitude
>>>> toward 'Trotskyists' (broadly: anyone to the left of the CPGB) was one
>>>> of violent hatred, whilst that toward 'social-democrats' (broadly:
>>>> anyone to the right of the CPGB) was rather one of disparagement. [This
>>>> was not, of course, the case during the Comintern Third Period, during
>>>> which social-democrats were called and treated as 'social fascists',
>>>> thus making a contribution to the success of capitalist fascism in
>>>> Germany].
>>>>
>>>> On the other hand, however, your castigations do raise once again in my
>>>> mind the question of 'What's Left?'. In so far as it was the
>>>> counter-culture of capitalist modernity (nation-state construction,
>>>> industrialisation, parliamentarism, imperial militarism, possessive
>>>> individualism), then it was, surely, also a prisoner of that which it
>>>> was against. Capitalism could be negated, taking recourse to Marxism,
>>>> Thirdworldism and other critical or popular mobilising discourses) but
>>>> without surpassing that to which this Left - these Lefts - were
>>>> supposedly opposed. The results, from state Communism to
>>>> Radical-Nationalism/Populism and ending up (or down) in
>>>> Welfare-Stateism, have been disappointing, when not counter productive,
>>>> and in all cases subject to recoup by capitalism (islands of political
>>>> democracy surrounded by oceans of social fascism, spiced by the carnival
>>>> of consumer goods and the ideology of individualised 'choice').
>>>>
>>>> As you know, I have said my farewell to the 'left', at least
>>>> conceptually, even though I use it pragmatically so as to be able to
>>>> communicate to publics that still believe in this. I have proposed that
>>>> we rather develop a theory and strategy of 'global social emancipation'.
>>>>
>>>> In so far as you have dismissed this (although whether as a 'left',
>>>> 'right', 'western', 'bourgeois' or 'anarcho-autonomist' deviation, I am
>>>> unsure), I would like to invite you to join in the growing worldwide -
>>>> and cyberspatial) effort to avoid the sad outcomes indicated above and
>>>> contribute to a re-invention of, or surpassal of the left.
>>>>
>>>> Or to offer Debate surfers with an alternative to this vision.
>>>>
>>>> Rather than posting a patchwork of analyses on specific countries or
>>>> issues, many of which come from bourgeois liberal sources but whose
>>>> common function is to support your polemical positions.
>>>>
>>>> Otherwise I (only?) will remain confused, sceptical or suspicious about
>>>> where you are coming from and where you are going.
>>>>
>>>> Pw
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 28-8-2011 7:40, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>>>>> In 2009-2010, a lot of leftists were as excited about Iran's Green
>>>>> Wave as they are about the Libyan rebels in 2011.  However, as their
>>>>> prediction that Iran was on the brink of a revolution went wrong for
>>>>> many reasons -- e.g. because Mr. Mousavi wasn't a revolutionary that
>>>>> he had been in his youth -- they appear to have lost all interest in
>>>>> the Greens and Iran.  The fall of Libya might be an opportunity for
>>>>> them to rethink their Iran strategy, though.  If you want to help
>>>>> create at least one of the conditions for a revolution  in Iran, you
>>>>> had better legitimize the Islamic Republic and normalize the relations
>>>>> between it and the West.  That way, you will be giving Sayyid Ali a
>>>>> chance to follow in Gaddafi's footsteps.  However, anti-IRI leftists
>>>>> tend not to even consider such a dialectical approach.
>>>>>
>>>>> <http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/08/25/gadhafi_american_exceptionalism>
>>>>> THURSDAY, AUG 25, 2011 13:01 ET
>>>>> Who won Libya?
>>>>> Why the rout of Gadhafi undermines the idea of American exceptionalism
>>>>> BY TRITA PARSI
>>>>>
>>>>> Should President Obama get credit for the imminent fall of the Moammar
>>>>> Gadhafi regime in Libya? Or should President�s George W. Bush�s
>>>>> neoconservative foreign policy be credited? True to form, Washington
>>>>> has boiled the complex issues surrounding the Libya intervention down
>>>>> to a simplistic question. But it�s a false choice. More than anything,
>>>>> Libya -- and the Arab Spring as a whole -- is showing the limited
>>>>> influence of the United States when compared to the power of the
>>>>> people in the region when they take charge of their own destiny.
>>>>>
>>>>> The Libya experience pointedly shows the fallacy of the
>>>>> neoconservative thesis that talking to your enemies strengthens and
>>>>> legitimizes them. This argument was repeated so frequently during the
>>>>> Bush presidency that it became a truism. The United States shouldn�t
>>>>> talk to North Korea because that would be a concession. It shouldn�t
>>>>> talk to Iran, because Tehran does not deserve our company. And
>>>>> Washington should not talk to the Syrians because that would
>>>>> strengthen Assad�s rule.
>>>>>
>>>>> Yet Bush did not shun the regime of Gadhafi. The Bush administration
>>>>> itself continued the secret negotiations with Tripoli that had begun
>>>>> under President Bill Clinton. After almost exactly seven years, a deal
>>>>> was struck. Libya gave up its nuclear program and the West began
>>>>> lifting its sanctions.
>>>>>
>>>>> And it wasn�t just the United States. French President Nicholas
>>>>> Sarkozy, who credits himself for having been the force behind NATO�s
>>>>> decision to intervene in Libya, hosted Gadhafi in Paris in December
>>>>> 2007. Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown tried to do the same
>>>>> in December 2008. He extended an invitation to Gadhafi to come to
>>>>> London, but a final date for the visit was never secured.
>>>>>
>>>>> In fact, almost exactly a year ago, leading neoconservative Sens. John
>>>>> McCain, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham met with Gadhafi in Tripoli
>>>>> and assured him "that the United States wanted to provide Libya with
>>>>> military equipment."
>>>>>
>>>>> Neither these visits, nor the preceding diplomacy, secured Gadhafi
>>>>> from the wrath of his own people. It did not bestow upon his revolting
>>>>> regime a single drop of legitimacy. It simply remained its rotten,
>>>>> corrupt and dictatorial self.
>>>>>
>>>>> The same was true for the regime of the Shah of Iran and Hosni
>>>>> Mubarak�s Egypt. The Shah was one of America�s closest allies.
>>>>> President Jimmy Carter toasted the Shah in Tehran on New Year�s Eve
>>>>> 1977, calling Iran an "island of stability" in a troubled Middle East.
>>>>> A year later, following a popular uprising, the Shah�s regime was no
>>>>> more.
>>>>>
>>>>> Yet for all this experience in the Middle East, neoconservatives
>>>>> continue to assume that America is the universal source of legitimacy.
>>>>> Like King Midas, anything it touches -- or talks to -- is legitimized
>>>>> and turns into gold. Thus, to talk to another country is to do it a
>>>>> favor. And we should only do favors to our friends. Our enemies, we
>>>>> should defeat by force, not through conversation.
>>>>>
>>>>> This line of thinking reveals three additional false notions, relevant
>>>>> not just to Libya, but also to the Arab Spring and to U.S. policy
>>>>> toward Iran.
>>>>>
>>>>> First, that indigenous populations have essentially no ability to
>>>>> bestow legitimacy on their governments. America decides what is
>>>>> legitimate or not for them; they themselves have no say in this. The
>>>>> social contract is not between the populations and their state, but
>>>>> rather, between the state and the government of the United States.
>>>>>
>>>>> Second, that if the United States ends up talking to an unsavory
>>>>> regime, that act, in and of itself, disenfranchises the local
>>>>> opposition and ensures the survival of the regime. Once Washington
>>>>> bestows legitimacy on the regime by talking to it, the internal
>>>>> opposition is left helpless and powerless.
>>>>>
>>>>> Third, that the United States stands at the center of all political
>>>>> analyses. The United States is assumed to be -- contrary to all
>>>>> empirical evidence -- virtually omnipotent. All other actors are at
>>>>> best reacting to U.S. policy and thinking. There isn�t much
>>>>> distribution of power to speak of -- the United States holds (or
>>>>> should hold) most cards, and other states are left fighting for the
>>>>> bread crumbs that fall off Washington�s dinner table.
>>>>>
>>>>> These assumptions invariably lead to Washington�s knee-jerk instinct
>>>>> to think that the U.S. government always has to do something. And that
>>>>> it is also responsible for almost all developments and outcomes.
>>>>> Taking a step back, observing developments, or showing patience are
>>>>> near treacherous acts according to this mind-set; hence the ferocious
>>>>> criticism of Obama�s handling of the Arab Spring.
>>>>>
>>>>> As erroneous as this line of thinking is, it resonates strongly among
>>>>> large portions of the American public because it bestows on the United
>>>>> States a form of divine responsibility and strengthens the sense of
>>>>> American exceptionalism. (It is no coincidence that Obama has also
>>>>> been fiercely criticized for his remarks on the very phrase.) And it
>>>>> tends to win support among disgruntled exiled opposition groups as
>>>>> well because it provides them with an opportunity to exonerate
>>>>> themselves of any responsibility for independent leadership while
>>>>> putting additional responsibility on America�s shoulders.
>>>>>
>>>>> Even the outcome in Libya ultimately shows that America�s ability to
>>>>> drive events in lands far away is limited at best. But shunning
>>>>> dialogue and diplomacy on the theory that we do our enemies a favor by
>>>>> talking to them only limits that influence further.
>>>>>
>>>>> Trita Parsi is the 2010 Recipient of the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas
>>>>> Improving World Order. He is the author of the forthcoming book, "A
>>>>> Single Role of the Dice -- Obama's Diplomacy with Iran" (Yale
>>>>> University Press 2012). More: Trita Parsi
>>>>>
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