Libertarians of Arabia

Bryan Caplan wonders why so many libertarians supported the Iraq War, given their typical opposition to militarism and overseas crusades. Megan offers an opinion:

I'd say that the fall of the Soviet Union discredited several ideas on the left and the right: on the left, the idea that the state should own most of the means of production; on the right, the idea of isolationism, or non-interventionism. It is now patently obvious that if the US had not drawn a proverbial line in the sand through Germany, the Soviets would now own large blocks of Western Europe that would be struggling in the same way that Eastern Europe now does.

Larison, of course, has a snappish rejoinder on behalf of non-interventionism. I would only say that even if Megan's right, this would better explain why libertarians backed the broad conception of a War on Terror than why they lined up to support the invasion of Iraq. If the end of the Cold War vindicated anything, surely, it was containment rather than "rollback," which was roughly the policy that the Bush Administration adopted vis-a-vis Saddam.

My own explanation would be that the character of the post-9/11 threat - an anti-modern, anti-liberal religious movement - dovetailed perfectly with the shifting character of American libertarianism, which with the decline of socialism and the rise of lifestyle politics was already increasingly inclined to view a resurgent religious conservatism, rather than Marxist-Leninist statism, as the greater threat to its worldview. This dovetailing, in turn, bred a distinctly un-libertarian zeal for a crusading foreign policy among people who otherwise wouldn't have bought into it. Just as Evelyn Waugh's traditionalist Catholic Guy Crouchback privately rejoiced at the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, because it meant that "the enemy at last was plain in view, huge and hateful, all disguise cast off ... It was the Modern Age in arms," many libertarians instinctly leaped to interpret the 9/11 moment the way Andrew did - as the opening salvo in a grand "religious war," with secular modernity ranged on one side and every kind of "fundamentalism" on the other. Inevitably, it was Christopher Hitchens, a crypto-libertarian of sorts, who captured this spirit best:

... here was a direct, unmistakable confrontation between everything I loved and everything I hated. On one side, the ethics of the multicultural, the secular, the skeptical, and the cosmopolitan ... On the other, the arid monochrome of dull and vicious theocratic fascism. I am prepared for this war to go on for a very long time. I will never become tired of waging it, because it is a fight over essentials.

With such visions in the air, overreach was inevitable.

Comments

My first thought was that I disagree with your take, on the grounds that very many people's political views are essentially unprincipled.

But on re-reading your post, I'm not sure how much we disagree.

The "anti-modern, anti-liberal religious movement" you describe had, of course, nothing to do with Iraq's ruling Ba'athist party. Glossing over these sorts of differences, when deciding whether or not to go to war, is not particularly different from my "unprincipled" theory.

I supported the war. At the time, I knew that the Bush administration was overhyping the threat from Iraq. For example, even the pro-war New Republic pointed out that the president's claim that "we are concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using UAVs for missions targeting the United States" was completely ludicrous.

But it never occurred to me that my trust of other, equally false statements about our intelligence-- ie, "Mr. El Baradei, frankly, is wrong," we have "bulletproof" intel linking al Qaeda to Saddam-- was just as unwarranted.

What explanation is there for that trust, other than a jingoistic deference to claims made by my country's government?

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | November 27, 2007 11:40 AM

I think there's a good deal to that analysis, Ross. But a couple of issues. First, if the Cold War is the source of historical "lessons learned" I'm not sure that "containment" is what many folks (libertarian or not) learned. One fairly prominent narrative of how the Cold War ended was that the Reagan Administration added to containment some bits of "rollback", gave the USSR a shove, and the enemy fell apart. That's surely not the whole of the story, but it's enough of it to serve as an object lesson that might incline toward intervention. (Perhaps you might add to that the historical "lesson" that we were wrong to acquiesce so easily in Stalin's capturing of Eastern Europe). I don't know that such lessons lead one directly to supporting the Iraq War, but they might make one more favorable to it by at least giving grounds for an "aggressive" rather than "defensive" stance.

More broadly, there is a perfectly reasonable case to be made that libertarians ought to be in favor of liberty-producing interventions. If you buy the idea (central to any libertarian view, I would think) that human beings have certain rights simply on account of their status as human beings, then it wouldn't seem very hard to construct a case for intervening to disrupt tyrannical governments. Locke suggested that in the state of nature we each had the right to punish those who offended the law of nature, even if they didn't directly attack us. Mill was clearly in favor of colonial interventionism. None of that means one would be in favor of invading another country, but neither does libertarianism per se mean non-interventionism.

But, then again, I'm not a libertarian so maybe I'm just out to lunch here...

Posted by Michael Simpson | November 27, 2007 11:50 AM

I consider myself a libertarian but don't pretend to speak for anybody other than myself -- which is probably a good thing, since much of what I see passing for "libertarian thought" these days strikes me as arid pettifoggery.

If someone proclaims that his goal in life is to enslave me, I'm going to terminate that sucker as soon as the opportunity avails itself, theory be damned. I regard that as an expression of my right of self-defense, and perfectly compatible with "libertarian thought".

Muslims have been trying to enslave the rest of the world for 1400 years. Those who ignore that while sitting around singing Kumbaya can't change the facts of history. Just as we are not safe while Communism is any kind of a threat, we are not safe while Islam is any kind of a threat. Islam is not "just another religion", it is a statist totalitarian ideology that differs from Communism only in being pro-God rather than anti-God; the end result is the same.

I just hope that "libertarians" wake up before it's too late.

Posted by Tim of Angle | November 27, 2007 1:10 PM

Alternatively, people subscribing to the libertarian label may not subscribe to all or even most of the beliefs that are traditionally thought to be associated with the label. If you're for lower taxes and pre-marital sex, you might well qualify as a libertarian. I don't think either position--maybe taxes--determines a foreign policy position.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | November 27, 2007 1:11 PM

I have a question for people like Tim of Angle. How do you arrive at these crazy ideas about Islam and Muslims? When did you first learn about Islam, and how does your personal epistemology allow you to make sweeping claims like "Muslims have been trying to enslave the rest of the world for 1400 years." Are you aware that you are talking about a number of people (over time) IN THE BILLIONS? How do you reconcile your beliefs about Muslims with scholars on Islam, who, by and large, hold the opposite belief as you do?

Posted by Rickm | November 27, 2007 1:53 PM

Like the other commenters, I think Ross' post is a pretty good analysis. But I still don't think it explains everything, because one big problem with the Iraq War is that Saddam wasn't a theocrat, he wasn't really a representative of Islamism at all. He was a bad mostly secular dictator, who cynically used religion on some occasions but was hardly a representative of political Islam.

Given that libertarians must have known this, why push a fight against him rather than against more Islamist governments in the region?

Posted by Dilan Esper | November 27, 2007 1:55 PM

overreach was inevitable

This is certainly charitable, and as one of the over-reachers I appreciate it. But what's striking now, four and a half years later, is how few are willing to acknowledge the overreach. I understand that people become invested in their views and I don't by a long shot expect anyone to ape Sullivan's groveling me culpa. But should we expect allegedly principled, independent-minded libertarians to support the war forever? If not, what's the usual half-life on this kind of delusion?

Posted by Trevor | November 27, 2007 2:18 PM

“My own explanation would be that the character of the post-9/11 threat - an anti-modern, anti-liberal religious movement - dovetailed perfectly with the shifting character of American libertarianism”

This explanation fails to take into account the deliberate post Afghanistan bait and switch of the fear mongering Bush crowd. Hyper-inflated WMD “intelligence”, smear tactics linking Hussain to Al Qaeda, bullying of opponents, bogus mushroom clouds, jingoist-pro-war press etc. One must also not forget the neo-con wish for a “new Pearl Harbor” to ignite war fever in support of American hegemony.

In short, the public, including insufficiently skeptical libertarians, were played.

This post facto rationalizing is no less sickening because it pre-supposes that the Bush crowd had legitimate interests in “protecting” the nation, building “democracy”, etc. whereas, in fact, their complete disinterest in post-war planning and execution demonstrates the utter falsity of any such claims.

Shinseki put it on the table for all to see: they needed 3 times the troops to do it right. But raising 400 thousand soldiers would have meant a draft and a draft would have quickly called the bluff of the “mushroom cloud” crowd. Instead, they fired Shinseki and claimed it would all be over in a couple of months, so what difference did it make?

We would all do better to dispense with the excuses for our lack of vigilance and prepare for more demagoguery in the future

Posted by pbh | November 27, 2007 3:10 PM

The short answer is that a fairly substantial number of self-proclaimed "libertarians" tend to care a great deal for their own liberation from income taxes and regulations on their personal behavior, and care very little for the life and liberty of others. Compare a kill-em-all "libertarian" hawk like Glenn Reynolds to a genuine philosophical libertarian like Julian Sanchez or Radley Balko, and you're comparing two strikingly different worldviews that happen to overlap on certain aspects of US domestic policy.

In other words, I think you're giving the libertarian hawks too much credit when you say they "otherwise wouldn't have bought into" a crusading foreign policy. They are EXACTLY the sort of amoral, profit-minded people who traditionally support military adventurism. All 9/11 did was make them realize that events in the Muslim world can affect them personally.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | November 27, 2007 5:04 PM

My own explanation would be that the character of the post-9/11 threat - an anti-modern, anti-liberal religious movement - dovetailed perfectly with the shifting character of American libertarianism,

Always worth pointing out at times like these that terrorism poses no major threat to the American way of life, and that the physical risk of terrorism to the average American is effectively zero.

Posted by Freddie | November 27, 2007 5:41 PM

What are the moral obligations of the free and wealthy to the enslaved and poor? It seems to me that to ask the question is to get a hint about why libertarians or anyone else might be divided about the invasion of Iraq. Add to that debate another debate about the method and probability of success of either intervention or isolation. I don't see that the answers are all that obvious, pace Caplan.

Posted by Cliff Styles | November 27, 2007 6:24 PM

I'm sure someone has mentioned this already, but Mr. Hitchens isn't actually waging anything. He's encouraging other people to wage the war against Islamofascism on his behalf.

Posted by Hector | November 27, 2007 7:16 PM

Re: Muslims have been trying to enslave the rest of the world for 1400 years.

Here we go again with "boogeyman history" tales!
1) Islam, as a civilization not a religion, had two eras of expansionism: the century and a half after Mohammed's death (when it expanded into a world severely depopulated by a serious of natural disasters in the previous century) and the period from about 1400 to the mid 17th century. That's it. At other times Islam was dormant or declining.
2) Most other major civilizations, the extent they had the technology to do so, also had eras of expansionism.
3) Europe (AKA Christendom) pretty much won the expansionism and imperialism sweepstakes. It isn't Middle Eastern languages or the Middle Eastern religion or Islamic scuence and technology, or Muslim governance and economics that encircle the globe, firmly ensconced on every continent on the planet.

Posted by JonF | November 27, 2007 7:51 PM

JonF,

I think it would be fair to say, however, that Islam is considerably more expansionist, as a religion, than Christianity. Christianity took 400 years to become the hegemonic religion in its region of the world. Islam took only 100. Within a hundred years after Muhammed's death, the banners of Islam stretched from Poitiers to Turkestan. European imperialism, as bad as it was, was never as much religiously inspired as Islamic expansion. The Muslim holy writings explicitly say that no land once conquered by Islam may ever be given up. Muhammed explicitly said, 'Blessed is he who will cause the banners of Islam to fly over Constantinople" or something like that.

I'm as opposed to Western imperialism as any good leftist should be. But, most people in Europe and the US today recognize that imperialism is a bad thing, even if they may not be aware of how neo-colonial their governments continue to be. Islamic expansionism- in Timor, in India, in Armenia, in Spain, in Africa- is not seen as a bad thing by many people in the Muslim world. Heck, the Turks have not even apologized for killing a milion Armenians. That's the problem.

Posted by Hector | November 27, 2007 8:37 PM

Christianity took 400 years to become the hegemonic religion in its region of the world. Islam took only 100.

That's just because Mohammad was a much more successful religion-starting entrepreneur than Jesus was.

Christianity was adopted as the official religious figure of the world's largest empire 1700 years ago. Even if conquest seems to be at odds with words attributed to Jesus, the religion that arose in his wake has been perfectly amenable to it for a very long time.

Many Islamic lands are currently rather backward. They haven't always been, and won't always be.

Posted by Anonymous | November 28, 2007 8:45 AM

LaFollette has it right. The question really should be phrased "why did so many big state neo-imperialist conservatives like Glenn Reynolds feel the need to call themselves 'libertarians' before 9/11"? Part of it is surely that "conservative" still has a kind of musty odor about it - even now people tend to associate the word at some level with grouchy old men or ultra religous Southern white folk. So someone like Reynolds, who loves new gadgets, and probably wouldn't enjoy spending a lot of social time with the kind of people who picket abortion clinics, goes around calling himself a Libertarian, mainly because it sounds cooler.

Posted by vanya | November 28, 2007 11:48 AM

Hector-

Islam expanded in part because much of the merchant and trading class were Islamic. Many many people in Indonesia converted to Islam simply for the trading benefits.

Posted by Rickm | November 28, 2007 12:30 PM

Ross, you really need a basic education on interventionism. Ron Paul may help you:

"I believe our founding fathers had it right when they argued for peace and commerce between nations, and against entangling political and military alliances. In other words, noninterventionism.

Noninterventionism is not isolationism. Nonintervention simply means America does not interfere militarily, financially, or covertly in the internal affairs of other nations. It does not we that we isolate ourselves; on the contrary, our founders advocated open trade, travel, communication, and diplomacy with other nations.

Thomas Jefferson summed up the noninterventionist foreign policy position perfectly in his 1801 inaugural address: “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations- entangling alliances with none.” Washington similarly urged that we must, “Act for ourselves and not for others,” by forming an “American character wholly free of foreign attachments.”

http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2006/tst121806.htm

Posted by disinter | February 18, 2008 4:06 PM