The notion that “knowledge is power” is a cliché to which I was exposed early and often in childhood. It is one of the secular myths of the modern West: a version of the myth of technology, that underpins our magical belief in quick fixes.
Nietzsche came much closer to the truth by associating “will” with power. Freedom exists so long as we will it (including freedom from Nietzscheans), and the knowledge that supports it is a moral knowledge, quite different from technical expertise, which can be hired, ultimately, for any cause at all.
The former U.S. president, George W. Bush—a man of solid moral convictions, ridiculed for his supposed ignorance—was abundantly clear about Iran, and about North Korea for that matter. These two regimes have continued to offer the most pressing threats to the peace of the world since Saddam Hussein’s lawless regime was eliminated. Bush referred to all three as an “axis of evil.” Continued close co-operation between Iran and North Korea vindicates both terms.
Bush also consistently distinguished the regime from the people of Iran. He was well briefed, at least through his first term, not by the CIA and the State Department, but by a handful of so-called “neoconservatives,” operating mostly out of the Pentagon, whose knowledge of the Persian language, and firsthand experience of Persian realities, provided a view unobscured by the bureaucratic myopia.
He thus knew that the Persian people were the most pro-American in the Middle East, and he could be confident in identifying U.S. interests with the domestic opponents of the “Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Our enemies are their enemies, he said.
Much of the goodwill engendered by Bush—who was understood and respected behind enemy lines, as President Reagan before him was understood and respected by people trapped behind the Iron Curtain—is already dispersed. It was plain even before his appalling Cairo speech that Barack Obama had only the fashionable, glib-liberal idea about foreign policy—which is, peace through appeasement. We watch Obama floundering now, as actual events in Iran confirm the fatuity of his proposal to “go the extra mile,” and extend the hand of friendship to the bloody butchers of Tehran.
The man who thought he was leading the march of history, a fortnight ago, is now struggling to catch up with the rear of the same twisting perambulation. President Sarkozy’s forthright statements from France—not only siding with Iran’s people against their dictators but also declaring, in light of Obama’s Cairo speech, “burqas have no place in France”—show the degree to which American leadership has been evacuated.
I began this piece by denying that “knowledge is power.” Indeed, the British military historian, John Keegan, wrote a book six years ago, Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to Al-Qaeda. Readers who need to be dispossessed of the illusion that “superior intelligence” is what wins battles, let alone wars, should consult that book.
Ditto, those vain bloggers who imagine that the Internet will make much difference to the outcome in Iran, by keeping the revolutionists “informed.” (It may for quite another reason, to which I will quickly return.) The revolution will win, if the revolutionists are willing to take the casualties; not otherwise. And that is the hard horrible truth.
Their will to win could have been immensely enhanced had they an articulate President of the United States, cheering them along. Instead they have a self-obsessed dreamer; and will owe America nothing if they prevail.
Knowledge is not power in any proximate sense; it would be truer to say that “imagery is power.” The entire political situation in Pakistan was recently changed, thanks to a home video of a very young woman being held down and ritually beaten by bearded Taliban, in Swat, for the crime of being in the company of a man not her male guardian. The screams of that girl somehow galvanized a significant part of Pakistani opinion to demand that their government stop retreating. And Pakistan’s army is, miraculously enough, now trudging through Swat—in an operation that had been previously dismissed as impossible.
Likewise, the murder of Neda Agha-Soltan in Tehran—picked off in the street by a plainclothed gunman of the regime’s unspeakable Basiji, and shown to the world by video—has galvanized the ayatollahs’ opponents, everywhere.
Imagery can of course be false; can be staged. Plenty has been staged in Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank. But it is unlikely that either of the scenes I mention above were staged; and they communicate the truth of the situation far more eloquently than yet another speech by the American charlatan.
And for that: thank you, cellphone technology.
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