Foreign Policy's Third Way

For a long time in foreign policy, the major debate was between two camps: traditionalist defenders of the status quo and "order" vs. liberal defenders of human rights, decolonization and revolution. Then, the neoconservatives formed a new, third camp in US foreign policy. They went even further than the liberals. Instead of just supporting revolution based inside other nations, they would foment revolution from the outside. Iraq was the centerpiece of this strategy.

I think the Iran debate, at least in the United States, shows the extent to which the traditionalist camp and the neoconservative camp have lost their power.

Very few traditionalists are left who would actually criticize the demonstrators because of the threat to stability and order that they represent. If anyone was a potential last vestige of this camp it was Pat Buchanan. He likes a strong state and a traditional, religiously-based order. But in the current debate in Iran, even Buchanan is not fully on the side of Ahmadinejad and the powers that be in Iran. Instead, he is with the youthful, liberal "rabble-rousers." He is urging Obama to stay out of the debate, but he is not criticizing the anti-regime demonstration itself. Here he articulates his support for the protestors whom a real, old-school traditionalist would have denounced:

For six days, the world has watched riveted as hundreds of thousands of Iranians peacefully protested what they believe was a stolen election, challenging the ayatollah who validated it just hours after the polls closed. For six days, the regime, born of the Islamic Revolution of 1979, has been leaking legitimacy and credibility in the eyes of its own people, the Islamic world, the whole world.

But Buchanan also articulates nicely the argument against the neoconservative camp:

Why interfere? Why turn a widening confrontation between the Ayatollah Khamenei and the people into a spat between the president of the United States and the president of Iran?

It is impossible to believe a denunciation of the regime by Obama will cause it to stay its hand if it believes its power is imperiled. But it is certain that if Obama denounces Tehran, those demonstrators will be portrayed as dupes and agents of America before and after they meet their fate.

If standing up and denouncing the Ayatollah and Ahmadinejad from 7,000 miles away is moral heroism, it is moral heroism at other people's expense.

In the Iran debate, very few voices in the United States are simply against the demonstrators because they support the conservative, stable status quo at any cost. On the other hand, neoconservativism goes too far in the other direction. The neoconservative camp is so intoxicated by the chance for moral heroism that they cannot bear to stay on the sidelines. But that type of aggressive approach has now been discredited. The idea of a Pax Americana, fueled by unending defense spending and dozens of interventionist wars led by America has been undermined, not just by the Iraq War, but by the growing realization that change imposed from the outside is often an unsustainable mirage.

Now, it seems that there is a consensus in favor of the middle ground. We support human rights and we do not value order over freedom. But there is a recognition that for change to be sustainable and authentic, it must be personal and networked. It cannot be imposed from outside by the command and control of foreign diplomats or armies. The neocons went too far, and the traditionalists did not go far enough. The Obama foreign policy -- now embraced by the likes of Pat Buchanan -- is the default. We support forces of freedom from the outside, making sure that revolutions are associated with the grassroots efforts of those on the ground.

The neocons who are not excited by this revolution just cannot get their minds around the fact that the Iranian people themselves are smart enough and courageous enough to gain freedom on their own. They want the United States to own this revolution. We don't -- and that's a good thing. It's also the future of our foreign policy consensus.