Tink? Is That You?

This defense of the Lubriderm Euston Manifesto illustrates its silly underlying assumptions quite nicely. Consider:

Because Iraqi reconstruction has been a fiasco, the liberal temptation is to side intellectually with the insurgents. But, for example, trade unions are forbidden to organise in the Iraqi public sector because of the Saddam Hussein ban still in force; the comment pages of the liberal press are hardly full of articles insisting that the Iraq government entrenches union rights. Little space is given to arguments about the wider importance of building a sustainable democracy. Rather, there is another piece on why the US and Britain must get out of Iraq now to allow, presumably, the establishment of a theocratic, authoritarian state.

It’s like every strawman, non-sequitur, and self-aggrandizement of the “decent” left in one handy paragraph!

• “…Iraqi reconstruction has been a fiasco.” Nice of you to admit that, except that you fail to comprehend that the people who were actually responsible for the occupation are still in charge of it, and they assure us that things are going perfectly well in Iraq, and we need to stay the course. What makes you think that the long-term continuation of policies you admit have failed will suddenly cause them to work? (And to answer “but we don’t favor those policies, we favor policies that will allow us to win!” is no answer at all. The choice is: Bush and Blair’s war, or leaving. There is no third option on the table, unless decision-making authority constitutionally reverts to would-be Orwells signing position papers in pubs.) Also, perhaps some of these people should familiarize themselves with the concept of “path dependence.” The bad effects of the failed reconstruction on Iraqi state and society cannot simply be undone just because things might have been different if signatories of the Tinkerbell Manifesto had been in charge during the relevant time period.
• “[t]he liberal temptation is to side intellectually with the insurgents.” Um, what “liberals” have shown any “temptation” to support the Iraqi insurgency? Does Hutton believe that opposing the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan compelled one to “support” the Taliban?
• “the comment pages of the liberal press are hardly full of articles insisting that the Iraq government entrenches union rights. Little space is given to arguments about the wider importance of building a sustainable democracy.” Well, first of all, anybody who thinks that an invasion of Iraq led by George Bush was likely to make the right to organize in Iraq a priority should really not be allowed to walk the streets alone. But leaving that aside, what exactly is such a thing supposed to accomplish? Just to make sure that I can be part of the “decent left,” I, Scott Lemieux, proclaim my belief that workers should have the right to organize, and also that liberal democracy is preferable to either secular or religious authoritarianism. Now perhaps Hutton can fill us on in the causal mechanism that will cause the writings of the Guardian‘s op-ed pages to be inscribed in Iraqi law. I’m guessing that a lot of clapping is involved.
  
• “Rather, there is another piece on why the US and Britain must get out of Iraq now to allow, presumably, the establishment of a theocratic, authoritarian state.” See, the problem here is known as “begging the question.” What Hutton fails to understand is that the illiberal, theocratic state is already here. Again, a couple links of the causal chain seem to be missing; it is not, in fact, true, that the presence of American and British troops can be expected to simply conjure up a liberal democracy ex nihlio if they just try really hard. (On imagines the Euston signees favoring us with a hearty chorus of “Illiberal sectarianism is over…if you want it!”) The uselessness of the kind of “leftists” who signed this silly document is precisely this kind unseriousness, its unwillingness to deal with any arguments that don’t end with accusing critics of being objectively pro-bad thing x. Moreover, any solution that involves an open-ended occupation by foreign troops without whom the state has virtually no effective coercive capacity renders justifications of “democracy” and/or “Iraqi self-determination” moot. And, finally, one must note that many members of this “decent left”–and certainly their Reactionary Allies Who Must Not Be Criticized Without Noting At Length That Inappropriate Analogies About State Torture Are Worse Than State Torture–seem to want the magic of military imperialism to bring freedom, democracy, and labor rights to many other states. If we cannot withdraw troops from Iraq without being objectively pro-fascist, where exactly are the troops to carry out these missions going to come from?

These are people who would, in Loudon Wainwright’s phrase, rather be dreaming than living.