http://www.newsweek.com/2011/02/27/un-american-revolutions.html

Pretty Boy Reactionary (PBR) sounds a solemn warning to Americans to give up their self-destructive romantic attachment to Revolution and Revolutionaries as nihilistic, even puerile: for Revolutionary fervor can lead to disastrous consequences: internecine war and the mass murder of partisans. Are we immune to the suffering of others no matter the cause? Is Emmanuel Levinas correct in founding an ethics on our recognition of human suffering as a reason for our action toward melioration?

The ‘Arab hordes’ are seemingly leaderless, now, but waiting just outside our view of the proscenium of History are the next Robespierre, Stalin or Mao! As the world’s moral and political arbiter can we allow this drift into mass murder?  Is this historical/political stance credible and at the same moment deeply troubling? Yes! But can we see quite clearly that as a Conservative Thinker PBR uses this political opportunity to criticize President Obama for a lack of prescience, a maladroit response to events, as they unfolded.  Although it could be argued that the uncertainties that the concatenations of the workings of History might led to the creation of imponderables, unknowns. Political generosity is not one of the characteristics that PBR ever expresses and the mention of the surmised or stated strategies of John McCain makes the political nature of PBR’s column absolutely unmistakable, although it was never in doubt. The large rhetorical frame of the lessons of a blood soaked History is in this case merely a garnish to the real business of politicking. Where to look for some kind of answer? The sage Andrew J. Bacevich in the same February 27, 2011 issue of Newsweek (The U.S. Must Resist the Urge to Meddle in the Mideast) offers an alternative view of necessary policy toward the  ‘Arab Spring’  and the challenges to American Interests that that indigenous, self propelled , imponderable Historical event offers to the thinkers , strategists and even partisan thinkers like PBR. Here is the second paragraph of Mr. Bacevich’s essay as illustrative of his thinking; one should pay particular attention to the very pointed criticism of British Colonialism:

‘But history, too, argues for restraint. Consider what several decades of outside meddling in the Islamic world has accomplished. Out of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire after World War I came a new map of the vast region, designed not to promote the well-being of its inhabitants, but to satisfy European (chiefly British) interests. The Allies drew boundaries, created nation-states, and installed monarchs to ensure Western access to oil and control of the Suez Canal.’

Does PBR provide any real answers to the vital questions of this historical moment? He offers more Conservative Scholarship as indicative of what is misleading in his political/historical analysis that is fully linked to the notion of a beneficent neo-colonialism, as fulfilling the paternalism at the root of his radical political nostalgia.

Here is the link to Mr. Bacevich’s commentary:

http://www.newsweek.com/2011/02/27/strategy-sit-on-your-hands.html