The most important and credible challenges to the thesis of my work...

I've said in earlier posts that the most significant challenge to my thesis of least possible necessary aggression and the way I interpret that for domestic policy -- namely, that a more libertarian domestic policy on issues like guns and drugs would both better deal with concerns around both of these issues, sponsoring more responsible gun ownership, drug use, and facilitate citizens' abilities to deal constructively with more serious problems in both arenas and local, state, and federal government's ability to both diminish violence associated with both trades and diminish support for dangerous groups associated with both drugs and guns, as just two examples of the promise that domestic policies committed to more individual freedom offer to our ability to deal with domestic problems -- is found among criminologists who attribute lower violent crime rates (up until 2005, that is) to creative policing and the ability of law enforcement to use drug laws, gun laws, and the death penalty to provide deterence and succesful prosecution of violent crime...

It's the strongest counter-argument I've identified to my general thesis of least possible necessary aggression in domestic policy...and an argument that I will need to spend much time dealing with and thinking about and soul-searching on (if I'm wrong about my thesis, it's better to abandon it than to keep defending a poor thesis, if I'm intellectually honest, that is, and not just self-righteously defending a thesis that I've invested some stake in)...

Tonight, I think I encountered the strongest counterargument to the thesis of least possible necessary aggression in international policy and counterterrorism efforts, where I have been focussing and honing the thesis most seriously in the last few years...

Daniel Byman is a Brookings scholar, an associate professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University -- the most reputed international policy program in the country -- who wrote a November/December 2003 article for Foreign Affairs that I happened to run across, tonight, that argues for a political offensive against Hezbollah three years before Israel's military offensive against the Lebanese terrorist group...

http://www.brookings.edu/views/articles/byman20031101.pdf

I don't agree with Byman's thesis that pressuring Syria would successfully dismantle Hezbollah, but I think it is the strongest argument for the use of the political or military pressure for counter-terrorism efforts -- distinct from efforts to delegitimize Hezbollah and to wean political support for its militant wing through political representation and moderation of its political wing in the Lebanese parliament; to confront it with multilateral and internationally credible military and law enforcment efforts to arrest militant leaders when possible and kill when necessary; or to engage in peace processes that would seek to disarm Hezbollah either forcibly or voluntarily through a legimated political process between Israel and Lebanon and within the Lebanese democratic government -- to resolve this issue, with Iran and Syria, and with the war on terrorism, generally...

The reason why I think this is the strongest counter-argument is because pressuring Syria has been associated with the most promising results in Middle Eastern democratic efforts...Iran has largely resisted American and European pressure to end its nuclear program...as has North Korea, even after successful negotiations correlated with U.S. pressure during earlier Six-Party talks (though I believe more accurately correlated with South Korean diplomacy to bring North Korea back to the table)...Iraq is a terrible mess of insurgency against the new democratic government and the American presence and sectarian violence that many analysts are concerned may be devolving into civil war...Syria and Iran have responded to implicit threats to invade with support and prompting for Hezbollah's most recent killing and kidnapping of Israeli soldiers (while Hezbollah's political wing was unaware of its militant wing's plans to engage Israel, Iran and Syria were helping to coordinate its efforts)...

But the one ray of hope in the Middle East when it comes to the use of political or military pressure was in the correlation between Washington's pressure on Syria in 2005 to exit Lebanon, and Syria's subsequent withdrawal and the room for the current Lebanese democratic goverment...

Now...I don't agree that Washington's pressure is what prompted Syria to leave...I think, more likely, grass-roots citizen protests of a Syrian military and political presence precipitated a Syrian withdrawal -- as with the fall of Eastern European and Soviet communist regimes -- but, then again, I'm just a naive idealist:):)...

There is no doubt that Washington was pressuring Syria around the time that it pulled out and that many Lebanese see the United States as an unlikely ally because of their support for a Syrian withdrawal...

What is in doubt is whether American pressure caused the pull-out...and Daniel Byman makes a really brilliant case, in this article, for why American pressure can exercise much leverage with Syria, and, he believes, how the Administration can use that leverage to finally underrmine Hezbollah (a case that is easier to make, today, given how Hezbollah has undermined its own political support in Lebanon with its most recent adventures in Israel and the subsequent response they sparked)...

The reason why I don't agree with Byman's case even as I think he is a seriously brilliant mother-fucker -- you gotta read this article to get a feel for why I feel so stupid next to this guy; largely because he clearly knows so much more about this region and terrorism, generally, than I do and I should probably feel ashamed to even dare to doubt the wisdom of someone so much more clearly qualified to have this discussion than I am; my case is a more general one that isn't based out of counter-terrorism expertise, but Byman makes the case, for me at least, for why I should quickly develop one if I want to have anything credible to say on this subject -- is because the use of pressure has just been such a miserable failure in most of the cases where it has been applied, by any objective measure, by my lights...

Iran, North Korea, and Iraq (the axis of evil, itself) being the most obvious to me, though not to most international policy scholars I've read, so perhaps I really just don't know what the fuck I'm talking about...though most scholars don't seem to take Joe's ideas around soft power seriously in their articles, either, and I'm quite clear of the necessity and utility of soft power, and somehow I doubt that a lot of lesser known intellects have somehow outhunk their way around Joe because they have discovered the wisdom of more conventional pressure politics...

Where I see failure, David sees the need to remain patient..."Patient with how much failure?" is my question...but Daniel makes a brilliant case for this kind of patience, I must admit, and clearly knows so much about the region that it makes me blush that I even dare to have the conversation with the guy...

But have the conversation I must, obviously, because plenty of counterterrorism expertise has not either captured Osama Bin Laden or seriously weakened Al Queda, dismantled Hezbollah, weakened Hamas (which came to power in Palestine post-Iraq war and with the advent of the War on Terrorism, rather than being weakened) nor decreased international terrorism, unless there is some objective index that I am not aware of that indicates a reduction in terrorism that neither I or the most recent survey of terrorism experts conducted by the international policy journal Foreign Policy, which generally found that most terrorism and international policy experts believe that our vulnerability to terrorism has become more substantial rather than less, post-Iraq war and in the wake of the War on Terrorism (as well as the 2003/04 Global Terrorism Index by the World Markets Research Centre, of course, which found an increase in terrorism after the initiation of the Iraq war)...

As with President Bush's call for patience rather than rethinking strategy, I find David's and the President's desire for patience as naive and ignoring the consequences of a failing and failed policy...

But one very serious thing that David Byman has over George W. Bush and me is that he knows Middle East politics and history, and the recent history of Middle East terrorism very well...and that should certainly give someone like me pause...

And more importantly, he really does seem to understand the dynamics of terrorism and its political support in ways that I think are important if we are to develop more effective counterterrorism policy...

David's arguments and this line of reasoning, generally -- that effective pressure, political pressure with implicit pressure from threats of military action is the most likely scenario for undermining Hezbollah, and I would imagine similar scenarios that David might argue for stopping Iran's and North Korea's nuclear ambitions and pressuring for a sustainable democratic government in Iraq -- are the strongest counter-arguments to my thesis of least possible necessary aggression and all of its correlates in democratic theory and principle that I think I've encountered, thus far...

As I write this book, I don't want to take on strawmen, which is useless and intellectually dishonest...if I'm wrong, I'm wrong, and if it is made more clear for me I will be the first to admit it (or at least I will try to admit it as quickly and honestly as I see it)...

I want to wrestle with the strongest counterarguments and develop good ideas, not validate ones I've just associated myself with...the latter is not only intellectually dishonest, it's foolish because stubbornly sticking by a bad idea doesn't make it any better...and certainly doesn't help anyone...

I guess you could say that instead of making an extended speech that fits my biases, that this book needs to be the most challenging debate that I can offer around this thesis...I need to consider the argument open-endedly and all of its weaknesses as well as its strengths and deal with people and arguments that have the most chance of both making and being stronger arguments as well as educating and enlarging my own thinking...

I have to say that this dude offers me significant opportunities to educate my argument...because I feel kind of dumb in the presence of his arguments...

Lots of work to do...

Ben