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October 11, 2006

Commentary: The "It is Always Us" Fallacy

Instapundit links to an article by Thomas Barnett in which Mr. Barnett writes the following (emphasis mine):

The Bush administration's decision to rerun the whole WMD drama with Iran was a big mistake, not just for what it costs us in the Middle East and in particular within Iraq right now, but because it also emboldened North Korea, a country that has actual nukes and not just the beginning capabilities to build them.

Plus, pushing China on Iran, which proves to be really hard given the bilateral economic bonds growing between the two over energy, forces a sort of "all in or all out" choice on Beijing, which--quite frankly--isn't ready for yet.

Beijing isn't ready, in large part, because we haven't prepared them well to emerge as a trusted great power ally. This administration keeps hedging its bets, sort of treating China like a military enemy, sort of treating it like a diplomatic ally, sometimes demonizing it and sometimes indulging it. Our "separate lanes" policy of trying to compartmentalize our relationship with China has been a disaster in my opinion, keeping us trapped in an immature strategic relationship with Beijing that makes it harder for us to deal with rogues like Iran and North Korea.[...]

I'm not too interested in Mr. Barnett's specific argument, although I disagree. (China is in fact our enemy because they view us that way, they wish to become the world's superpower and we are in the way.) I'm more interested instead in the form of the argument used, as it appears over and over again in policy discussions. It goes like this:

1. Country or Group A was ready to be friendly to us.

2. But we didn't take such-and-such actions to reassure them such friendliness was possible.

3. Therefore, Country of Group A became our enemy.

The lesson implied is that we need (or needed) to change (2) in order to have friendlier relations with "A". I'll be ready to admit this happens sometimes; misunderstandings, hurt egos, and irrational fears many a war have caused. But I maintain that, more often than not, the problem lies in (1); that is, we should not assume friendliness in the part of a group or country just because they say so. Think about it; if they were so intent on friendliness, why would they give up at the first opportunity to blame the fallout on us? If their intentions are so pure, why don't they make it clear?

I'm very worried about this mentality, the mentality of blaming all problems in our behavior. We must begin to recognize that people in the rest of the World have their own goals and poltical philosophies, and that the thirst for glory, the desire to humilliate the powerful and the proud is a powerful human emotion, however much we object to that fact. (It doesn't help that, at the moment, we are the powerful and the proud.)

Listen, we should all be for having allies. But an alliance doesn't consist of letting your would be ally (that would be China taking Taiwan, or Islam destroying Israel) achieve its objectives at your expense. If we want a closer relationship with China, it has to be a relationship based on mutual respect, not one based on our kowtowing to their every whim.

Posted by Ruy Diaz at October 11, 2006 8:19 AM

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