Cheney on Iran the other day:
The Iranian regime’s efforts to destabilize the Middle East and to gain hegemonic power is a matter of record…
…Given the nature of Iran’s rulers, the declarations of the Iranian President, and the trouble the regime is causing throughout the region—including direct involvement in the killing of Americans—our country and the entire international community cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its most aggressive ambitions.
The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course, the international community is prepared to impose serious consequences.
Cheney’s 1992 Defense Policy Guidelines, a draft of which was leaked to the Times:
…we must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role.
Preventing the emergence of a rival power
is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.[^1]
Unlike most people back then, and even today after all that’s transpired, I don’t find the leaked DPG all that horrifying as a statement of purpose. America was unromantically claiming for itself the role of global hegemon. It would try to order the world in accordance with its best interests, which would, overall, be best for the world—Pax Americana.
Furthermore, and what must’ve rankled liberal internationalist sensibilities at the time, America wouldn’t be assuming this role out of benevolence for the world’s people. Rather, it was a far more pragmatic stance:
While the U.S. cannot become the world’s ‘policeman’ by assuming responsibility for righting every wrong, we will retain the preeminent responsibility for addressing selectively those wrongs which threaten not only our interests, but those of our allies or friends, or which could seriously unsettle international relations.
Especially in retrospect, the limits of American power, influence and empire-building resolve make credible deterrence of all regional hegemons unlikely. The DPG extrapolated America’s abilities directly from its unchallenged military might, failing to consider other important “soft” limits to its ambitions.
The DPG also never questions whether an American-dominated peace would constitute the best outcome for the world, or more correctly, whether it would be perceived as such by all comers. For example, it certainly seems that parts of the Iranian leadership would be willing to risk outright war with the United States rather than live in a Middle East dominated by America.
Other than that, how did you like the play, Mrs. Lincoln?
Overall, I’m with Niall Ferguson on these issues. The British Empire, for all its flaws, brutalities and nastiness, was a net gain for humanity, especially when compared with the alternatives. If Americans shared some of the bloody-mindedness of their British cousins during the Victorian era, something similar might be achievable today. An American liberal empire, likewise, would probably be better than the alternatives on offer.
The problem is, Americans today are not Victorian Brits. Invoking a global Pax Americana does not stir their bosom. So the administration has resorted to different instruments. Besides using fear to amplify reasonable worries of nuclear-armed terrorists to the level of an existential threat akin to Nazi Germany, they have insisted that America’s goals in the Middle East are nothing but noble. “Iran’s efforts to gain hegemonic power is a matter of record.” And we, knights of virtue, are going to put a stop to that kind of bullying!
The kind of amorphous righteousness that undergirds Cheney’s speech is what I find most unappetizing about this administration. The Cheney of the DPG didn’t have to gild the lilly. America has interests. America will do what it takes to defend those interests. Yes, we’re selfishly motivated in the Middle East. But the Middle East under our tutelage is a whole lot better off than the Middle East left to its own devices.
None of this addresses the wisdom of the specifics of any of these policies. Did we need to invade Iraq, and do we need to be threatening war with Iran in order to maintain hegemony in the region? There could have been other ways…
