Monthly Archives: February 2011
What we should do in the Middle East, or not
There have been suggestions that we take an “active” role.
William Kristol in yesterday’s Washington Post, seems to think that our President isn’t doing enough to support the democratic upheavals in Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, and Libya. What’s happening in Libya in particular with Qaddafi setting his troops, mercenaries and thugs to shoot down his own people, is particularly nasty and bloody. Kristol apparently thinks that we should provide overt and covert help to the democratic movement there, maybe even resort to force.
This means more than speeches – though speaking out would be a start. It means aggressive efforts, covert and overt, direct and indirect, to help the liberals – in the old sense of the word – in the Middle East. It means considering the use of force when force is used to kill innocent civilians. It means a full-scale engagement of the U.S. government, an across-the-board effort with allies and international organizations, a real focus on the challenge these times present.
He wants Obama to seize the moment and turn it to our advantage. He makes no suggestion that as we’re in the middle of 2 other wars and a deep recession, where and how we might find the resources for such a project, but he is convinced that it is in our interest to do so. I believe he is dead wrong. If the people of the Middle Eastern countries that want a more democratic rule want it badly enough to rise up against their rulers, it is time for the US to give moral support but allow those people to finally take ownership of their own destinies on their own terms. Adding another quagmire in Libya on top of the trillions we’re already spending in Iraq and Afghanistan would probably be the financial ruin of us. For just 10% of the world’s oil, it just isn’t worth it. Moral support and advice when asked will be enough. Egyptians, Tunisians, Bahrainis, and Libyans have a right to determine their own destinies without our meddling. Interventionists should sit on their hands and shut their mouths.
Even Dana Millbank goes on about the White House being “Passive” in the face of the changes taking place, but he says little about what the President ought to be doing. Active, aggressive American action in the rest of the world has always brought us nothing but trouble, both here and in the countries involved. It is time for all the commentators to understand that we have no “right” to interfere in the affairs of other nations. At best we can work around the edges with persuasion and other non-military resources. We’ve been doing our best to push the arabs and others around for years with an “active, aggressive” interventionist policy, and where has it gotten us? The result has been terrorism and ordinary people who hate the way we behave towards them. It’s long past the time to try something else.
Obama’s seeming passivity may be just the right approach at the moment, giving the people of those countries time to figure things out for themselves. They are much more likely to end up with enduring, stable, democratic societies, if we stay out of the manipulative role that western governments have practiced for centuries. The promoters of “active” engagement should go and read Washington’s farewell address again, and learn it by heart. While the French helped us with our Revolution, they did so for reasons other than promoting a democratic government on this side of the Atlantic. Their own rivalries with others in Europe made them attempt to seek a balance of power.
US Failure?
Obama is getting it from all sides.
It’s so easy to criticize, and it seems that the overturning of Mubarak has made it the perfect week for all the assembled pundits to call it Obama’s fault and his failure. Writing in Newsweek, Niall Ferguson puts most of the blame on white House national Security advisor James Jones, who comes off badly in Ferguson’s comparison with Kissinger because Jones developed no “grand Strategic Design”. That kind of design belongs to the Imperial past, and it seems to me that Ferguson doesn’t seem to understand that the world had already changed even before the failure of the Bush era policies.
He’s pretty harsh:
Grand strategy is all about the necessity of choice. Today, it means choosing between a daunting list of objectives: to resist the spread of radical Islam, to limit Iran’s ambition to become dominant in the Middle East, to contain the rise of China as an economic rival, to guard against a Russian “reconquista” of Eastern Europe—and so on. The defining characteristic of Obama’s foreign policy has been not just a failure to prioritize, but also a failure to recognize the need to do so. A succession of speeches saying, in essence, “I am not George W. Bush” is no substitute for a strategy.
The problem with this kind of thinking is that it doesn’t recognize that what got us into trouble in the Middle East and radical Islam is exactly the “grand strategy” that Ferguson is so keen to bring back. The Age of Empire is over, at least the way that Bismark and Kissinger, so admired by Ferguson and others, envisioned it. Since the end of the Second World War, America has tried hard to replace all the controllers of colonial empires with itself driving a devil’s bargain between our promises to ourselves and our ways of behaving in the world beyond our shores. In the name of “safety” we have propped up too many unsavory dictators to count. We made fearful boogie men out of communists or any other leftists who just might want to threaten us, whether they did in reality or not. We overturned democratically elected governments all over the world in the name of safety from the “boogieman”. It made us as hated by the oppressed as the rulers of the former colonies and showed us to be hypocritical seekers of world domination. Now we have substituted al-Qaeda, Hamas, Iran, and the Muslim Brotherhood as the bogiemen of the 21st century. We are no more correct now in our estimation of so-called threats than we were about the “Communist Menace”. Our politicians have played on our fears for so long that the paranoia has become deeply ingrained even in places like the State Department as seen by Clinton’s instinct to follow the same old line with Israel and the other Middle Eastern autocrats by sending Frank Wisner as a special representative, and hiring thugs like Raymond A. Davis to play deadly off-the-books contractor spy games in Pakistan and elsewhere.
When liberals like Juan Cole see Obama’s reaction to events in Egypt as weak and indecisive, there’s something wrong with American perceptions of reality. What could Obama have done about a popular revolt against a brutal autocrat? What would a Grand Strategy have done but resort once more to force making the situation worse. It’s time for the elites of the world to begin listening to what their people are really saying, and what they are saying all over the Arab-speaking parts of the world is that they want freedoms long denied them by their leaders and by us. It’s long past the time for the “yankee” to “go home”. We can deal and trade with the rest of the world, but we need to do so fairly and without the implicit condescension that has been so apparent. Israel may have to learn to survive on its own, or not. They are no longer victims of anyone’s oppression, but oppressors themselves of those who do not belong to their exclusive religious club. They too, will stand or fall by their respect (or lack of it) for the humanity of others.
Will the Generals Steal the Revolution?
What do you think?
There is discouraging news about Egypt in the Guardian today:
The ruling military council said it intends to retain power for six months or longer while elections are scheduled and will rule by decree. It suspended the constitution and said a committee will draw up amendments that will be put to a referendum. It also dissolved the widely discredited parliament, elected in a tainted ballot last year.In a sign that the army will only tolerate a limited challenge to its power, it is expected to issue a communique on Monday saying that it will crack down on those creating “chaos and disorder” as well as effectively banning strikes.
That definitely sounds like the begining of martial law. The protesters may be in worse trouble than they think, as what could easily come next is a military dictator who could well be worse than Mubarak ever was. Those who celebrate the “victory” of the protesters had better watch and wait. People power had best be ready to return to protest. The army has not invited any to become part of its new “government” and many of the former corrupt and dictatorial members of Mubarak’s regime are still in place. Also watch how the influence of wealthy is deployed behind the scenes to the disadvantage of the people.