French Intellectuals, American Pragmatists and Libya

I watched the Charlie Rose Show last night. Bernard-Henri Levy and Leslie Gelb were debating whether America and the West should have intervened in Libya.

Gelb, a former New York Times journalist and currently president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, is not one of my favorites, but his position is always clear and generally pessimistic.

BHL the leftist French philosopher and writer whom I've written about before here, always chooses optimism over pessimism.

So, you have the outline. BHL is firmly of the opinion that Free Libya will prevail, that Gadhaffi and his family will be defeated, and that the Arab Spring, generally, will succeed.

Gelb’s opinion was that the Arab Spring, and Libya in particular, are very likely to fail, although he hopes they don’t.

There isn’t anything very startling about these positions, but as the debate played out, I was very surprised that BHL spoke with admiration of the American effort in Libya, and said France and America have common values and goals - in Libya and overall.

Gelb jumped on that with his “we should never put boots on the ground” in Libya or anywhere else in the Arab world again.

BHL said, “I had my own boots on the ground last week in Libya, and they will be on the ground again soon. Let me give you a little information. Gadhaffi will fall without our boots, because he is much weaker than we understand and his regime will collapse of its own weight."

Gelb was adamant, and Charlie Rose finally asked the third guest of the evening, Ben Wedeman, the CNN senior correspondent in the Middle East talking by camera from Cairo, to settle the debate.

Wedeman agreed with Bernard-Henri Levy. He said that Tripoli lacks fuel, food and almost everything else. He feels, as does BHL, that Gadhaffi cannot prevail.   

I like to see the French win. They are true republicans and their intellectuals are more serious than most, including America’s, if there is actually any group that could be called American intellectuals.

While pragmatic America builds armies, intellectual France builds thought. Obviously, the armies are often more useful, but thought is immensely powerful, in the long haul.