The Founding Fakers

In "The Founding Fakers" (The New Republic 8/11/03), Franklin Foer tackles what I consider a glaring and persistent flaw in the conduct of recent Republican administrations: namely, the willingness of some within the GOP to cloak some morally repugnant characters who would otherwise fall into the category of criminals or terrorists in the mantle of democracy when it is politically expedient to do so -- i.e., "the foreign opposition leader romanticized beyond reason."

Liberals did this with Stalin and Fidel Castro; Reagan with the Nicaraguan Contras (or as he called them, "the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers"); the Bush (senior) administration with the Afghan mujahedin . . . and now, says Foer, the spotlight may be turning towards militant groups in Iran such as the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, a militant organization based in Iraq which, although currently classified as a terrorist organization, may be useful should the U.S. extend its "war on terrorism" into Iran.

Extolling the virtues of cults like the Iranian mujahedin doesn't simply cheapen rhetoric about liberal democracy, it cheapens conservatism itself. Ever since Edmund Burke, conservatives have made skepticism about revolutions and revolutionaries a central tenet of their politics. As Irving Kristol rephrased the classic complaint in a 1972 essay, "to think we have it in our power to change people so as to make the human estate wonderfully better than it is, remarkably different from what it is, and in very short order, is to assume that this generation of Americans can do what no other generation in all of human history could accomplish." This rigid traditionalism has been sometimes deployed to justify turning away from injustice. But it was also a source of humaneness, a bulwark against rash plans for social upheaval, a vital warning about the violent excesses of ideological fervor, a reminder that revolutions often end in tears. In this new era, with grand plans for remaking the map and new heroes being born, we could stand to be reminded of these old dictates, which add a touch of realism to right-wing idealism and offer a salutary dose of conservatism for conservatives.

Whether the MEK will occupy the same pedestal as the Contras remains to be seen, but I do think Foer has a good point: it's one of those blatant utiliatarian political decisions that can only turn around and hurt us in the end.