ISOLATIONISM REDUX History and the Current Crisis

A White Paper by Executive Summary: Ronald Radosh In this paper, leading American historian Ronald Radosh describes how the antiwar protests that emerged during the Iraq intervention revived the slogans and clichés of the isolationist movement in America before the Second World War. In both cases, opponents of military action concentrated on allegations that war was motivated by illegitimate economic interests, that America was abusing its power, that imperialism was becoming the focus of American policy, that militarism and repression were increasing, and that America risked making new enemies in the world. Although claims that Iraq was a quagmire also echo the protest idiom of the Vietnam era, such charges had also, originally, been voiced at the end of the 1930s. Professor Radosh’s arguments links these to a dangerous, anti-democratic alliance of ultra-leftists and neo-fascists.

“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily May 2003 conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.”

– Thomas Paine, The Crisis, 1776 The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies The Foundation for the It had to happen. The naysayers opposed The U.S. is merely new imperialism, acting Defense of Democracies to the campaign for liberation of Iraq, and to advance its interests throughout the world. the doomsday scenario they laid out, struck Fourth: War means militarism and those of us with knowledge of history with repression at home. This is alleged to include an eerie sense of déjà vu. The isolationism erosion of civil liberties guaranteed by the that was employed to undermine American Bill of Rights, and the transformation of the will and self-confidence in fighting the United States into a repressive authoritarian fascist and militarist aggressors in World regime similar in nature to that of our War II has been revived, this time targeted proclaimed enemy’s regime. against our President and our commitment Fifth: The U.S. is the Enemy. Anti- to the liberation of Iraq. war activists claim the present Bush Let us examine, in this historical context, administration, not Iraq or any other foreign the isolationist arguments, power harms the interests of the American which we hear repeated time people, as well as that of all peoples around and time again in op-eds, press the world. As the International ANSWER The isolationism that conferences, and protest group that runs the peace marches, was employed to statements. proclaimed: “the real threat of nuclear war There is a common set of and the use of Weapons of Mass Destruction undermine American arguments, echoed over and over. arises within the U.S. administration.” The will and self-confidence First and foremost: “No administration’s goal is described as a simple in fighting the fascist Blood for Oil.” The implication one, to “conquer the oil, land and resources and militarist is that the United States acts at of the Middle East.” The result will be a the behest of its largest “catastrophe,” a “war of aggression” in which aggressors in World War corporations, in this case, the social programs will end, as government II has been revived, this ever-greedy oil lobby. We were funds are exclusively used in the attempt to time targeted against told that access to Iraqi oil fields “take control of and profit from the oil of our President and our alone motivated U.S. policy. the Persian/Arabian Gulf.” Our critics said American boys Sixth: America approached a new commitment to the were going to be sacrificed for Quagmire. The enemies of liberation in liberation of Iraq. wealthy business interests. Iraq, speaking from U.S. soil, warned that Second: Our Enemies are rather than victory, the U.S. would once Victims. The opponents of again be blindly sucked into a useless and intervention said that people unwinnable war turning the rest of the whose identity, livelihood and well-being world against our nation. The U.S., as Pat have been harmed by precipitous American Buchanan so plainly put it, is acting in a action, including no-fly zones and an “triumphalist” fashion leading to “an imperial embargo on trade, will now face suffering war on Iraq.” And, of course, Buchanan in the hundreds of thousands, including argued that the U.S. is fundamentally scores of civilian deaths as a result of both manipulated by the Israeli government, the strategic bombing of Iraq and armed which hopes that war with Iraq will give invasion. They declared that nothing that Israel an excuse to return to Lebanon and Saddam Hussein has done compares to the “settle scores with Hizbollah.” The Jews, evil that will be inflicted on the people of now as in the past, are projected as the the Middle East as a result of U.S. military driving force pushing the U.S. to accept their action. agenda and endanger the peace of the world. Third: The Hegemonic U.S. Empire These themes are all reminiscent of Expands. Our opponents claim a drift to those offered in the years before the outbreak war is a result of the mechanism of the of World War II, when home-grown American Empire – acting to thwart the isolationists in protest movements and efforts of competing powers to dominate the pressure groups, backed by a hardy group trade and investment patterns of the world. of supporters in Congress, argued that a 2 sound American policy was one that put their “media cheerleaders” William Kristol, The Foundation for the “America First.” This gave the name to the Charles Krauthammer and Martin Peretz Defense of Democracies most wide ranging and representative have become the “primary intellectual American isolationist group. Indeed, Pat architects” of war against Saddam Hussein. Buchanan’s demagogy about Israeli On both Left and Right, therefore, we influence calls to mind Charles Lindbergh’s see a new conspiracy theory emerging—one 1941 accusation that the drive to enter the that shows the mindset of classical anti- war against Hitler emanated from “the British, Semitism; ie, as Lieber puts it, “a small, all- the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration.” powerful but little known group or ‘cabal’ of Jewish interventionists (neo-conservatives, Jewish masterminds is secretly manipulating Buchanan now says) were powerful, according policy.” Under their influence, the nation has to Lindbergh, because of their “large supposedly shifted away from a policy based ownership and influence in our motion on protecting the people’s interests to one pictures, our press, our radio, and our that is subversive of that government.” interest—and that benefits In a fashion strikingly similar to primarily the right-wing Zionist Today, Old Right Buchanan, the former conservative, now leadership of the Likud in Israel. descendants and left-wing writer Michael Lind, has come out A striking parallel between with his own virtually anti-Semitic conspiracy today and the 1930’s is the imitators gather around theory seeking to explain what lay behind blending together of opposition Pat Buchanan and his the war against Saddam Hussein. He sees to a forceful American foreign journal, The American policy being made by “neoconservative defense policy by remnants of both the Conservative, which intellectuals” who are “products of the Old and New Left and the Old influential Jewish-American sector of the Right. Early in the Cold War, joins the Left in the fight Trotskyist movement…which morphed Harry S. Truman advisor Joseph against so-called U.S. into a kind of militaristic and imperial P. J ones wrote that “most of the “global hegemony.” right.” According to Lind, they support outright opposition” to Truman’s “preventive warfare,” which he argues is new bi-partisan interventionist based on “Trotsky’s theory of the permanent foreign policy came from “the revolution mingled with the far-right Likud extreme Left and the extreme Right…from strain of Zioninsm.” They are the center, a certain group of ‘liberals’ who had been long he argues, of a “metaphorical ‘pentagon’ of strongly critical of the administration’s the Israel lobby and the religious right, stiffening policy toward the Soviet Union, plus conservative think tanks, foundations and from the ‘isolationists,’ who had been and media empires.” It is a virtual new consistent opponents of all foreign-policy neoconservative conspiracy theory, which as measures that projected the United States political scientist Robert J. Lieber writes, is actively into World Affairs.” a “sinister mythology…worthy of the Iraqi Some fifty years later, opposition to a Information Minister, Muhammed Saeed forceful U.S. response to new international Al-Sahaf, who became notorious for telling threats, comes from the same pair of elements. Western journalists not to believe their own Once again, Left and Right stand on common eyes as American tanks rolled into view just ground, active in what some have called “the across the Tigris River.” Red-Brown coalition”—after the creation in In an analysis similar to that made by post-Soviet Russia of an alliance of extreme Lind, the left-wing journalist Eric Alterman, nationalists with old Communists. Today, writing in The Nation, has stressed that “the Old Right descendants and imitators gather war has put Jews in the showcase as never around Pat Buchanan and his journal, The before;” and like Lind, he asserts that a cabal American Conservative, which joins the Left of Jews, including Paul Wolfowitz, Richard in the fight against so-called U.S. “global Perle and Douglas Feith make up the “neo- hegemony.” Their anti-Americanism has conservative” triumvirate who along with become so visceral and extreme that one of 3 The Foundation for the the journal’s contributors, Dennis “Justin” pre-World War II arguments of the Defense of Democracies Raimondo, actually wrote, in the Russian opponents of interventionism, to those newspaper Pravda, that the claim that made today by opponents of any military “America is a civilized country” is false, and, action against Iraq. Let us take up the referring to World War II, he argued “the argument that waging war means the onset wrong side won the war in the Pacific.” And of fascist repression at home. Lindbergh’s like the conspiratorial anti-Semitic Arab statements appear eerily similar to many newspapers, Raimondo also writes that made today. We are frequently warned that “Israel had foreknowledge of 9/11,” a claim if we go to war against Saddam Hussein, that puts him in league with the most we will be saddled with an endless extremist anti-Semites in the Arab world. commitment to Iraq, in effect a permanent Let us look more closely at the claims occupation. Speaking in 1939, Lindbergh outlined herein as they appeared in the years argued “if we enter in the quarrels of Europe before U.S. entry into the during war, we must stay in them in time Second World War, when of peace as well.” Substitute Middle East isolationist sentiment was for Europe, and the concept is the same. Even Pearl Harbor, to the overwhelming, and the He went on: “If we enter the fighting for isolationists, was advocates of a forceful U.S. democracy abroad we may end by losing it America’s fault. And as response to fascist and militarist at home;” or, as many argue today, the result aggression were fighting a at home of war with Iraq will be increased today, the isolationists rearguard battle. Just as the militarization, repression and an end to all argued that the U.S. was opposition to war with Iraq individual liberty. approaching war called for lifting the sanctions There was, of course, a desire for oil. because of the dire imposed against Saddam Contrary to the protester’s current chant, Hussein – sanctions he “No War for Oil,” the oil industry wanted influence of big successfully mitigated by to continue with its purchases of Iraqi oil, business. business deals with nations like and favored an end to sanctions which Russia and France – pre-World harms the flow. And just as nations like War II isolationists argued that France and Russia desired to maintain their sanctions against Japan did not cozy business relations with Saddam have the effect of forcing a cessation of Hussein’s Iraq—including access to its oil— Japanese aggression, but rather – as the in the period before World War II Japan historian Charles Beard wrote at the time – was set to strike against Dutch and British the “application of sanctions to Japan… possessions in East Asia, because of its desire would end in war” and represented a move for Indonesian oil. Indeed, the Roosevelt by the President to seek “war in the Pacific.” administration let Japan occupy Indo-China. Isolationists then opposed sanctions as a step But it drew the line at a takeover of the in the road to war, used unnecessarily by an Dutch East Indies and Malaya—much as administration hell bent on military action. George W. Bush has drawn the line with When Japan finally attacked the United his insistence that Saddam Hussein must States at Pearl Harbor, Beard and others saw seriously disarm. that attack as an act to which Japan had been Then, as now, there were polls. In driven by an intransigent American policy. Europe a large majority of the public Even Pearl Harbor, to the isolationists, was recently favored peace over resistance to America’s fault. And as today, the tyranny—just as they did before the Second isolationists argued that the U.S. was World War, when the young and the approaching war because of the dire brightest signed the Oxford Union Pledge influence of big business. There was, in other that they would not fight “for King and words, no legitimate interest in protecting country.” In late 1940, the U.S. faced a our nation’s national security. similar situation. Gallup polls showed that There are so many similarities, in the while 60 percent of the American public 4 favored aid to Britain, less than 13 percent who favor “intervention in Europe.” On the The Foundation for the were willing to see the U.S. go to war with other hand, it was “the common people, the Defense of Democracies Nazi Germany, even if it meant that Britain farmer, the workman…the small business would lose. FDR acted against the tide, daring man—who are opposed to war.” Then, it to show true leadership by advancing policies was the “big business interests of the East” that would deal with the actual threat, while who feared “destruction of our foreign trade” skillfully avoiding the wrath of the isolationist who sought war; now, in the 21st Century, lobby and Congress. Today, George W. Bush the same arguments are being made, and we showed his ability for comparable leadership, hear again and again how the business interests by moving ahead to do what was necessary, desire war, while the common people— taking the nation with him, and ignoring the millions through Europe demonstrating in protestors, the disgruntled opposition anti-war the streets—want peace. Democrats, and the fierce opposition of the Today, we hear the argument that the French and German governments. American cannot and should One difference between then and now, not be global policemen, however, was that a large portion of the intervening the long and bloody intellectual community then formed European wars. It is also a One difference between committees in favor of intervention against familiar argument. Speaking in then and now, however, the Nazi menace. These groups countered 1939, historian Charles A. was that a large portion large and influential anti-war lobbies Beard told Congress that “the of the intellectual exemplified by the American First Committee. Orient from Siberia to And just as today, opponents of war smeared Singapore is not worth the community then formed the President, arguing, as Senator Burton K. bones of one American soldier,” committees in favor of Wheeler of Montana did, that the President and that Americans were not intervention against the sought to “plow under every fourth American “smart enough to solve the boy,” since his aim was to get the U.S. into problems of Europe which are Nazi menace. war, and not to keep it out. To the encrusted in the blood rust of isolationists, Franklin D. Roosevelt was not fifty centuries of warfare.” a democratically elected President, but a Although Beard acknowledged virtual dictator, who if the U.S. went to war, that a threat existed from Germany and as Senator Robert A. Taft put it, would Italy—much as those opposed to war with become “a complete dictator over the lives Iraq argued that Saddam Hussein is a threat and property of our citizens.” Like the left but could be dealt with by avoiding war— today, Taft claimed that the President was Beard argued that the rest of Europe presiding over a state that allegedly had outnumbered the fascist states by three to become fascist, and in which the President one, and were superior in both armed forces showed “a complete lack of regard for the and material. Moreover, like those who rights of Congress,” and in which he was today condemn the United States as no making policy “in violation of the people’s better than many dictatorships—essentially will.” Today, George W. Bush is accused by regarding the U.S.A. as evil itself and our his opponents on the far Right and far Left of President as the equivalent of Saddam being an unelected President, a virtual dictator Hussein—Beard claimed that the Western who seeks wars to validate his Presidency. nations opposed to Hitler were quarreling And in the 30’s, as today, the “over the spoils of empire.” It is a refrain proponents of intervention are labeled the echoed today in the claim of the antiwar forces of big business and oil, those who seek protesters that America’s reason for wanting profits above all. Taft argued in 1941, “the to disarm Saddam stems from its own most conservative members of the imperial goals—particularly oil for American [Republican] party – the Wall Street firms. As for freeing those who live under bankers…the plutocratic newspapers, and the rule of a monstrous tyrant, the argument most of the party’s financial contributors,” today is that such action is not America’s 5 The Foundation for the business—much as Beard argued that it was debates and read in the French press” in the Defense of Democracies not the job of the U.S. to suppress all 1930’s. Even after Hitler began his invasion opponents of democracy and peace. of Europe, the British and French peace We are now at a stage in which many advocates called only for “negotiation.” They wish to emulate the discredited policy of were so successful, Cooke quips, that the appeasement—as defined by the British French ended with “their whole country during the Chamberlain era—and in which defeated and occupied.” As for the British, opponents of war against tyranny argue that each advance by Hitler’s armies produced only the old isolationist arguments were a new call for disarmament and for leaving essentially correct. Then and now, their any response to the League of Nations. claim was simple; the U.S. We all know what happened. The should seek peace by only League was incapable of responding to narrowly defending itself violations of its own rule of law, and sat idly As Cooke points out, against direct attacks; it could by as Japan invaded China and Italy, massacred when Churchill warned and should not allow any the Ethiopians and as the mechanized brutes that Hitler had built a President to use his power to summoned up by Hitler marched through maneuver the nation into war; Europe. The League did nothing to protect giant army and superior nor should it seek to try and the fragile Spanish Republic, as its civilian air force, the peace spread democracy elsewhere in men and women bared their breasts to the movement retorted— the world, no matter how bombs of the Nazi Luftwaffe. The fate of “But he’s not used tyrannical a government that has the League was sealed, and its irrelevancy challenged the U.S. may be. led to its final collapse. When the Bush them.” The British Left Just as Neville Chamberlain administration and Tony Blair in Britain, and the American called the Munich treaty the supported by the gallant Spanish and isolationist Right stood essence of “peace in our time,” Portuguese, sought to move the United together against a sentiment shared by all the Nations against Saddam Hussein, and thus would-be “progressive” and to hold him to account for the requirements intervention. “right-thinking” people in the UN itself mandated – instead, its members Europe, who saw handing over and the European public argued that must to Hitler the territory he sought be avoided above all, and that the Iraqi as a strategy that would satisfy the dictator dictator should be given more time. Each and guarantee the pace—today’s leftwing obfuscation and avoidance of compliance and rightwing isolationists—the Red- led the antiwar opponents not to support Brown coalition—argue that the Bush tough measures that might affect Saddam administration with its bellicose behavior Hussein, but to counsel avoidance of war ignores popular sentiment. The British above all else. As Cooke points out, when journalist Alistair Cooke, a young man at Churchill warned that Hitler had built a the time of Munich, recently recalled that giant army and superior air force, the peace almost 11 million British subjects had movement retorted—“But he’s not used signed a “peace ballot” expressing their them.” The British Left and the American opposition to war and confrontation with isolationist Right stood together against Hitler. Their noble slogan was “Against War intervention. and Fascism;” almost eerily similar to the cry And so, as Cooke says, “the voices of the of today’s left-wing opponents of war. When 30s are echoing through 2003.” This was they use the term Fascism, they are referring made most clear in the speech presented to to the U.S. Government—and they remain the U.S. Senate given in late February by silent about the monstrous regime and Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia. The practices of Saddam Hussein. No wonder new antiwar movement was so impressed with Alistair Cooke says today “so many of the Byrd’s presentation that they e-mailed it to their arguments mounted…today…are exactly supporters throughout the country. Evidently what we heard in the House of Commons they find it the most eloquent statement of 6 their current beliefs and arguments. Yet it is administration’s victory was achieved by The Foundation for the strikingly similar to a speech given by Robert A. only one vote. Defense of Democracies Taft in May 1940—a speech correctly disdained In the 1930s, isolationists sought to at the time as the epitome of isolationism. protect the U.S. by naively believing that The essential problem is that the new America could stand aside as totalitarianism isolationists not only emulate and imitate swept the globe, and make pragmatic alliances their 1930’s predecessors, but in some cases, with evil dictators that would keep our acknowledge this and are proud of those homeland out of the war. In Britain the result who preached appeasement in that earlier was the Munich Pact; in America it was era. Thus Pat Buchanan, in a forum held congressional obstruction of measures sought on Frontpagemag.com, argued that “there by the President to aid our was nothing immoral, or unwise, about the British ally. isolationists’ position of 1940-41.” Calling Now, at the beginning of the the effort made by the discredited America 21st Century, a new form of Now, at the beginning of First Committee as helping the U.S. “stay totalitarianism—Islamist the 21st Century, a new out of the war” until late after it had started, extremism—threatens the form of totalitarianism— which Buchanan calls “courageous.” Thus security and well-being of our those whose actions would have prevented people. The danger is that our Islamist extremism— the U.S. from readying itself for a necessary nation will be unable to meet threatens the security fight against that generation’s evil, are today the challenge facing it, if the and well-being of our praised by the new isolationists, who seek protestations of the new people. The danger is as they did in the 30’s, to build an antiwar isolationists are heeded. movement uniting the left-wing and When the remnants of the Old that our nation will be conservative opponents of military action. Right and the ever diminishing unable to meet the Of course, the left-wing opponents of political Left unite against challenge facing it, if the intervention have their own agenda. When American “global hegemony” Bill Clinton was President, and acted and American “imperialism,” protestations of the new unilaterally against Saddam Hussein— even their language is the same. isolationists are heeded. however weakly and ineffectively—many Secretary of State Colin Powell’s on the political Left either supported logical and devastating account Clinton’s brief attempts to deflect of Saddam’s evasions and terrorism—such as threatening Iraq and acquisition of banned arms—so similar to bombing a purported chemical factory in the secret re-armament forbidden by the Sudan—or remained silent. Approve or Versailles Treaty and carried out by Hitler disapprove, they favored the Democratic with the West’s acquiescence—put an end President, and said not a word. In the to any chance that the American government 1930s, one saw formation of a united front would pursue the policy advocated in the of pro-Soviet groups with “progressive” 1930s by Neville Chamberlain. After Pearl isolationists like Senator William Borah of Harbor, the anti-interventionist movement Idaho. Indeed, the draft—introduced in collapsed overnight. Will our military action Congress as the Selective Service Act of against Iraq lead today’s “peace movement” 1940—almost did not pass. The Roosevelt leaders to cease nattering and scurry off into the darkness? Not any time soon.

7 ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ronald Radosh, Prof. Emeritus of History at the City University of New York, is an adjunct fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy. He is the co-author of The Rosenberg File and The Amerasia Spy Case: Prelude to McCarthyism, as well as Divided They Fell: The Demise of the Democratic Party, 1964-1996, and Prophets On the Right: Profiles of Conservative Critics of American Globalism. He is a frequent contributor to The New Republic, National Review and the New York Sun among others.

If you would like to learn more about The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies please visit www.defenddemocracy.org

Papers published by The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies are meant to encourage informed debate. The views expressed in these publications are not necessarily those of the FDD and all its supporters.

THE FOUNDATION FOR THE DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES

1046 19th Street, NW • Suite 300 • Washington, DC 20036 www.defenddemocracy.org (202) 207-0190