Visions of the Impossible: Truth, Falkhood and International Relations

Professor Richard Falk's lecture Monday evening on the topic of "Force, Violence and Terrorism: Israel v. Palestine, the U.S. v. Iraq," worried me. One rarely encounters so much naïvete and muddled reasoning about international relations outside one of the Princeton Peace Network's official potluck dinners, but the eminence grise of the antiwar lobby lived up to his reputation. Falk's speech outlined the ideology and beliefs of the movement against war with Iraq, which, the media tells us, is growing daily. Judging by the audience, most of whom were activists from the local community, faculty and graduate students, it is doubtful that Falk won very many undergraduate converts. Nevertheless, the almost reverential attitude adopted by so many of the peace crowd to Falk's views, (which were introduced in hushed tones as "a very welcome alternative to parochial and imperial discourses") cries out for rebuttal. Space constraints force me to address only a few of the most prominent themes.

Falk described his international thinking as emanating from a "starting point of taking human suffering seriously," a normative approach distinct from the "detached and abstract analysis" of realist foreign policy and its emphasis on power relationships. He declared that the Middle East had become the "fulcrum of global conflict" and argued that the two most important issues facing the region were the prospect of a U.S. war with Iraq over its possible possession of weapons of mass destruction, and the longstanding Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So far, so good; but from this point on, it was all downhill. Rather than a war on terrorism, Falk sees "the United States seeking to dominate the world" in a struggle between "two essentially fundamentalist visions," Islamic fundamentalism on one side, and a global neo-liberal economy, guaranteed by American military power on the other.

The irresponsible equation of the U.S. with Al-Qaida, forces one to question whether Falk has any business advising us on normative aspects of foreign policy. Indeed, he seems unwilling to accept that terrorism is universally and completely bad, and instead takes President Bush to task for having told the United Nations General Assembly "there is no such thing as a good terrorist." In Falk's view, the rhetoric of good and evil is nothing but "an attempt to demonize" our enemies. At another point in the talk, the professor felt obliged to draw a distinction between Al-Qaida's "visionary" mega-terrorism (which he compared to allied air raids in WWII) and Hamas' "traditional self-determination violence." Clearly, terrorism is a very relative thing in Falk's eyes, and, presumably, in those of the antiwar movement.

A second theme of the antiwar movement reflected in Falk's remarks is a mystical devotion to the United Nations. There is much room for expert debate as to the extent of the threat posed by Iraq and a reasonable strategic case can be made against intervention. Falk, however, considered the matter closed when he pointed out "185 out of 191 member governments of the United Nations disagree with the interpretation of Iraq as a threat" and that hence a U.S. military action cannot be justified. I like to think of this as the "Ruritania does not approve" argument. Falk never pauses to wonder if Ruritania (which borders on Shangri-La and Erehwon) has national interests affecting its stance or what kind of regime it has. In real life, there is an immense difference between countries that are free and those that are not. By Falk's add-up-the-numbers approach, the opinion of Stalinist Ruritania is as normatively important as that of liberal Freedonia. Somehow, the idealists believe, Ruritania will behave differently in the context of the United Nations than it has for all its long history, that it will set aside national interest, and spout moral clarity. If this sounds silly, that's because it is. Indeed, the vaunted Security Council deliberately reflects, and was established to preserve, the post war balance of power. Even that most normative of U.N. bodies, the Human Rights Commission, is soon due to be chaired by Libya. Clearly, to expect an inherently legitimate solution to a security threat to emerge from the United Nations is an idealistic daydream. Those foreign governments that do not back the United States on Iraq have taken that course because they read their national interests differently, not because America is somehow normatively "wrong."

Thirdly, Falk displayed an intense aversion to U.S. military power and rued the fact that the United States is responsible for 36 percent of the world's total military expenditure. History shows that outright military dominance would deter future wars by deterring potential threats and allowing the U.S. to guarantee international stability with relative ease. However, Professor Falk declared that a "Pax Americana" would be an unfair system entailing "maximal militarization at one center and maximum demilitarization for everyone else," and in which the weak state would be "denied any right to challenge" the international order. Falk's disregard for states' internal character led him to condemn American hypocrisy in opposing Iraq's development of weapons of mass destruction while maintaining its own nuclear arsenal. It should be clear that the likely behavior of a nuclear-armed democracy and that of a nuclear-armed megalomaniac dictator are intensely different. In a larger sense, Falk's aversion to American power begs the question: if not us, then who? Falk offered no satisfactory answer. The antiwar camp should remember that the fundamental alternative to U.S. hegemony is not an international era of peace, understanding and friendship, but rather someone else's hegemony. Red China, anyone?

Ultimately, Falk's views fail to come together in a workable vision for the future, unless of course for the outside chance that he really wants to see the moral injunctions against terrorism diminished, America's security held hostage to the whims of every Ruritanian despot with a vote in the U.N., and a weakened America. Otherwise his prescription is simply to "entertain visions of the impossible," of "a way of life based upon persuasion, not upon violence." This is very pretty, to be sure, but it is neither the way the world works nor much more than a mellifluous copout. Carlos Ramos-Mrosovsky is a Wilson School major from Forest Hills, NY. He can be reached at cr@princeton.edu.