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logo    On Our National Interest


American diplomats, commentators, and sundry other people are always invoking our national interest is talking about American foreign policy, and oddly enough, most people seem to believe that that abstract phrase has some real meaning. But the phrase is meaningless unless exactly what the national interest is is specified. Yesterday, on CNN, Senator Lindsey Graham, claimed that we need to continue the war in Iraq because it is in our national interest to have a Middle East whose governments are friendly to the United States.

Well, how-de-do! Of course it is in our national interest to have every country in the world friendly to the United States, regardless of whether such friendship is also in the other countries' national interest's. Of course, creating that world is impossible.

When a bull enters a china shop and begins destroying the china, one does not leave the bull there and attempt to talk him out of his destructive ways. The first task, if the china is to be preserved, is to get the bull out of the shop. America and its coalition partners are the bull in the china shop, and Iraq is the shop.

Will the violence cease if the coalition pulls out? Perhaps not. But it is unlikely to cease if they stay either.

Furthermore, there is a false assumption in the policy of staying the course. We are assuming that even if some modicum of security is attained and the Iraqi government and its policies will continue to be favorable to Western aims. History provides no assurance of that. How many governments unfavorable to the national interest of the United States have we had a hand in overthrowing? How many still exist today that are favorable to our national interests?

We have had a policy of maligning countries whose governments we disapprove of. Look at Iran. In 1953 we had a hand in overthrowing its duly elected democratic government and installing a virtual dictatorship of the Shah of Iran. His government lasted until 1979. When it fell, this coup earned the United States in particular and the Western powers in general the lasting antagonism pf Iranians. Countries do change their governments, especially those imposed by outside powers. Why should anyone believe that the Iraqi's won't undo the constitution we have imposed upon them just as soon, or soon after ,we leave? We are staying the course for a victory that is a chimera! Even if we win, the victory won't last.

Now again, we are trying to blame Iran for our continued problems in Iraq. They are said to be supplying weapons to the Shia in Iraq, the Taliban in Afghanistan, and only the state department knows who else. Why would anyone expect them not to? If Hezbollah had invaded Mexico, wouldn't we be supplying arms to any Mexican resistance? Why should we expect a nation whose government we once overthrew and that we call part of an axis of evil to concern itself with our wishes?

Recently, when some British sailors were apprehended by the Iranians, and the British felt trod upon, couldn't the Iranians have asked, how far from here is Great Briton?, are there any Iranian ships off British shores?, and what are you British doing here anyway?

If these questions had been asked and the British had replied with "because it is in our national interest to make the Middle East conform to our wishes," wouldn't the non-western world have broken out in laughter?

No nation can have a national interest in the affairs of another country that goes against that nation's own national interest and expect the world to merely acquiesce. Such is the road to incessant conflict. (6/18/2007)