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Understanding the Global Crisis: Reclaiming Rand’S Radical Legacy

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Understanding the Global Crisis: Reclaiming Rand’S Radical Legacy 17477 Issue 56 b 17/4/03 9:41 AM Page 16 OBJECTIVISM AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY CHRIS MATTHEW SCIABARRA Understanding the Global Crisis: Reclaiming Rand’s Radical Legacy “The tree of liberty,” Thomas Jefferson wrote, “must be idea that it is possible to construct a political solution in a culture that does not value refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and procedural democracy, free institutions, or tyrants.” And so, when I saw those startling images of a the notion of individual responsibility is a delusion. Witness contemporary Russia, liberated Iraq—those first photos of fellow New Yorker, Major where the death of communism has given birth to a society of warring post-Soviet David “Bull” Guerfin of the U.S. Marines, ripping down the mafiosi, leading some to yearn for the good poster of Saddam Hussein in Safwan or that riveting footage of ol’ days of Stalin. Clearly, “regime change” is not enough. But even if procedural fellow Brooklynite, Marine Cpl. Edward Chin, helping jubilant democracy were to come to Iraq, it may be Iraqis in Baghdad’s Firdos Square to topple Hussein’s 20-foot no less despotic than the brutal dictatorship it usurps, for majority rule without statue—it seemed to me that Jefferson’s remark was as true as protection of individual rights is no check on the political growth of Islamic ever. fundamentalism. The lunacy of nation-building and of imposed political settlements—which have The blood of that tyrannical regime—and Al Qaeda, my overwhelming concern was— been tried over and over again in the Middle the blood of patriotic American soldiers— and remains—the aftermath of the East with no long-term success—does not had been shed, becoming what Jefferson incursion. mean that there is no hope for the Arab had once called the “natural manure” world. Former Reagan administration necessary for the full flowering of human I have strongly supported the attempt to advisor Michael Ledeen (The Intellectual freedom. Liberty and eternal vigilance bring to justice the fugitives of 9/11—the Activist [TIA], January 2003) speaks of a rising revolt against theocracy in Iran, for 16 against despotism go hand-in-hand, after murderous Al Qaeda—or “to bring justice all. to them,” as President Bush has said. I think example, among a younger generation that this is an unconventional war requiring is fed up with their oppressive government. But powerfully symbolic images such as unconventional warfare, including ongoing They eat American foods, wear American these have a surface appeal that obscures a disruption of terrorist finance, weapons, jeans, and watch American TV shows. I much more complex reality. Too much and communications networks. But I don’t see how a U.S. occupation in any part Objectivist commentary on that reality has remain wary of any long-term U.S. of the region will nourish this kind of revolt. become a mere apologia for expansion into the region. And I believe If anything, the United States may be neoconservative folly. At risk is the that a projected U.S. occupation of Iraq to perceived as a new colonial administrator. abandonment of Ayn Rand’s radical legacy. bring about “democratic” regime change Such a perception may only give impetus to would not be comparable to the German the theocrats who may seek to preserve The Current Crisis and Japanese models of the post-World their rule by deflecting the dissatisfaction in War II era. their midst toward the “infidel occupiers.” I Over the last few months, I have aired my can think of no better ad campaign for the views about the war in Iraq throughout Iraq is a makeshift by-product of British recruitment of future Islamic terrorists. cyberspace (see the various links posted to colonialism, constructed at Versailles in my “Not a Blog” at 1920 out of three former Ottoman Even though I support relentless surgical <http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sciabarra/up provinces; its notorious internal political strikes against terrorists posing an imminent date.htm>). To be clear, there has never divisions are mirrored by tribal warfare threat to the United States, I have argued been a time where I doubted the immorality among Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, and others. that America’s only practical long-term of a regime that fed its dissident citizens By contrast, both Germany and Japan course of action is strategic disengagement feet-first into wood chippers and industrial possessed relatively homogeneous cultures from the region. In the long-run, I stand plastic shredders. I never doubted the and the rudiments of a democratic past, with those American Founding Fathers who rightness of striking back against those who while retaining no allies after the war. And advocated free trade with all, entangling initiate force or striking preemptively or in the case of Japan, the U.S. had the full political alliances with none. If that advice unilaterally against imminent threats to cooperation of Emperor Hirohito, who was good for a simpler world, it is even American security—whatever the objections stepped down from his position as national more appropriate for a world of immense voiced by members of that morally deity, to become the figurative head of a complexity, in which no one power can bankrupt organization known as the United constitutional monarchy. control for all the myriad unintended Nations. While I questioned the wisdom consequences of human action. The central and timing of the Iraq war, the imminence For those of us bred on Ayn Rand’s insight planners of socialism learned this lesson of the Hussein threat, and the alleged links that politics is only a consequence of a some time ago; the central planners of a between Hussein’s secularist Pan-Arabist larger philosophical and cultural cause— projected U.S. colonialism have yet to learn Ba’ath Party and Bin Laden’s fundamentalist that culture, in effect, trumps politics—the it. May - June 2003 - The Free Radical 17477 Issue 56 22/4/03 10:24 M Page 17 A Deeper Cause failure to uphold its principles,” Berman another” (“The Roots of War”). explains. “His quarrel was with the “Armies are in motion,” observes Paul principles. He opposed the United States For Rand, capitalism had never existed in its Berman, “but are the philosophers and because it was a liberal society” (emphasis purest form. Still, semi-capitalism was religious leaders, the liberal thinkers, added). The most “dangerous element” of powerful enough to demolish the remnants likewise in motion? There is something to that society was, in Qutb’s view, the of feudalism, mercantilism, and absolute worry about here,” Berman continues, “an “separation of church and state.” His monarchy throughout the world. But with aspect of the war that version of liberation the rise of the collectivist, paternalist liberal society seems to have entailed an adherence to ideology and nationalistic imperialism of trouble understanding— strict Islamic law “progressive reformers” such as Theodore one more worry, on top of (“Shariah”) in defense of Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin all the others, and possibly “freedom of conscience.” Delano Roosevelt, relatively free markets the greatest worry of all” But such liberation “meant gave way to government regulation and (“The Philosopher of Islamic freedom from false privilege. The twentieth-century history of Terror,” NY Times doctrines that failed to U.S. foreign policy, according to Rand, was Magazine, 23 March 2003). recognize God, freedom a history of “suicidal” failure and hypocrisy from the modern (“‘Extremism,’ Or the Art of Smearing”). That worry is deeply schizophrenia.” It is no Failure—because the U.S. had abdicated philosophical—and one great leap to realize the the moral high ground, destroying that cannot be ignored. dictatorial implications of economic and civil liberties from within, and There is a profound this utopian vision, whose losing any rational sense of the country’s antipathy between Islamic enforcement would echo moral significance. Hypocrisy—because the fundamentalism and the totalitarian projects of U.S. often fought evil with evil. Rand Western values, an fascism, Nazism, and maintained that Wilson had led the charge antipathy that lies at the communism. “to make the world safe for democracy,” root of their mutual cultural but World War I gave birth to fascism, alienation. But it took centuries to Berman wonders who, in the West, will Nazism, and communism. FDR had led the secularize the Western mind, and it is liable defend liberal ideas against its enemies. charge for the “Four Freedoms,” but he to take generations to accomplish a Those who admire Ayn Rand know the only empowered the Soviets in the process modicum of cultural change among Islamic answer. Rand fought against the mystics of (“The Roots of War”). nations. Berman provides one indication of muscle and the mystics of spirit; she fought the obstacles that lie ahead. He focuses on for a passionate integrated view of human Rand had long believed that the Soviet the philosophical forefather of Al Qaeda: existence that triumphed over the false Union was a primitive country, doomed to 17 Sayyid Qutb, who violently opposed the alternatives of mind and body, reason and economic stagnation and systemic collapse. secular, socialist Pan-Arabist regime of the emotion, morality and prudence, theory She had once excoriated Ronald Reagan for Egyptian dictator, Gamal Abdel Nasser. As and practice. She fought for reason, but invoking “fear” of the Soviets, for a member of the fundamentalist Muslim not against spirituality, for productive “exaggerat[ing] the power of the most Brotherhood, Qutb was executed in 1966. purpose, but not against creativity, for self- incompetent nation in the world,” which But his poisonous legacy lives on.
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