In the prehistoric age, circa 1990, if you wanted to form an opinion about a complicated subject you likely grabbed the encyclopedia, went to a library or bought a book. Or maybe you just made stuff up — the uncheckable fact thing.
Even in the internet age, we can be, well, inventive. Remember Colin Powell using the detailed (and neatly labeled) satellite pictures to carefully explain Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction/chemical weapons program? Forming opinions and influence peddling are definitely much easier if the only “facts” considered are ones that are difficult to verify, subject to multiple interpretations, or even better, are literally uncheckable. (Of course, as Bill Clinton found out when Monica produced the infamous “smudged” dress, one best be sure about the uncheckable part.)
Now we have a gaggle of newly anointed Middle East experts who employ all of these methods. In fact, the cable news Middle East expert explosion seems to rank only slightly behind the ultra-Orthodox baby boom in Israel.
But we do need knowledgeable people to provide context and to explain what the heck is going on, not only with the nascent revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, but also with the varying degrees of unrest spreading throughout other regional “hot spots” such as Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan, Kuwait, Iran and Saudi Arabia. (Of course, we best be careful in considering their learned opinions. These are the same experts who uniformly failed to predict the Tunisian revolution or the Egyptian military coup, but who can now all, fairly uniformly, explain why this was all inevitable. Pretty soon, if they just demonstrate proficiency in pronouncing both a country’s name and ruling leader they’ll meet the expert test.)
Our wild, crazy and dangerous Middle East has recently become even wilder, crazier and more dangerous. With its lineup of dictators, sheiks, mullahs, despots, Machiavellian plots, lunatics, brotherhoods, terrorists and monarchs — the rulers not the butterflies — uncomfortably nestled beside Israel, the region’s only democracy, we have a strange mix of the old and new, along with the soon to be deposed and/or indicted.
Fold in 5,000,000 plus U.N.-designated Palestinian refugees always ready to stir a regional boiling pot and we have almost all of the elements needed for a successful sitcom. Almost. It’s those killjoy Muslims again. They won’t go for the alcohol and sex needed to guarantee sitcom success, although they can be counted on to work in disharmony with Israel to provide sufficient violence.
So our “experts” certainly have rather fertile ground to cover, which is made even more fertile as they open mouth and engage with what, unfortunately, has too often proven to be verbal fertilizer. Here’s the process many of these horticultural “experts,” follow: First, and this is the most critical step, form an opinion based on whatever you now believe. Don’t wait to get facts. Two, seek out whatever facts help to reinforce those beliefs. Three, ignore any facts that don’t fit your preconceived notions. Last, go on Fox News and present your unfair and unbalanced thoughts or maybe traipse on over to MSNBC to present a more liberal unfair and unbalanced view.
Cut to Glenn Beck as he’s trying to explain why the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest organized political group, will soon take over Egypt, threaten Israel and put America at risk for even a bigger collapse than he already sees.
Beck believes that America is in danger from hidden and not so hidden Communist, Socialist, Islamic and Satanical forces. The “anti-Christ,” in Beck’s mind, lurks in Muslim cloth. George Soros is one of the ringleaders of Beck’s conspiracy circus. It’s not just raining foreign influence in Beck’s world, it’s a torrential downpour — your “made in China” umbrella has no chance to save you.
So it’s not a leap — it’s a necessity — for Beck to ascribe unpure and dangerous motives to an Islamic organization he has spent many long studio break moments studying over the last few days, all while reviewing highlights of Bill O’Reilly’s talking points memos.
On the other hand, there’s Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow in the Saban Center for Middle East policy, acting as a progressive counter to Beck, while at the same time registering high on the preconceived notions meter. Reidel rightly notes that the Brotherhood — or Ikhwan, as “in the know” experts like Riedel refer to them as — was violent in its infancy, but has now matured. They long ago renounced the use of violence. He points out the Muslim Brotherhood’s many moderate tentacles, and assures us that Israel, the rest of the Middle East and America needn’t worry if they acquire more power. But then he concludes by throwing Gaza and Hamas into the mix and implying that if Israel doesn’t end its “siege” over Gaza then Ikhwan could become far less moderate. So our Saban expert wants us to know the Muslim Brotherhood is really a swell organization that wants to be a “team player” — yes, he actually said that — but they could go all Dennis Rodman on us if Israel doesn’t stop its oppressive Gaza policy.
Stratfor, a private intelligence service, has been one of the positive expert exceptions. It was in the first (and maybe only) wave that pointed out the small numbers of protesters in Liberation Square — 200,000 tops on the best day, which is less than 1/4 of 1% of Egypt’s population — as well as the unpopular reality that the revolution was more of a military coup than a demonstration of the power of social media to defeat a dictator.
Regardless, Stratfor has drifted into the “reaching for facts to support conclusions” camp by adopting the view that Egypt’s economic conditions now portend a possible economic collapse. That does seem logical, so it is an easy premise to buy. A collapse would, of course, raise fears that the Muslim Brotherhood — Stratfor is presumably less “in the know” because they never use “Ikhwan” to refer to the Brothers — could rise to power and play a destabilizing role.
However, Stratfor cites what they refer to as Egypt’s current high debt service and deficit as a percentage of G.D.P. as support for their view. Unfortunately, high to Stratfor isn’t high to the CIA. The CIA “World Fact Book” positions Egypt’s economy generally favorably among the many nations they rank. Moreover, Israel and America have similar debt and deficit issues, and no prominent political or economic analysts (except possibly for radio and television qualified expert analyst Glenn Beck) see America or Israel sinking into a revolutionary abyss any time soon. But if you believe that the Egyptian revolution will lead to dangerous political and economic uncertainty, then why not take the easiest route to “expertdom?” Just selectively present and interpret “facts,” as Stratfor has, and you’re case is made.
Maybe Egypt’s economy will collapse and no one will remember anything other than Stratfor’s prediction. It is certainly possible, especially if the strikes and scattered violence continue. Egypt also depends on tourism for around 10% of their economy, and that industry has suffered an almost total falloff. The economy could become a reason for the people to rally around the Muslim Brotherhood or some other anti-Western or anti-Israel force. But Egypt’s economic situation is not as bad as Stratfor portrays, and America and Saudi Arabia would very likely provide additional economic support to prevent a dangerous collapse. (In fact Hillary Clinton recently announced a $150 million infusion.)
Not only is it hard for experts to analyze all of the variables necessary to reach a conclusion, it is sometimes hard to even understand the conclusion. Take Iran and Iraq, for example, where we have both of those dynamics at work.
Donald Rumsfeld, former Pentagon chief, and current Colin Powell and Condaleezza Rice nemesis, believed pre-9/11 that America needed to “finish off” Iraq in order to stabilize the Middle East region. He allowed that belief to lead him to advocate for attacking Iraq post 9/11.
He still defends his advice to attack, even though the logic for the attack was primarily based on selectively analyzed intelligence information that Saddam Hussein had an active chemical weapons/weapons of mass destruction program. The intelligence data that cast doubt was ignored as it did not seem logical that a leader who had used chemical weapons before wouldn’t develop and use them again.
Oh my goodness, intelligence data is hard to analyze. People say different things for different reasons. It’s hard to tell the guys with the white hats from the ones with the black hats. Then sometimes people just say and do things for pecuniary reasons. Or they just want you to like them. So we may never have attacked if we knew for sure Saddam wasn’t lying, but what the heck: Everybody blew it and we are better off without Saddam.
Is this really the complete expert picture? Hardly.
Rumsfeld is correct that most countries did believe Iraq was likely violating U.N. restrictions. But most countries also felt that the U.S. was rushing to judgement. They wanted the U.N inspectors to complete their new inspection assignment, an assignment that lead investigator Hans Blix felt could have been completed in a matter of a few months.
The time needed for more inspection and reflection was seen as unnecessary by Rumsfeld and the non-Condaleezza and Powell wings of the Bush administration. The feeling was that America had already been down the inspection road before and that had led exactly nowhere. So the lack of proof only proved Saddam was hiding the weapons, not that the weapons weren’t there.
So is the world really better off? It seems we have an expert split. There are those like Rumsfeld who view this as a simple “bad guy is no longer there” issue. Others question whether the world is really safer since Iraq’s mostly regional threat has been replaced by an Iranian more global one.
In this latter view, at least Saddam’s Sunni-based government served as a counterbalance to Iran’s Shiite-based regime and forced Iran to devote significant resources to a potential Iran-Iraq conflict. That fear had served as a stabilizing force. Eliminating Iraq as a threat thus strengthened and emboldened Iran and produced a much larger threat — particularly to Israel — than Iraq’s scud missiles ever did.
But it is complicated to consider Shiite and Sunni politics, regional counterbalances and geopolitical strategy. It’s easier to just focus on tactics and Iraq. So Rumsfeld, and a significant number of American and Israeli political leaders, remain convinced that America’s actions in Iraq made the world safer. However, if we expand the view to include how a neutered Iraq led to a much more dangerous Iran and consider the effects our actions in Iraq had on terrorist recruitment efforts — even more effective ( although less fun) than the Army’s widely reported use of motorsports sponsorships to recruit troops — we might draw a starkly different conclusion.
It’s all clearly less about experts than expert thought.
