Hosted by Faisal Al Yafai
Featuring Shadi Hamid
Produced by Finbar Anderson
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Shadi Hamid has not always been an advocate for American power. “I was an anti-war activist post-9/11,” the author and political scientist tells New Lines’ Faisal Al Yafai on The Lede. “The Iraq War seemed like such an obviously stupid thing, and it made me angry and I organized around that. It was a big part of how I became politicized.”
Nevertheless, Hamid has undergone a political conversion over recent years, culminating in his latest book, “The Case For American Power.” “I’ll always be a fierce critic of American foreign policy in different ways, but I also realize that there is no other option than American power,” he tells Al Yafai. “Power is a fact. Someone has to wield it, and the only question is who. In some sense, my book, it’s not the case for American power as much as it’s a case for American power — a particular understanding of the American idea.”
“Power is a fact. Someone has to wield it, and the only question is who.”
Drawing on ideas set out in his previous book, “The Problem of Democracy,” Hamid acknowledges American hypocrisy in regions like the Middle East. “Americans say they like democracy, but when they see what democracy produces in the Middle East, they say, ‘Well, wait a second. Islamist parties are the ones who are winning, the Muslim Brotherhood keeps on coming out on top. And that tension is at the heart of why America has struggled so much in the Middle East,” he says.
Al Yafai remains skeptical, telling Hamid, “ American military power is a real thing. It has the ability to act in the world. What difference does it make why it does so, or what values we ascribe to it? It’s still going to do it.”
Hamid is clear that he’s not advocating a continuation of the status quo. “What I’m trying to offer here is a roadmap to thinking about American power in a different way,” he says. “I want people to love America and to believe in it and to want it to be better. It doesn’t mean whitewashing our sins, it means acknowledging our sins and trying to be better than we were before. That is the promise of America.”
While previous guests on the podcast, such as Omar El Akkad, have argued that Gaza could mark the end of the U.S.-led global order, Hamid suggests instead that it could be a turning point. “I want Gaza to be seen as a kind of before and after,” he says. “I think Gaza can force a new generation to think differently about what America’s purpose in the world is.”
His drive to believe in something better drives Hamid forward. “In some sense, America is almost like a faith. It’s like an idea that we commit to. Even if the idea falls short, it doesn’t mean that the idea was wrong.”