Is Realism Better than Idealism?

Philip Stephens has a photo of him in the Financial Times that portrays the flaccid smug countenance of establishment superiority. He has been transforming himself into a Global Warming expert in recent weeks with much sound and fury, along with supercilious comments on American society, culture, and foreign policy that would put him right in the middle of the Euroweenie pantheon. However, he recants some of his views in the Friday FT:

It is not hard to imagine the form a realist US foreign policy might take. A bargain with Russia, for example, might ignore Vladimir Putin’s disdain for democracy. Instead, the US would secure Moscow’s co-operation in countering Iran’s nuclear ambitions and seeking to stabilise the Middle East by ending its already faltering efforts to promote democracy on Russia’s periphery. Ukraine and Georgia would be returned to Moscow’s sphere. As for Syria, why not strike a deal that acknowledges its interests in Lebanon? After all, the US has conspired before in Syria’s occupation of Lebanon.

I am not predicting these policy shifts. But it is as well to understand the dark side of a values-blind foreign policy. This was the frame of mind that saw the west arm the jihadists in Afghanistan during the 1980s – and then leave that country to the Taliban and al-Qaeda. It was realism, too, that saw Europe and the US stand by as the Balkans fell to ethnic slaughter.

The means by which the US has promoted its democracy agenda can be criticised on many counts. But the debacle in Iraq, the inconsistency of application and the failures of understanding have been about means rather than ends. There is no long-term trade-off between realism and idealism. The spread of democracy is the surest guarantor of security and prosperity. That is something we will understand again after a few years of so-called realism.

So, the Democrats have won the electoral battle, but the long-term battle of what we used to call hearts-and-minds remains to be fought.