The interconnectedness of the internet is moving faster than I can adjust. It was only just in responding to you that I realized how different things were 4 years ago. We are running one really big, live experiment with the human race.

Central to our discussion is the fact that rhetoric and diplomacy will have no net effect if they are not accompanied by a substantive change in our foreign policy. Herein lies a contradiction: we want to act out of national self-interest and we want to be admired as a beacon-on-the-hill democracy. Somehow, we struggle to understand the resentment and antipathy that comes from those people on the short end of our self-interest stick. As long, as you point out, our foreign policy is guided by oil (or other economic) interests, our intentions will viewed with cynicism. This is the way of the world — but let’s not be surprised by the negative reaction we receive.

I am not a foreign policy expert, but in the work that I do with corporate groups, we see very similar dynamics: if someone (a leader or group) acts out of self-interest/self-promotion, there is a lot of negative energy and suspicion in the team or company against them. When leaders can act with the larger goal in mind (for the entire team or company), and put aside personal interests, then they are able to truly lead the people around them. I have seen radical transformations of inter-departmental dynamics. It has made me wonder on occasion what would happen if our foreign policy were less guided by self-interest and more by a contribution focus.

Idealistic blasphemy, no doubt. But I firmly believe we would wield far more moral authority and be much less of a target.

In this sense, a mere apology would have been completely useless. An apology, accompanied by a completely different approach — more humble, less selfish, more willing to respect other countries’ interests — could have lead to a less deadly resolution of Iraq. But it is easy to speculate from the sidelines. Dubya did the very best he could with the world view he had.

Its hard for me to believe that an apology would have been enough to make that change. I don’t believe any words come near to the power of the images and exchange of ideas that can be shared across the world on the internet. And, although he’s a gifted orator and a brilliant man, I don’t think Obama’s diplomatic skills had a major impact. From the point of view of an average Joe in the Middle East, his words may be meaningless in the face of continuing essentially the same policies as before. No one has better interpersonal skills than Bill Clinton, but Al Qaeda chugged along during his tenure as well. I don’t have as much faith as you in the power of just words and diplomacy.

My last comment is that I don’t agree that these uprisings are peaceful or that the governments of the Middle East have had major changes in the way they view us (or Israel, or the small population of Christians in the Middle East). Iran hasn’t stopped their nuclear programs; they’re just distracted by their own population right now. And we in the US just hear less about it on the news because this isn’t an election year. It still may be all about oil, right? That’s why we joined France and Britain in interceding in Libya, which is a major oil supplier for Europe, yet we turn a blind eye on Syria and Bahrain, where the government crackdown is far more brutal and violent. We don’t know what the new governments will stand for, or what their policies will be towards us or their own people.

Really, who knows? We all tend to interpret events through our own world views, with such different conclusions. But I appreciate this “conversation” as your ideas help me keep challenging my own assumptions – thank you for that.

I’ll preface my remarks by stating that I’m not sure I’m right on this one. But my thoughts are the following:

I stand by my post — in large part because the idea of declaring defeat was primarily a strategy to change our relational dynamic with the middle east. I believe ‘they’ have a lot of built up conclusions about who we are: colonizers, self-interested, indifferent to their needs, out to manipulate and/or exploit them. The idea of declaring defeat was to defuse the humiliation they felt at being dominated by us (militarily, economically, and perhaps to a lesser degree, culturally), and to give them ownership for stabilizing Iraq. If they could no longer see us as the enemy to be resisted at all costs, perhaps they might begin to focus on the issues and dissatisfactions stemming from that region (vs. caused by the US). I think that Obama’s more diplomatic stance towards the Mid-East has begun to change our relationship with them.

This leads us to another possible interpretation of the Jasmine revolution: the Arabic-Muslim youth are now turning on their long-standing dictators because there is no longer a bellicose US ‘satan’ stomping around arrogantly, stirring up nationalist unity. In the limited reading I’ve done on internal Iranian politics, for example, this is clearly the case. The more threatening US leaders are, the more the Iranian clergy are able to use that to muzzle the Iranian youth. When we are no longer an outside enemy to circle the wagons against, the Iranians only have themselves to look at. Then there will be nothing to divert the Iranian youth from their dissatisfactions with their government.

Could Obama’s less aggressive rhetoric, although not yet producing tangible results with Iran, be a key ingredient in the Middle East looking at itself instead of being angry at us? I think so.

That being said, I also agree that it is highly plausible that the (fragile) success of Iraq’s democracy has been a beacon of possibility for Tunisia, Egypt and others. But if we were still threatening to invade Iran, would there be a context conducive to these peaceful uprisings? If we were still in a black or white mindset re: allies and enemies in the Mid-East, would we have taken the risk to encourage Mubarak to step down? Hard to judge such intangibles.

And then of course there the advent of Facebook and Twitter since 2003, so technology is also part of the synergy.

What do you think of all that?

First, like Ike’s comment before him, C made reference to my language when he discussed the “Lehrer joke/trap.” Both seem to refer to language of judgment or right/wrong. There appears to be a level of anger or righteousness in my language that I don’t see (and that I certainly took pains in my writing to eliminate). I think their observations accurately identify how I feel on the inside, so it serves as another lesson how our true feelings come thru even when we try to hide them…

There was much to learn from your comments, and I tried to soak it all in. However, your last thoughts on the polarization that we are experiencing reminded me of a high school history lesson I received from my favorite US history teacher. We were examining what led us into the Civil War, and one of the key factors that at last allowed our society to go over the edge, and the war to break out, was the loss of “the Great Compromisers”: key statesman in Congress like Henry Clay, John Calhoun and Daniel Webster. I suppose that today it is easy to judge the word “compromise” but these men were able to see beyond their differences in upbringings, beliefs systems and economic priorities, understand the other side (enough to build bridges anyway), and craft a path forward that preserved the union. As the decade of the 1850′s waned, these gentlemen retired, leaving more ‘extreme’ leaders in their stead. There was no longer the ability(?), commitment(?), awareness(?), desire(?) to fend off the unthinkable by finding a path forward. The leaders that replaced them knew to employ invective language, but not build from huge differences a common commitment to peace, to the preservation of society — or whatever it was that pushed the Compromisers to hold the North and the South together for so long. As you say at the end, it was we who voted them into power, so we reaped what we sowed? And so what are we sowing now?

I have often thought of these men in the past few years, as I’ve watched Bush, Putin, Ahmadinejad, Bin Laden, Ehud Olmert and others speak in extreme language and act in bellicose ways. ‘You will do it MY way, or else.’ We are on a slippery slope; does any of us really know when we will pass the point of no return? I’m not sure that we recognize it until it is behind us. I personally think that we are far closer to a regional war with the Muslim world than we think. US aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf and captured British soliders are all smoldering kindling; WWI was started with less. Tonkin Gulf, anyone?

I didn’t mean to be flip above (well, yes I did), but this question of leadership is a crucial one. Not a swaggering tough guy leader (which we Americans seem to feel comforted by), but one who can empathize with the enemy, who gives a measured and thoughtful response when attacked, not a defensive one. Doris Goodwin in “Team of Rivals” (biography of Abraham Lincoln) gives a stunning account of AL’s ability, time and again, to act on his long term goals of what he wants to build and what society he wishes to see, instead of vindictively, angrily, destructively. It is time for statesmen (or women, I don’t care). If we (meaning the people of each of the pivot countries in our current stalemate) elect another set of leaders a little more on the extreme than those we have, I doubt we’ll make it thru the end of the decade. In this sense, I agree with the comment Bravo made on this site re: the change of the US’ role in the world. We need a strong leader to help us understand that we are no longer the ruler of the fiefdom called Earth.

A few thoughts. My own vision is not that we cease to have group identities or that they cease to matter (one world). I don’t believe this is desirable or possible. We really fundamentally need these “handles” to understand ourselves and social situations and make decisions–I don’t think it would do for men to treat women the same as they treat men or vice versa. I think what is important is being more conscious about them and mastering many of our fears surrounding them. And I think there’s something to this Buddhist thought of seeing the myth of our individuality.

I believe there are more and less constructive group identity constructions, and we need to find a way to help ourselves beyond some of the self-defeating ones when we fall into them (e.g., “we’re the victims of X”).

Our host fell into that old Tom Lehrer joke/trap: “there are people who don’t love their fellow man. And I hate those people!” What’s important for me here is that choosing not to live in the space of judgment and right/wrong is not the same as complete moral relativism. It is one thing to regard an act as a mistake or to have an ethical standard, and it is another to demonize and disrespect others when they disagree or act out of accordance with our standards. This is important to me because I believe many people dismiss the ideas our host presents because they miss the distinction and believe they would have to give up their standards to agree with him. In the specific context, one issue here is that we are dealing with societies that have been unsuccessful by many standards–economic, human misery, human rights, advances in arts and sciences, gov’t by the consent of the governed, etc. This doesn’t mean that “we” have the right society for all and “they” have the wrong one. It does mean that humiliation is not just stemming from being conquered by foreign invaders, but also from failing to achieve desired goals on their own. And inequality is not merely military or monetary.

I’ve spent a good deal of time trying to apply the psychological principles and tools we know to group egos and even to nations, and I find it all very puzzling and challenging. I do believe that public government apologies can and have mattered. The South African processes after Apartheid were very interesting–focused more on making the truth public and giving voice to those who had none than on trying and punishing the guilty. Meanwhile governments are not people–are not monolithic–and we look at others sometimes as individuals and sometimes as representatives or agents of groups, organizations, or governments. Whether we see an other as an individual or a group member can change in the blink of an eye, or merely because they changed into or out of a uniform. We don’t know and can’t entirely control whether we are being viewed as an individual or a part of a whole we may or may not even avow.

The utility I have found so far for translating the psychological to the political is specifically in oppositional identity–when my group’s defines its own identity in opposition to other groups (we are the people oppressed by, superior to, inferior to, the saviors of, etc.). Oppositional elements are always present, so it’s really their significance and whether these are “healthy beliefs” that matters. These can be very complex. George Schopflin cites the Turkish/Romanian/Balkan identity of being the buffer zone that kept out the eastern hoards and enabled Europe to bloom and prosper (i.e., we were martyrs for Europe, we can never catch up to Europe, and Europe owes us bigtime (and we hate those eastern hoards). This doesn’t strike me as a healthy belief.

When it comes to negotiating, changing practices, making promises, etc., I get very lost and don’t yet find that I have anything to offer the diplomats. I’m glad to see our host contining to search for something.

Finally, I think it’s very important (and also useful for those trying to avoid demonizing their own leaders) to think about how we create our own leaders and what leverage we have. George Bush’s decisions after 9/11 were fueled by American passions–our passions. The war in Iraq is sustained with our consent. The French Revolution went on for eight or ten years–a time when it was acceptable to drag nobles out of their houses and dismember them–fueled by ordinary folks. Somehow norms were created that made totally unacceptable behavior acceptable. We have all witnessed this and partaken in it, at least on a small scale. I do believe the same forces that lead us as children to join in ridiculing some kid on the playground are at play in national politics and enable poor decisions and bad leaders.

This weekend I got to thinking about the (in my perception) growing Christian/nonChristian identity conflict when I read a church billboard that said “No bunny ever conquered death!” I know many Christians who are afraid that moral relativism and diversity efforts are a threat to their existence. And I know many non-Christians or non-fundamentalists who believe that fundamentalism is a danger to our freedom, our health (abortion, etc.) and is a significant cause of our foreign policy. At first I thought both of these things can’t be true. Either we are at one end of the pendulum and at risk of outlawing religion, or at the other, and at risk of a religious state, but not both. Now I think that it is true–that when these conflict grow, they create polarization and continually increase the possibility of radical solutions on either extreme–fueled equally by the two parties.

And so it is not just George Bush or the military leaders, or those of us in national security–it is all of us.

Curtis