Niall Ferguson: Another way to interpret this report is 'Stay but don't screw up'
'Persuasion involves both incentives and penalties," Henry Kissinger once remarked. "So there is an element of implied coercion." Last week saw the publication of a masterpiece of persuasion. But whom will it persuade? And with what sticks and carrots?
Most commentators have interpreted the report of the Iraq Study Group as a well-crafted admission of defeat. Predictably, that was exactly how President Bush himself reacted to it. "I… believe we're going to succeed," he told reporters on Thursday. "I believe we'll prevail… One way to assure failure is just to quit, is not to adjust, and say it's just not worth it."
Addressing one of the report's key recommendations, he bluntly declared that Iran and Syria "shouldn't bother to show up" for negotiations about Iraq if they don't "understand their responsibilities to not fund terrorists" and if the Iranians won't "verifiably suspend" their uranium enrichment programme.
Yet anyone who bothers to read the ISG's report carefully — as opposed to skimming the executive summary — can see that it neither proposes "quitting" Iraq nor pins serious hope on Iranian or Syrian assistance. Quite the reverse.
Persuasion in the realm of grand strategy is more a matter of rhetorical art than science. The first essential step is to identify your target audience. Most readers of the report assume that it is directed at President Bush. That is wrong. Its principal target audience is Congress, and particularly the new Democratic majorities in both houses. And the aim is not to persuade a stubborn president to admit defeat. Rather, the report's aim is to persuade legislators that withdrawal from Iraq — no matter how much their constituents may yearn for it — is not an option. The report's other intended readership is Arab governments throughout the Middle East. The message for them is the same: an American exit from the region is what you most have to fear.
The second step in the process of persuasion is to conjure up a nightmare vision of the future if the action you envisage is not taken. In The Economic Consequences of the Peace, for example, John Maynard Keynes depicted Central and Eastern Europe laid waste by anarchy and civil war, if the 1919 Versailles Treaty were not revised and Germany appeased. In his 1946 "Long Telegram", George F Kennan portrayed the entire world subverted by a ruthless Soviet Union, if the United States did not adopt a policy of retaliation and containment. Both masterpieces of persuasion; both highly influential.
The worst-case scenario proposed by the Iraq Study Group is the one about which I have been writing since February: "Sectarian warfare, growing violence [and] a slide toward chaos", leading to "the collapse of Iraq's government and a humanitarian catastrophe". Here are the report's most important lines: "Neighbouring countries could intervene. Sunni-Shia clashes could spread … across the Islamic world. [There could be] Shia insurrections — perhaps fomented by Iran — in Sunni-ruled states. Such a broader sectarian conflict could open a Pandora's box of problems."...
Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)
Most commentators have interpreted the report of the Iraq Study Group as a well-crafted admission of defeat. Predictably, that was exactly how President Bush himself reacted to it. "I… believe we're going to succeed," he told reporters on Thursday. "I believe we'll prevail… One way to assure failure is just to quit, is not to adjust, and say it's just not worth it."
Addressing one of the report's key recommendations, he bluntly declared that Iran and Syria "shouldn't bother to show up" for negotiations about Iraq if they don't "understand their responsibilities to not fund terrorists" and if the Iranians won't "verifiably suspend" their uranium enrichment programme.
Yet anyone who bothers to read the ISG's report carefully — as opposed to skimming the executive summary — can see that it neither proposes "quitting" Iraq nor pins serious hope on Iranian or Syrian assistance. Quite the reverse.
Persuasion in the realm of grand strategy is more a matter of rhetorical art than science. The first essential step is to identify your target audience. Most readers of the report assume that it is directed at President Bush. That is wrong. Its principal target audience is Congress, and particularly the new Democratic majorities in both houses. And the aim is not to persuade a stubborn president to admit defeat. Rather, the report's aim is to persuade legislators that withdrawal from Iraq — no matter how much their constituents may yearn for it — is not an option. The report's other intended readership is Arab governments throughout the Middle East. The message for them is the same: an American exit from the region is what you most have to fear.
The second step in the process of persuasion is to conjure up a nightmare vision of the future if the action you envisage is not taken. In The Economic Consequences of the Peace, for example, John Maynard Keynes depicted Central and Eastern Europe laid waste by anarchy and civil war, if the 1919 Versailles Treaty were not revised and Germany appeased. In his 1946 "Long Telegram", George F Kennan portrayed the entire world subverted by a ruthless Soviet Union, if the United States did not adopt a policy of retaliation and containment. Both masterpieces of persuasion; both highly influential.
The worst-case scenario proposed by the Iraq Study Group is the one about which I have been writing since February: "Sectarian warfare, growing violence [and] a slide toward chaos", leading to "the collapse of Iraq's government and a humanitarian catastrophe". Here are the report's most important lines: "Neighbouring countries could intervene. Sunni-Shia clashes could spread … across the Islamic world. [There could be] Shia insurrections — perhaps fomented by Iran — in Sunni-ruled states. Such a broader sectarian conflict could open a Pandora's box of problems."...