All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
And our next guest today is Robert W.
Mary.
He is a political reporter and publishing executive in Washington.
Uh, he covered Washington for the wall street journal for a dozen years and served as an executive at congressional quarterly Inc for more than two decades, including 12 years as CEO, huh?
It's written four books on American history.
And, uh, he's the publisher of the national interest, national interest dot org.
He's got a piece up there, uh, from the second we're running it on anti-war.com.
It's called unmasking the democracy promoters.
Welcome to the show, Robert.
How are you doing?
I'm doing just fine.
Thank you.
Uh, well, good.
I'm very happy to have you here.
Appreciate you joining us today and, um, you, uh, if it's okay, I'd like to actually start with the website itself and, and, uh, you know, what it stands for, I, I read, uh, articles here from time to time, I, um, admire some of the names, uh, in the right-hand margin here of, uh, your, uh, bloggers.
And I wonder, uh, you mentioned a little bit of, uh, Pat Buchanan in context of this article today.
And I was wondering, uh, how exactly you would define if you had to, maybe you don't have to, uh, the point of view of the site is this, uh, paleo conservative, um, type of an institution, or maybe just the neocons and the democracy promoters make a eye guys and how a realist look like a paleo con at this point, or, or where do you fall in that spectrum?
If you could.
Uh, well, let me say, uh, first of all, we probably don't identify ourselves with regard to the general political spectrum in terms of liberal or conservative or foreign policy journal.
And we concentrate primarily on foreign policy.
Um, although I write particularly a little bit beyond, uh, foreign policy and get into a domestic issues as well.
In terms of our foreign policy outlook, we are very strong in what we call foreign policy realism.
And by realism, we mean that we believe that our foreign policy or international relations should be based on the fundamental real world.
Um, uh, realities that exist out there.
And given that we're a little bit negative about either the sort of crusading, sometimes almost Imperial viewpoint of the neoconservatives.
And also that kind of do good.
Let's, uh, fix the world outlook of the Wilsonians who seem to have a pretty large grip on the democratic party.
So the two parties are, are moving in directions that we don't really believe in.
We believe that America has to be in the world.
We're a great power.
We're the most powerful nation in the world.
Um, and yet we don't believe that we should be out there trying to change the world or to necessarily enhance our standing, but rather to maintain stability where necessary and to protect our own national interests.
Now it's always kind of seemed to me and I'm way on the outside here.
Uh, but it's always sort of seemed to me that the different sort of classifications, not just necessarily liberal conservative, that kind of thing, but when it comes to foreign policy, like the liberal internationalists, the realists, the neocons, the Wilsonians, and these more kind of specific groupings, uh, maybe even, uh, like the right wing nationalists, if you think of like Cheney and Rumsfeld, who are friends with the neocons, but not actually neocons, that kind of thing that, that all of these different groups seem to represent actually like more power factions where the liberal internationalists is the bankers and the right wing nationalists is the arms industrialists and the realists is the oil men and the neocons, they're the Likud party.
Is that, I mean, obviously I'm oversimplifying, but is that seem fair at all to you?
Well, uh, you seem to be suggesting that these philosophies or these outlooks emanate from particular alignments with, uh, organizations and interests.
Um, and I tend to look at it more from a philosophical standpoint.
So I wrote a book that came on in 2005, which was inspired by my opposition to the Iraq war.
And it was called Sands of Empire.
Uh, and in Sands of Empire, I identify five fundamental foreign policy outlooks.
One is what I call will to power imperialism.
It doesn't really exist anymore, although there are elements among neocons who sort of favor that, although it is not really clear that that is something that America can really pursue in these times, old style colonial imperialism.
Uh, then there is what you might call, uh, uh, uh, liberal, well, let's say the conservative isolationism, conservative isolationism dominated American politics in the thirties.
And it was that we should pretty much pull onto into ourselves, uh, because the conservative isolationists believe that the, that America was a pristine experiment in democracy and the world was a kind of evil, nasty place.
And if America went onto the world, it was going to get corrupted by the nasty evil world.
Uh, then there is liberal isolationism that emerged after the Vietnam war, uh, and during the Vietnam war.
And that was almost the opposite in terms of its sensibility from conservative isolationism.
The liberal isolationists believe that the world was pristine and America was evil and you had to keep America out of the world because otherwise America was going to muck up the pristine world.
And then there are the two brands of interventionism.
There's, there's, um, uh, liberal interventionism, which is essentially Wilsonian, uh, the idea that we need to be in the world in order to fix the world, the sort of fab, the hurts and wounds of humanity, if you will.
Uh, and conservative interventionism, which I identified as the policies that post Imperial policies that emerged with Franklin Roosevelt, with the cold war.
And it was that America needs to be in the world because, um, we have to do whatever we can to maintain stability in key strategic locations.
We have to protect our own interests, which are substantial.
Uh, and up until recently, and maybe even today, this might be debatable, but we saw ourselves as the military custodian of Western civilization, meaning Europe when Europe was beleaguered by the threat of, um, Soviet Bolshevism.
And so, uh, those are, in my view, the five fundamental foreign policy outlooks, and they've been competing with one another in various degrees of intensity and different times in our history.
Hmm.
All right.
Now, one more, one more question along these lines.
Do you think that, uh, the libertarian non-interventionism of Ron Paul is beginning to take a place at this table of discussion at all?
I think that, uh, yes, because it's not quite, you know, Buchananite, paleo conservative isolationism, because it's all very much for open trade and that kind of thing.
Yes.
Uh, Buchanan has tended to, and not when I was covering him, when he was working in the white house during the Reagan years, he was very much a free trader, but he's not that anymore.
He's, uh, he's got a consistent and coherent viewpoint that is very close to isolationism and very close to protectionism.
Um, I, you know, I don't know that voters generally are drawing a distinction between, uh, the views of Pat Buchanan, for example, and the views of Ron Paul, I do believe that Ron Paul has a kind of a cult political following and more power to him, uh, for that.
Uh, and I think it's probably based more on his domestic views than his foreign policy views, but there's no question.
That in the wake of Iraq, which is a failure in the wake of Afghanistan, which is a mess, uh, and in the, uh, um, looming prospect of another war in the middle East with Iran, uh, that a lot of people are looking to a Ron Paul, uh, not a majority, certainly.
And, and, but enough, uh, for him to be on the radar screen, which he has been this year, uh, enough to say, wait a minute, let's look at some alternative thinking here.
And Ron Paul presents some alternative thinking.
Well, it seems like he got enough people cheering for him that even Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum said negative things about staying in Afghanistan, sort of along the lines of, well, those good for nothing, ungrateful Afghans, we should stop helping them so much if they don't like it, you know, but I'd take it.
Well, 65% of the voters in polls, uh, suggest that they think we should get out of Afghanistan as soon as possible.
And, uh, that, uh, I'm sure that's, uh, uh, having a significant impact on the consciousness of, of politicians like Newt Gingrich.
Yep.
Um, all right.
Well, I'm Scott Horton.
This is anti-war radio.
And we're talking with Robert W.
Mary, the publisher of the national interest and his latest piece is unmasking the democracy promoters.
And we're about to head out to this break, but when we get back from it, uh, we're going to focus on this particular, uh, ideology of American foreign policy.
You know, the Hillary Clinton's among us.
What they think and, and what they do and maybe how we can stop them, uh, more with Robert W.
Mary from the national interest.
That's national interest.org right after this.
All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio, Scott Horton.
I'm talking with Robert W.
Mary.
He's the editor of the national interest.
Sorry about that.
I said publisher a couple of times because, uh, I don't know, transpose those words where they didn't belong.
Um, but, uh, check out these books here.
A country of vast designs, James K.
Polk, the Mexican war and the conquest of the American continent.
That sounds like something that I feel like reading, uh, where they stand, the American presidents in the eyes of voters and historians taking on the world, Joseph and Stuart Alsop, guardians of the American century.
And they previously mentioned sands of empire, missionary zeal, American foreign policy, and the hazards of global ambition.
Of global ambition.
And we're talking about the ideologies of American empire, basically.
And, uh, the latest piece here at the national interest is called unmasking the democracy promoters.
And it begins with a story about the national democratic institute, uh, operating in, well, ceasing to operate in the United Arab Emirates shut down by the government and, uh, the outrage that resulted in DC.
So, uh, first of all, Robert, could you please tell us a little bit about the NDI and, uh, exactly what happened here and what's the big who, rah, rah, well, the national democratic institute is a nonprofit us organization whose mission is to promote the democracy around the world.
And, and, uh, there are other, uh, such organizations.
Freedom house is another one that international Republican institute is a third.
And these institutions all received significant amounts.
I don't have the exact numbers here, but significant amounts of federal money in order to go into the world and spread democracy.
Well, that sounds like a certainly reasonable, maybe even a hallowed mission to, uh, we all believe in democracy.
Uh, and yet they find themselves so often in countries, um, where the governments, um, don't really feel that they need a lot of instruction from Americans, uh, operating on the basis of, of us government funds, uh, to tell them how to run their countries.
And I think we're seeing a significant amount of pushback.
We saw it in Russia.
We've seen it in Egypt.
Certainly.
Uh, we've seen it in China and now the United Arab Emirates.
And it's interesting to note that the national democratic institute NDI, uh, was not really attempting to make any democratic inroads in the United Arab Emirates.
They were using that as kind of a staging area for other areas, other countries in the middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia.
Um, and so in America, people are sort of saying, well, what's going on here?
Why are these governments complaining about, uh, these Americans going there to help them and show them the good way?
The, uh, the, the missionary, uh, means to, um, becoming democracies.
Well, they don't need our, uh, counsel on that.
They don't want our, uh, involvement in our meddling.
Uh, and, uh, the pushback is becoming increasingly intense.
Uh, and yeah, and it's a very significant diplomatic factor in terms of, uh, our dealing with other countries around the world.
And yet we seem to be rather obtuse, uh, with regard to, uh, how these countries are reacting to this.
Well, you know, I like to think of myself as a realist, at least in terms of my analysis.
Uh, what I think should be done is a pretty ideological answer, I guess.
Um, but, uh, you know, it seems pretty clear that, uh, they tried to keep Mubarak as long as they could, and then they tried to replace him with Omar Suleiman, that the war against Gaddafi makes a great example of what a nice guy America is, because he was just brought in from the cold and was the most expendable of our allied, is a nice way of putting it, our puppet dictators in the region.
Um, it's no mystery, uh, why America is behind democracy in Syria.
It's because they don't control the dictatorship in Syria.
And, but here's where we get to, maybe you're onto something here about this ideology, if you're telling me that they're pushing democracy in Saudi Arabia.
And I do have to take note that although it does not appear to me that it was any kind of covert op that did the revolution in Egypt at all, it seemed a natural thing.
A lot of these groups had been to, you know, state department sponsored conferences for democracy and networking and these kinds of things.
It's as though the state department really is trying to push a democratic bottom, somewhat bottom up regime change in the countries that America actually does, you know, enjoy a very comfortable relationship with their kingdoms and dictatorships.
And am I right about that?
Is that what you're saying here?
Well, I'm saying that it certainly has that appearance.
I'm, I'm not saying that there's a concerted effort on the part of the United States government to use these organizations as cat's paws for American policy aimed at bringing down, um, uh, non non-democratic governments, but nevertheless, it certainly has that appearance because they're paying for these organizations.
The organizations are very zealously going into these countries, Egypt and United Arab Emirates, apparently Saudi Arabia as a result and Russia certainly and, and China and, uh, and certainly all of those color coded revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia and places like that.
Uh, some of which actually did lead to, uh, you know, overthrows of government.
Uh, so it does have that appearance and I don't think it's a very smart appearance for the United States to allow.
Mm.
Um, well, like I wonder about Jordan, you got any word about whether they're pushing for regime change in Jordan?
Cause that, you know, I don't know.
I mean, actually promoting democracy at all in Saudi Arabia to me seems like, uh, I'm surprised that they would do it.
I thought that they liked their dictatorship in Saudi Arabia.
Just fine.
Yeah.
I'm not aware that these NGOs are operating in Jordan.
They may very well be, but I'm not, I'm not aware of it.
Um, you know, there's, there's, there's, um, some pushback and there's some percolation of, of anti-regime sentiment, uh, in Saudi Arabia, but, uh, by and large, the Saudi government has managed through, uh, huge amounts of oil money to essentially buy peace, uh, with its population.
And so, um, that is a part and parcel of, of Saudi Arabia stability.
These, uh, NGOs would upend that if they had a chance.
And that's not necessarily in the interest of Saudi Arabia, but it's not necessarily in the interest of the United States either.
Well, now you brought up a Russia and China twice there, and I guess I have a way of setting it up, but maybe I don't want to set up the question.
Just let you explain whatever you think is most important for the audience to understand about America's NGO efforts, you know, artful CIA, uh, pro-democracy efforts in these two countries and the backlash, because, uh, this is something we don't know nearly enough about.
Well, let me talk about Russia a little bit.
Uh, the, the NGO mentality is that every, every country in the world should have a pure democratic system, a Jeffersonian kind of a system.
Uh, and that doesn't necessarily take into account sufficiently the cultural, historical, um, psychological aspects of various countries.
If you take Russia, for example, Russia has never, Russia has always had a system that is based on a significant amount of statism or a significant amount of power, um, uh, lodged in the state.
Uh, that was the way it was with the czars.
Certainly was what it was in that totalitarian nightmare that they had under, um, the Soviet union and Russian Bolshevism.
And when, um, um, Russia was attempting to move beyond that in the nineties under Boris Yeltsin, uh, there was a move towards democracy that, that really turned out to be very, very disastrous, uh, for Russia and the Russian people.
Uh, and it was, uh, it was a mess and the oligarchs were basically taking over the country.
They were grabbing huge amounts of money and institutions and, and corporations.
Uh, and Putin comes in and sees this and the Russian people are very much opposed to it.
And he says, uh, I'm going to end this.
Um, and he does, and he does it with a bit of an iron hand, but there are the vestiges of a democratic or open system, which he has closed over the, over, over the years, uh, to some significant extent.
Uh, and the Russian people are beginning to chafe, uh, under his leadership, but he gave them what they wanted in the first, certainly the first decade of his, uh, influence there.
Um, these NGO people can't understand any of this because they don't think in terms of historical antecedents, historical, um, cultural factors that guide and shape, uh, the sensibilities of people in these various countries.
They only think in terms of the good and the evil, the good being full democracy, Jeffersonian in style, and the bad being anything that doesn't quite get there.
Um, and that's an unfortunate thing.
Now, Putin's got, he's got his hands full and he's got a problem with his electorate now, not as serious a problem as many of these NGO people, uh, would want us to believe, but nevertheless, uh, he's harmed himself with a lot of corruption and some other, uh, aspects of his rule, which has become more and more, uh, uh, status and, and, uh, uh, authoritarian.
Uh, he's got to deal with that.
He's going to deal with that, or he's going to pay a price.
And, uh, I think one could say he already has.
I'm as an American, perfectly comfortable letting Russia and the Russians work this out, uh, without government sponsored, uh, NGOs, which is, seems like a contradiction in terms, but the government sponsored non-governmental, uh, organizations are going in there and trying to tell them how to run their country.
I just don't think Americans should be doing that.
If they are doing that, they shouldn't be getting federal money for it.
Well, you know, it almost seems like they're actually friends with Putin and they're just trying to help him shore up his power by tainting all of his opposition with the idea that they're the sock puppets of the Americans.
The same thing happens in Iran all the time.
America announces we're doing everything we can to help the dissonance there.
And then the president or the Ayatollah come on TV in Iran or the radio or whatever, and they say, look, all of these demonstrators are working for the CIA.
And it's believable because we announced that they are, even if they're really not, or, you know, we're trying to help them as much as we can.
It makes them all look like traitors.
I think that's a factor in terms of, uh, the, um, feelings and attitudes and suspicions of the people in Russia, as well as in Iraq and elsewhere.
Yeah.
I mean, you say in your article, you bring up, how would we feel if somebody was doing this in our country?
We'll just look back to the Fuhrer in the mid 1990s about the Chinese money in the democratic election campaign, which Bill Clinton was, you know, landslide won that thing anyway, was going to anyway.
It's not like it made the difference, but the taint of money from a foreign country was a huge scandal.
Uh, yeah, well, it was.
And, uh, and the reason was because we didn't want outsiders from outside of the United States, um, uh, coming in and attempting to influence our elections.
And, and yet we somehow think that it's an most natural thing in the world for Americans to do that very thing in other places.
All right.
Well, we're all out of time, actually over time, but I want to thank you very much for yours on the show today, Rob.
My pleasure.
Thank you.
All right, everybody.
That is Robert W.
Editor of the national interest.
That's nationalinterest.org and author of many books, including, uh, the latest where they stand the American presidents in the eyes of voters and historians.
And again, his latest article at the national interest is called unmasking the democracy promoters from April 2nd.
Uh, thanks for listening.
See y'all tomorrow.
