RUTHFULLY YOURS

JOHN HOWARD: FAILURE AND OPPORTUNITY

Posted By Ruth King on August 29th, 2014

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/failure-and-opportunity

A unique confluence of forces has arisen in the Middle East that represents an historic opportunity.  It will take vision, courage, and a willingness to cast aside traditional mistrust and enmity.  It will require inspirational leadership in religiously skeptical populations, but it represents the possibility of a final break from a colonialist past to an independent future.

In six short years, Barak Obama has squandered 60 years of assiduous diplomacy and expanding American influence in the Middle East.  For nearly a century, successive presidents, Republican and Democrat alike, carefully navigated the esoteric alleyways of shifting Middle Eastern politics to American advantage.  American primacy was solidified by the decline and collapse of the Soviet Union, leaving a uni-polar sphere of influence.  If there is one principle underlying Middle Eastern political culture, it is an acute sense of the importance and consequences of power and alliances. Until now, the sole exception in America’s policy continuum was Jimmy Carter, whose ideal driven incompetence was responsible, in large measure, for the rise of Islamic radicalism and the loss of one of our most reliable allies in the region.   &;

Anwar Sadat initiated Egypt’s gradual gravitation toward the United States and by the mid-1970’s, America’s reliable allies in the Middle East included all of the largest and richest nations in the region.   Carter’s craven abandonment of the Shah, though, revived regional instability and consigned Iran not only to the ranks of American enemies but the Iranian people to oppression far worse than any ever imposed by the Shah.  It also provided a home for Islamic radicalism, the intellectual and cultural foundations for fundamentalist Islamic revival and the subsequent rise of the organized Jihadis with whom the world has had to struggle ever since.

Self-righteousness is a particular conceit among American leftists who consistently undermine regimes allied with the United States if those regimes do not live up to their fastidious Enlightenment ideal.  That, truly, was the Carter Doctrine; one he stubbornly defends to this day despite its having been thoroughly discredited by history.  Given its massive failure and its dangerous implications for American international influence, it was largely thought to have been abandoned by subsequent administrations as a matter of American foreign policy.

Until now, of course.  Barak Obama assumed office bringing with him not only the sensibility of the resolute left but also its most dedicated proponents.  His election marked the revival of an overweening American international judgmentalism combined with a utopian world view that holds that the United States cannot preserve its high-minded moral presuppositions and, at the same time, support regimes that do not measure up to them.  This fundamental mistake has marked the decline of American influence and power in the Middle East even as it discredited American fortitude in the ‘60’s that prefigured a steep decline in American authority until President Reagan reasserted a muscular foreign policy in the’80’s. ;

With Obama’s precipitous retreat from American protective responsibilities to nations changed by its extended presence, Middle Eastern leaders began to suspect that we might not have their backs in an emergency.  The ugly abandonment of Mubarak by a credulous and callow president, though, in a fit of euphoria over a false dawn “Arab Spring” celebrated by a rhapsodic American media, confirmed our allies’ worst fears.  The United States was shown to be an inconstant friend and an unreliable ally.  If, after all, American foreign policy can take such dramatic u-turns with periodic changes in administration, how can foreign leaders make reasonable plans based on the assumption of reliable American support?

Obama’s abrupt change in foreign policy trajectory represented a striking departure from historical precedent.  With the exception of Carter, American foreign policy had largely been a continuum as both parties respected the unwritten rule that policy differences ended at water’s edge.  The decline in this consensus began with opposition to the war in Viet Nam and the subsequent seizure of the Democratic Party by anti-war leftists who brought with them a rejection of traditional liberal patriotism. But the result was to upset an important dynamic of American foreign policy: a stability that represented reliability to our partners.

It was not lost on our Middle Eastern allies.  Obama’s abdication of American leadership, whether a matter of ideology or mere incompetence, together will his willing abandonment of inconvenient friends, forced those who had relied upon our support and had, hence, been bulwarks of stability in an inherently unstable region, to begin to reevaluate their commitment to us.

The obvious example, of course, is Egypt, now thankfully under the watchful control of President al Sisi who better understands than this administration the extent to which his people are culturally capable of American style democratic institutions.  Having observed American betrayal of Mubarak, its impossibly naïve support of Morsi and its self-righteous criticism of al Sisi’s successful effort to return Egypt to stability, he has clearly concluded that the United States is undependable and has turned his attention elsewhere for support.  He has turned to Saudi Arabia and UAE for financial and moral support, for example, and to Russia for advanced weaponry, thus reviving Russia as a player in a region where its influence had largely disappeared.

Obama’s absence from Libya foreshadowed an American withdrawal from leadership.  His extended indecision in Syria signaled a moral paralysis and not only abandoned those who might have come closest to serving American interests in that country, but alienated loyal friends in the region who expected a united front in opposition to the flowering of Iranian adventurism and the expansion of its influence.  Obama’s dithering was compounded by his imposition of a “red line” he spinelessly failed to enforce. That enabled Russia to insert itself as the adult in the room to deal with Syrian chemical weapons no one really believes have been seized and destroyed, despite triumphal Russian announcements to the contrary.

The result is the rolling disaster in Syria, the undoing of American achievement in Iraq, bought so dearly in blood and treasure, the unraveling of American influence not only in that nation but in the entire region and the establishment and enormous growth of a burgeoning Islamist caliphate; the new safe haven for Islamic radicalism.  We are left with meekly asking Iran – Iran! – to help solidify an Iraqi government that, at best, will serve as yet another Iranian client state; a further increase of Iranian power at the expense of a concomitant diminution of the strength of our allies in the region.

All of this has not gone unremarked by our Middle Eastern allies.  Saudi Arabia has said its relationship with the United States is in a “process of evolution”.   America has positioned itself in opposition to its Arab allies in dispute after dispute and leaders from those nations are now sufficiently emboldened to publicly criticize American policy.  Apart from pious rote shibboleths in support of Israel designed more for American Jewish audiences than as any real expression of support for Israel itself, Obama has repeatedly undermined Israeli interests in the Middle East and elsewhere.  Israel has no place at any critical table in greater Middle Eastern policy.  It is united with the Saudis and others in their appreciation of exclusion by this administration. It has clearly telegraphed that it is understands that it is largely on its own and that it cannot depend on American support on the big issues.

In this, though, Mr. Obama may have inadvertently pushed our Middle Eastern allies into an important historical opportunity.  It remains to be seen whether those allies can take advantage of the American retreat from leadership.  The Middle East abhors a political vacuum and the exigencies of existential threat combined with the traditional view that “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”, should prompt the coalescing of a regional alliance in opposition to Iranian expansionism and the horrific Islamist rampage unfolding in Iraq.  The alliance could stabilize the region, solidify power relationships and make American influence even less relevant than it is today.  The benefit, though, would be regional self-determination.

Israel and Egypt have already normalized relations despite the threat the late Morsi administration represented to that relationship.   It is increasingly clear that Saudi Arabia and UAE perceive that their interests align with those of Israel with respect to Islamic radicalism and its Iranian sponsors as well as the continuing festering sore of Palestinian irresponsibility.  Until recently, Turkey and Israel enjoyed cordial contacts.  With European and American influence, their current estrangement could be bridged, especially if it were made clear that the result would be a power block that could dominate the region and, from the US perspective, that failure to do so would have unhappy trade consequences.  An alliance of Saudi Arabia, the richest nation, Egypt, the most populous nation, Israel, the most economically dynamic and technologically advanced nation, together with Turkey, Jordan, UAE and Kuwait would create a second regional pole of power that would isolate Iran and Syria and contain further Iranian expansion.

Ancient enmity will be hard to overcome. But current Arab impatience with Palestinian intransigence, Iranian adventurism and growing Islamic radicalism have already created an opening for Saudi Arabia and Israel to bridge the chasm of mistrust to fashion a necessary alliance to fill the void left by a diffident American administration. The question is, is there a Begin in Israel? Is there a Sadat in Saudi Arabia?

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