Michael Ignatieff, Noble Dreams, and Imperialism

Michaeal Ignatieff, the former academic who would be our next Prime Minister, has been accused of supporting U.S. imperialsm, and of supporting torture.

In my last article, I argued that he has not supported torture. On the contrary, he clearly states his opposition to it. Unfortunately, the arguments he makes in support of this strong stance are themselves rather wishy-washy and ineffective.

In this article, however, I show that he has supported U.S. imperialism in his writings. His argument in favour of some form of "idealistic imperialism", however noble it may sound, serves to mask the reality of empire- empires are about power, not noble ideals. Where the requirements of imperial power conflict with the ideals that supposedly motivate the imperial project, it`s the ideals that fall by the wayside. An empire is based on the idea that the imperialists must have control over the world, or over large parts of it, or all is lost. What are ideals when faced with such an imperative?

In his 2005 article "Who Are Americans to Think That Freedom Is Theirs to Spread? (New York Times Magazine, 26 June 2005, http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/ksgnews/Features/opeds/062605_ignatieff.htm), Ignatieff supports U.S. hegemony, though not without some criticism over details. He says that "If democracy plants itself in Iraq and spreads throughout the Middle East, Bush will be remembered as a plain-speaking visionary. If Iraq fails, it will be his Vietnam, and nothing else will matter much about his time in office….The consequences are more likely to be positive if the president begins to show some concern about the gap between his words and his administration's performance. For he runs an administration with the least care for consistency between what it says and does of any administration in modern times."

But isn’t there an inconsistency between that and his claim that there has been a "democratic turn in American foreign policy"? If there`s a gap between rhetorical support for democracy and real support for democracy that`s "unprecendented in modern times", then this "democratic turn" would seem to be merely rhetorical. And the facts bear out such an assertion. Ignatieff notes that "Latin Americans remember when the American presence meant backing death squads and military juntas". He fails to note that today, it merely means supporting a military coup against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and threatening to cut off aid to Nicaragua should the Nicaraguans have the gall to elect Daniel Ortega as president. He does note that in the Middle East the U.S. continues to support tyrants- he fails to note how the Iraqi elections came about as a result of widespread popular demonstrations for elections (the original U.S. plan being to bring in a largely appointed "constituent assembly"), how the U.S. failed to support the democratically elected Lebanese government this past summer when their country was under assault from "the only democracy in the Middle East", and how the U.S. and other countries are punishing the Palestinians for their democratic choice early this year.

The methods may change, but the ultimate aim remains the same- control.

In this light, one can appreciate the true irony of statements like "The charge that promoting democracy is imperialism by another name is baffling to many Americans. How can it be imperialist to help people throw off the shackles of tyranny?"

Ignatieff claims that Eastern Europeans supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq because they remember how "when the chips were down, in the dying years of Soviet tyranny, American presidents were there, and Western European politicians looked the other way."

True, Eastern European governments supported the invasion, for some very practical reasons (which Ignatieff does mention in passing). This is not the same as saying that people in those countries supported it. In fact, polls taken in those countries suggested that there was little popular support for the invasion of Iraq. I guess those East Europeans need to learn a thing or two about gratitude, eh?

Ignatieff takes the claims of "American idealism" just a little too seriously. For instance, he says that John Kerry's presidential campaign "could not overcome liberal America's fatal incapacity to connect to the common faith of the American electorate in the Jeffersonian ideal….the American electorate seemed to know only too well how high the price was in Iraq, and it still chose the gambler over the realist. In 2004, the Jefferson dream won decisively over American prudence"

No, what won the 2004 election for Bush was fear, and his proffered antidote to fear, "security"- including measures that run counter to the "Jeffersonian ideal". Even "exporting freedom and democracy" was supposed to be good for security. Most Americans, I suspect, are not interested in sending troops to die in some foreign country just so that foreigners can vote for their rulers. The same goes for Canadians. Bush also claimed that "taking the fight to them" (Who? The Arabs? The Muslims?), prevented "them" from taking the fight to "us". Better Baghdad than Washington D.C., in other words. Although many Americans weren’t totally convinced that Bush was on the right track, there seemed to be a risk in changing horses in midstream, as well as a risk that Kerry would just be "weak" on security, since his ideas on the subject seemed to shift just a little too often.

But Ignatieff, that super-intellectual, prefers the level of high-flown ideas and ideals to dealing with the nitty-gritty of political reality. He even seems to believe that ideas, if we believe in them, can themselves make a war worthwhile. Apparently, we can therefore ignore the reality of the power politics behind the war. In reality, no war is ever simply about ideals. Even the Second World War, commonly cited as a "good" war, was not an "idealistic" war. It was fought against a real threat to security (German expansionism motivated by Nazi ideology) and was fought alongside the brutal Soviet Union, which ended up occupying Eastern Europe and subjecting it to its form of tyranny.

By the end of the article we see Ignatieff appealing to an almost religious mysticism, looking to "Jefferson’s dream" that must "somehow do its work": "Its ultimate task in American life is to redeem loss, to rescue sacrifice from oblivion and futility and to give it shining purpose. The real truth about Iraq is that we just don't know -- yet -- whether the dream will do its work this time."

Dreams don’t work. People do. Plans can work, or not- but to plan effectively one must deal with reality. Dreams motivate people, of course, but we cannot rely on them to do anything for us. Yet a mystical belief in the power of noble dreams to somehow make horrible, sordid realities shine with purpose is in the end all that "idealistic" supporters of the war have left to hang on to.