Now You Notice

November 17, 2006 Hellmut

Charles Krauthammer had an illumination: after thirty years of tyranny Iraqis lack a democratic culture, which supposedly explains the absence of a working government.

If culture were to blame for the Iraq quagmire then that’s something Krauthammer could have considered before he egged on George Bush and Tony Blair to invade Iraq.

In the wake of World War II, it was fashionable in Ivey League circles to argue that Germany and Italy lacked a democratic culture. Of course, if one proclaims Anglo culture democratic culture then non-anglos will have less democratic cultures. That is the nature of a tautology.

Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba went to Europe looking for civil society and did not like the public square. Just as Matthew Arnold and Bernard-Henri Lévy could not appreciate the United States, Almond and Verba wrote a book validating themselves and their culture rather than exploring foreign cultures in their own right.

Culture is easily misunderstood and difficult to manipulate. It turns out, democracy is no weaker in Germany and Italy than in other countries. I doubt that Iraqi culture is an insuperable obstacle to democracy. Arguably conditions in renaissance Britain were less favorable and yet that is where modern liberalism took hold.

Speaking of the British renaissance, even though the philosopher is long dead Thomas Hobbes is probably more enlightening regarding conditions in Iraq than Charles Krauthammer. The problem in Iraq is that Iraqis cannot trust each other to respect one another’s security. Hobbes would not look to culture but to institutions. There is no one who can hold the violent accountable. To escape chaos and anarchy, Iraq needs the Leviathan.

Invoking the image of the Biblical monster, Hobbes argued that we can only escape a dog eat dog world if we submit to the sovereign authority of the state. The state would deliver us from anarchy and civil war when it punishes predatory behavior.

According to Hobbes the Leviathan requires the consent of the governed. When Bush and Blair invaded Iraq, they had some support among Kurds and Shiites. The missing piece was Sunni consent. Until Sunnis can feel safe, they will make everyone else unsafe.

That ain’t news either. Historian and Iraq specialist Phebe Marr identified the failure to include Sunnis as a deficiency of American regime change efforts long before the invasion.

The disaster in Iraq is a tragedy because experts predicted it. Blaming Iraqis for the lack of Anglo foresight is cheap. If Krauthammer has the need to find a defective culture then he should reflect on the failure of neo-conservatism to appreciate available information.