Iran and the Post-Intellectual Right
A tale of incompetence spread across two Administrations.
Hey everyone, when I said in the last Jackal that it would be touch and go over the next few weeks, it ended up being less touch and more go than I anticipated. We had family in town and it was wonderful, but also busy. Now that things have calmed down, I have a few thoughts today about Iran and then more over the next few days regarding the DOJ’s recent indictments.
During Barack Obama’s presidency, I thought certain portions of conservative media did a good job offering constructive criticism of the Administration, particularly on foreign policy. On Syria, for instance, the Administration’s lack of action was particularly bad, to the point where you can attribute a lot of Donald Trump’s rise to Obama’s fecklessness. Here is Kori Schake from back then:
The United States is long overdue to protect the grieving people of Syria from the preying vultures of Assad, Iran, Russia, and the Islamic State. President Obama worries about the cost of American involvement abroad and the risk of confronting Putin’s Russia; he ought to be much more worried about the cost of our remaining uninvolved. As Obama administration special envoy Martin Indyk put it, “not taking a stand in Syria was the original mistake that helped to open the gates of hell.”
The Syrian Civil War led to a refugee crisis, sending millions of Syrians to Europe, America, and across the globe. The influx of refugees, in turn, led to a global, anti-immigrant populist movement fueled by nationalism, which eventually attained power in Europe and (you guessed it) the United States.
Could anyone have predicted this? I’m not sure, but the conservative criticism of Obama actually had a point: Inaction can cost you something too.
Schake, of course, is stilling writing and making good points. Here is a recent piece from her, describing Trump’s foreign policy actions in his second term:
But Trump’s behavior is a difference in kind, not just a difference in magnitude, from previous American presidents. He is not simply opting out of denser webbing of international order as Clinton did, or seeking to balance American dominance with advancing cooperation as Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden did. Trump is an arsonist of the existing order, which he seems to genuinely believe is destructive to American interests.
As Daniel Drezner and Elizabeth Saunders characterize it, Trump has pioneered hegemonic instability, collapsing the post-1945 international order by making the dominant power an agent of chaos and destruction.
Schake was previously critical of the Obama Administration’s foreign policy and now recognizes Trump’s disaster on the world stage. Imagine that. And she lobbed her initial criticism from National Review, what was previously the premier conservative magazine in the country. Although it’s still chugging along, Republican voters don’t read it.
There is a reason you probably don’t see Schake’s intellectual commentary on Fox News or why you don’t see her being interviewed by Tucker Carlson: It’s because the conservative intellectual movement is dead. And the best evidence of that is Donald Trump’s ascendence as leader of the GOP.
A lot of people miss this about Donald Trump, but one of the reasons he was able to take over the Republican Party is that he studied. Trump spent hours watching cable news, specifically Fox, and would call into their shows frequently (this continued into his presidency). From there, Trump was able to learn the language of the hard Right, but he also left himself vulnerable to deception. Fox News is able to deceive the average Boomer, so just imagine what they are able to do to someone with a sub-average IQ.
To this day, Trump believes that the Obama Administration allowed Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon as part of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between the U.S., Iran, China, France, Britain, Russia, and Germany. He tore up that agreement in his first term based on this misbelief. Here is Stephen M. Walt, after Trump tore up the deal:
As long expected, Donald Trump has bowed to his ego, his petulant envy of Barack Obama, his hard-line donors, his new set of hawkish advisors,1 and above all his own ignorance and walked away from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the international agreement that prevents Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. It is important to understand what’s really going on here. Trump’s decision is not based on a desire to keep Iran from getting a nuclear bomb; if that were the case, it would make much more sense to stay firmly committed to the deal and eventually negotiate to make it permanent. After all, both the International Atomic Energy Agency (which monitors and inspects Iran’s facilities) and U.S. intelligence agree that Iran has been in full compliance with the JCPOA since it was signed.
It was Trump’s ignorance that led him to tearing up the JCPOA and it his own ignorance now that is leading us deeper into a war that we cannot win. I have shared this picture before, but it still drives me crazy. You can see where we were when we signed the JCPOA, and what happened after we pulled out:
Eventually, Trump will have to give more to Iran than Obama ever did, just to get us back to the levels we saw in 2016. The real question is if Fox News and company will spin the result as super favorable for Trump. But that sort of spin doesn’t engage with reality, and reality tells us that this war has been a disaster.
After Trump is gone, there are going to be a whole host of pro-Trump pundits who tell us he never really represented the Republican Party, and that his presidency was a failure only because he didn’t embrace True Conservative Values.™ But the same pundits who will say that are the same ones who pushed people like Kori Schake, Bill Kristol, and even Mitt freaking Romney out of the Republican Party.
If the conservative movement in America still had serious people on its side, we probably wouldn’t be enduring Trump 2.0, much less the Iran War, and while that’s super frustrating right now, it is pretty depressing when you think about the future. The consequences of an anti-intellectual GOP is permeating beyond foreign policy too: The FDA recently shelved a comprehensive study showing the COVID-19 vaccines are (and were) safe and effective. They did the same thing for a new shingles vaccine that was supposed to hit the market.
Being pro-vaccine used to be a bedrock principle within the conservative movement, but that has now faded. Here is an article from a conservative intellectual, back before the Right had embraced the lunacy of the anti-vaccination movement:
The point of mandatory vaccinations is not merely to protect those who are vaccinated. When it comes to measles, mumps and rubella, for example, children cannot be vaccinated until 1 year of age. The only way to prevent them from getting diseases is to ensure that those who surround them do not have those diseases. The same is true for children with diseases like leukemia, as well as pregnant women. Herd immunity is designed to protect third parties.
But Americans have short memories and enormous confidence in junk science. Parents will ignore vaccinations but ensure that their kids are stocked up with the latest homeopathic remedies, Kabbalah bracelets and crystals. St. John’s wort, red string and crystals all existed before 1962. They didn’t stop the measles. Vaccination did.
The title of that is called, “Anti-Vaccine Fanatics Kill,” and it was written by Ben Shapiro in eleven years ago. Now, the biggest anti-vaxxer in America is heading up the Department of Health and Human Services, all because the GOP decided to double-down on ignorance rather than tell Republican voters the truth.
We are in for two and a half more years of this and who knows what comes after that, but I’m not excited to find out.
It was Cinco de Mayo on Tuesday, one of my favorite holidays. I rarely get bored of margaritas, but a couple years ago I did and made up my own cocktail. It’s called a “Te Mire,” which goes like this:
1 and a half oz of Mezcal
3/4 oz of Cointreau
3/4 oz of Dry Vermouth
I stir it, serve it over a big cube, and add a spice rim and a pickled jalapeño to garnish.
As a reminder, Cinco de Mayo is much more popular in the United States than it is in Mexico. In the U.S. it is primarily a celebration of Mexican culture and heritage, but the Battle of Puebla and Mexico’s stalling of France likely helped the North win the Civil War. Super fun history.
But also, who doesn’t love margaritas and tacos?
I’ll be back to talk about the DOJ as a whole over the next few days. See you all then.
I will make a minor point of disagreement with Walt here: Even some of the Iran hawks thought the deal was really good! Colin Powell (yes, him) supported the deal!