John B. Judis : The Madness of George W. Bush
In First Meditation René Descartes asks himself how he would know that "the sky, the air, the earth, colors, figures, sounds, and all external things, are nothing better than the illusions of dreams." How can we really know, Descartes asks, whether what we see is real or a hallucination? Descartes finally evokes God to connect himself to the outside world, but subsequent philosophers, including George Berkeley and David Hume, doubted whether the connection could be made with any certainty. In so far as it was always conceivable that what we saw was illusion, we could not know.
Berkeley's and Hume's skepticism followed, in fact, from their adopting the disengaged posture of the philosopher--in which language ceases to be an instrument of human interaction and instead, in Ludwig Wittgenstein's words, "goes on a holiday." Terms like knowing and certainty become subject to standards that don't prevail in everyday life, from which they originated. It is as if when one got into the car in the morning, one invariably questioned whether the car was a chimera. If that kind of questioning became the norm, life as we know it would come to a screeching halt.
There is an analogous situation in foreign policy. In devising a policy toward friend and foe, one can always ask whether a friend is really a foe in disguise and whether a foe doesn't merely wish us ill, but is preparing to annihilate us. These questions can usually be answered through journalism and through inquiries by ambassadors and intelligence agencies. But what if one insists on absolute, ironclad proof? Isn't it conceivable, for instance, that Vladimir Putin secretly desires the downfall of the United States and that under extremely strained circumstances--perhaps a previously undetected brain tumor--he might resort to weapons of mass destruction to effect it? It's not likely, but it is conceivable. And if it is conceivable, shouldn't we do something about it before it's too late?
Governments don't ordinarily reason in this manner--and it's a good thing they don't, because if they did, diplomacy would break down, and wars would spread. But sometimes they do--and wars do spread. Since September 11, the Bush administration, backed by Democrats as well as Republicans, has conducted foreign policy in this bizarre manner--and the results have been predictably disastrous. It has taken two forms: First, what might be called the "madman theory," and second, what author Ron Suskind calls Vice President Dick Cheney's "one percent doctrine." Both are infringements of the conventions of international relations in the same way that Descartes's skepticism is an infringement of everyday epistemology....
In his new book, The One Percent Doctrine, Ron Suskind attributes to Cheney a complementary departure from prevailing norms. According to Suskind, Cheney reasoned that with the new threat of international terror, a mere suspicion that a country or group had hostile intentions toward the United States had to be treated as certainty. Suskind quotes Cheney as saying, "If there's one percent chance that Pakistani scientists are helping Al Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response." According to Suskind, Cheney would apply this reasoning to the possibility that Saddam might develop a nuclear weapon that he would hand off to terrorists to explode in the United States. Even if there was only a one-percent chance of that happening, the United States would have to make sure that it never did.
Together, the madman theory and the one-percent doctrine justified what Bush called pre-emptive war, but what was in fact preventive war. The United States did not invade Iraq because it had attacked or was planning to attack the United States, but because, under the leadership of a madman, it might conceivably do so in the future. That is an extremely thin reed on which to base a foreign policy. And if this approach were adopted by other countries--say India and Pakistan--it could lead to a succession of wars, and perhaps to the Armageddon that Bush's evangelical followers foresee.
It would be nice to say that in the wake of the Iraq war the United States has abandoned this approach, but it might not have. One hears similar arguments being made about Iran and its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In National Review, Victor Davis Hanson branded Ahmadinejad a "madman." So did New York Senator Chuck Schumer. Talk show host Chris Matthews and New York Times columnist Tom Friedman jousted over whether Ahmadinejad was "crazy" or "unstable." And when Matthews asked Senator Joseph Biden, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, whether the president should meet with Ahmadinejad, Biden replied, "No, I don't think he should meet with him, because I think the guy is a little crazy."
Read entire article at New Republic
Berkeley's and Hume's skepticism followed, in fact, from their adopting the disengaged posture of the philosopher--in which language ceases to be an instrument of human interaction and instead, in Ludwig Wittgenstein's words, "goes on a holiday." Terms like knowing and certainty become subject to standards that don't prevail in everyday life, from which they originated. It is as if when one got into the car in the morning, one invariably questioned whether the car was a chimera. If that kind of questioning became the norm, life as we know it would come to a screeching halt.
There is an analogous situation in foreign policy. In devising a policy toward friend and foe, one can always ask whether a friend is really a foe in disguise and whether a foe doesn't merely wish us ill, but is preparing to annihilate us. These questions can usually be answered through journalism and through inquiries by ambassadors and intelligence agencies. But what if one insists on absolute, ironclad proof? Isn't it conceivable, for instance, that Vladimir Putin secretly desires the downfall of the United States and that under extremely strained circumstances--perhaps a previously undetected brain tumor--he might resort to weapons of mass destruction to effect it? It's not likely, but it is conceivable. And if it is conceivable, shouldn't we do something about it before it's too late?
Governments don't ordinarily reason in this manner--and it's a good thing they don't, because if they did, diplomacy would break down, and wars would spread. But sometimes they do--and wars do spread. Since September 11, the Bush administration, backed by Democrats as well as Republicans, has conducted foreign policy in this bizarre manner--and the results have been predictably disastrous. It has taken two forms: First, what might be called the "madman theory," and second, what author Ron Suskind calls Vice President Dick Cheney's "one percent doctrine." Both are infringements of the conventions of international relations in the same way that Descartes's skepticism is an infringement of everyday epistemology....
In his new book, The One Percent Doctrine, Ron Suskind attributes to Cheney a complementary departure from prevailing norms. According to Suskind, Cheney reasoned that with the new threat of international terror, a mere suspicion that a country or group had hostile intentions toward the United States had to be treated as certainty. Suskind quotes Cheney as saying, "If there's one percent chance that Pakistani scientists are helping Al Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response." According to Suskind, Cheney would apply this reasoning to the possibility that Saddam might develop a nuclear weapon that he would hand off to terrorists to explode in the United States. Even if there was only a one-percent chance of that happening, the United States would have to make sure that it never did.
Together, the madman theory and the one-percent doctrine justified what Bush called pre-emptive war, but what was in fact preventive war. The United States did not invade Iraq because it had attacked or was planning to attack the United States, but because, under the leadership of a madman, it might conceivably do so in the future. That is an extremely thin reed on which to base a foreign policy. And if this approach were adopted by other countries--say India and Pakistan--it could lead to a succession of wars, and perhaps to the Armageddon that Bush's evangelical followers foresee.
It would be nice to say that in the wake of the Iraq war the United States has abandoned this approach, but it might not have. One hears similar arguments being made about Iran and its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In National Review, Victor Davis Hanson branded Ahmadinejad a "madman." So did New York Senator Chuck Schumer. Talk show host Chris Matthews and New York Times columnist Tom Friedman jousted over whether Ahmadinejad was "crazy" or "unstable." And when Matthews asked Senator Joseph Biden, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, whether the president should meet with Ahmadinejad, Biden replied, "No, I don't think he should meet with him, because I think the guy is a little crazy."