George Soros, head of Soros Fund Management and champion of "the open society," is currently locked in mortal combat with the so-called neoconservatives. On the other side we find David Horowitz, author of Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left. It is instructive to look at the arguments on both sides of the ongoing debate, with an eye to factual correctness and good sense.
In 2003 Mr. Soros wrote a book titled The Bubble of American Supremacy: The Costs of Bush's War in Iraq. It is not so much about bubbles as it is about Mr. Soros attempting to burst his effervescent nemeses with sharp rhetoric. He writes: "The government of the most powerful country on earth has fallen into the hands of extremists who are guided by a crude form of social Darwinism." Glancing at this formulation we are forced to note that social Darwinism has always been crude in all its forms, so it must be assumed that Mr. Soros is exaggerating in order to emphasize what he sees as President Bush's lawless brutality. After ascribing "survival of the fittest" and "might makes right" platitudes to the president, Soros says that the administration's neoconservatives seek global supremacy in order to impose America's "views, interests, and values on the world."
Soros claims that George W. Bush "was elected president by a single vote on the Supreme Court," and further, that Bush's "supremacist ideology" contradicts the principles of the "open society" by posing as "ultimate truth." This is dangerous ground for Soros, because it raises the question of whether Soros has postulated an "ultimate truth." If he hasn't, then what sort of "truth" has he put forward? Does George W. Bush actually adhere to a "crude form of social Darwinism"? Do neoconservatives advocate American supremacy? Do they threaten freedom and "the open society"?
The rhetoric of George Soros is philosophically problematic despite references to Karl Popper's "Logic of Scientific Discovery." We might all agree with Popper's falsifiability principle, or his idea of the "open society," but Soros - by his own admission - has "taken Popper's conceptual framework beyond the realm of scientific method." And here is where Soros runs aground. To say that the current Republican administration combines religious fundamentalism with market fundamentalism, producing thereby an ideology of American supremacy, is far enough from the truth that we may safely dismiss Soros as a pathological exaggerator. Every Libertarian knows that President Bush is not a free market fundamentalist. Furthermore, Soros chastises the United States for refusing to yield its dominant position "at the center of the global capitalist system." Okay, Mr. Soros, what country should take America's place? What country is large enough, stable enough and productive enough?
In 1997 Soros predicted the imminent collapse of the global capitalist system. Perhaps he wanted to secure a place for himself in the post-capitalist order. Asked about the 1997 Soros prediction, a British journalist quipped: "Of course he predicted global economic collapse - he was trying to make it happen!" In his 2003 book Soros predicted that George W. Bush would lose the 2004 presidential election. And in this instance he certainly tried to make it happen.
On the other side of the ideological divide we find David Horowitz's book, Unholy Alliance. Horowitz does not see the Bush administration as the main threat to world peace. Instead, he is worried about the survival and growth of the "Neo-Communist Left." And yes, the communists are still at their business - the business of world revolution; only they have a new strategy, a new political formation that explains, according to Horowitz "the otherwise inexplicable alliances that self-described progressives have made with Arab fascists and Islamic fanatics in their war against America and the West."
"In its inception," writes Horowitz, "Islamic radicalism was hostile to Communism and to its Western sources, but in the 1950s it began assimilating ideological influences with anti-American and anti-Western agendas." The Islamists who assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat had ties to the Soviet KGB. Many of the "Islamists" involved in an attempt to overthrow the Saudi monarchy in November 1979 were trained by the communist bloc. According to Yossef Bodansky, "These attackers included Communists in command positions who demonstrated excellent organizational and tactical skill." (Bin Laden, p. 7.)
Horowitz says that Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini melded traditional Islam and "the pivotal Marxist concept of a world divided into oppressors and oppressed." Here we find an ideological kinship with Soviet communism that explains the Iranian government's alliance with China, and its close relations with Russia. "By portraying his movement as a revolution of the oppressed," writes Horowitz, "the cleric Khomeini was able to rally the support of the political Left in Iran and abroad. Consequently, at its inception the Islamo-fascist regime was supported by both the Iranian Communist Party and the international 'progressive' Left."
It is useful, in this context, to quote Lenin: "The strictest loyalty to the ideas of communism must be combined with the ability to make all the necessary practical compromises, to 'tack,' to make agreements, zigzags, retreats, and so on, in order to accelerate the coming into power." Horowitz also says the neo-communist Left makes common cause with the Islamists because "religious belief is a response to the suffering caused by private property, and a mask that obscures its practical causes. The revolution that removes the cause of this suffering will also remove the religious beliefs it inspires. Thus, the liberation of mankind from private property - the defeat of America and Western capitalism - will liberate Islamic fanatics from the need to be Islamic and fanatic."
Given this analysis, what does Horowitz think of those - like Soros - who depict the Bush administration as a vulgar imperialist enterprise? "Iraq was the unfinished business of the Clinton administration," notes Horowitz. Saddam's violation of the 1991 truce is plain for all to see. President Clinton's use-of-force resolution against Iraq and call for "regime change" was passed both houses of Congress, with very little dissent. Therefore, those like George Soros and Michael Moore, who have worked diligently to destroy the credibility of President George W. Bush, are not as honest in their arguments as they pretend. Even the statements of weapons inspector David Kay have been twisted in an attempt to damage the president. But here is what David Kay actually said after he failed to locate large WMD stockpiles in Iraq: "We know there were terrorist groups in [Iraq] still seeking WMD capability. Although I found no weapons, Iraq had tremendous capabilities in this area. A marketplace phenomenon was about to occur ... sellers meeting buyers. And I think that would have been very dangerous if the war had not intervened."
Horowitz demonstrates that the president's critics are, in their arguments, selective with facts and dishonest in their overall presentation. The president's critics do not seem to care about America. With Marx they seem to say, "We are citizens of the world - not citizens of America." They are embarrassed by American nationalism. In its place they prefer internationalism. As for the open society of George Soros, it may be found in Eastern Europe and South Africa where his foundations promoted one deceptive liberalization after another. In Eastern Europe and South Africa the neo-communists dominate economically and politically through the not-yet-decayed structures of the KGB international. Despite lip service to openness, Soros appears to believe what Nikita Khrushchev believed: namely, that America is the imperialist aggressor; America is the threat to peace and therefore America should give up its place in the world. But as Horowitz explains at the end of his book, "if the United States did not exist, the Communist empire would be standing, the Taliban would rule Afghanistan, Saddam Hussein would be in power, and the world would be a place of infinitely greater cruelty, injustice, and tragedy than the world that confronts us today."
The invasion of Iraq was hotly debated at the outset. The problem with opposing the war was twofold: (1) Opposition to President Bush's foreign policy automatically aligns the opponent with the neo-communist Left and the conspiratorial right; (2) the objectionable character of Saddam Hussein's regime, which deserved to be liquidated. I do not understand those who make America the villain in a battle against Arab fascism and Islamic fanaticism. There are many things to criticize in America; but exaggerated critiques that hurt America's cause, or indirectly serve the cause of Asiatic despotism, are poorly considered. The policy of the United States may be erroneous or foolish. But America's policy is not imperialist in the predatory sense. Those who think otherwise simply do not understand America, the American spirit, or the character of George W. Bush.
