Neoconservatives on Foreign Policy: The War on Nuance

As Eric points out, what is probably the most instructive aspect of the candidates’ differences on Iraq is what it shows about their strategic worldview. Obama’s early and continued opposition to the second invasion of Iraq demonstrates his larger rejection of the Bush Doctrine as a whole. McCain, no doubt unwilling to publicly agree with President Bush’s policies and their corresponding unpopularity, has been much less vocal, but his speeches indicate that he is in at least partial agreement with the Bush Doctrine. Furthermore, McCain’s pattern of impulsive decision making (last minute selection of Sarah Palin as a running mate, his campaign “suspension” and flip-flops over whether or not to debate at all Friday night, to name a few of the most recent examples) lends weight to suspicions that President McCain would happily continue the disastrous Bush foreign policy.

The cornerstone of the Bush Doctrine, and the neoconservative worldview as a whole, is a distorted worldview terrifyingly short of perspective, history, and context. Eric reminds us that the “War on Terror” didn’t start with 9/11, and points out terrorist attacks on the USA during the 1990s

Actually, Eric doesn’t go back far enough in time. The terrorists of the 1990s were not attacking Americans for no reason at all, or because they hated freedom. On the contrary, America has a bipartisan history of bungling, selfish policies in the Middle East that helped create the situation we’re in today. Since World War II, American foreign policy has rested on the principle of backing countries whose leaders were friendly to us, regardless of how they treated their people. In most of the world, this meant supporting anti-Communist crooks like Batista in 1950s Cuba and Chiang Kai Shek in pre 1949 China, both cases that soured our relations with those nations when popular Communist regimes that were somewhat more humanitarian towards their own people took power. In the Middle East, this realpolitik strategy meant supporting pro-American dictators instead of Arab Nationalists or Muslim Fundamentalists. The classic case was in Iran, where America backed the highly oppressive Shah (King) who was finally overthrown in 1979 by Islamic revolutionaries. Although with hindsight, their theocratic oppression seems worse than the Shah’s secular brand, the revolutionaries of 1979 were responding to many legitimate grievances and offering relative freedom to many Iranians. Since America had helped the Shah to obtain power via coup, and backed his military forces that kept him on the throne, the US was seen as an enemy to Iran, leading to the burning of the American embassy and that famous hostage crisis.

Responding to the threat from Iran, America supplied weapons to Saddam Hussein, who's dictatorship in Iraq was seen as a useful spoiler to Iranian power in the region. The bloody war instigated by Saddam against Iran lasted for most of the 1980s. By the time it was over, millions were dead. Meanwhile, America had given weapons to Iran as well, deciding that it was best to keep both nations fighting each other, cynically betting that they’d be too busy to bother America while they were slaughtering each other. Obviously, when word of this leaked out, American standing in the region fell considerably.

America’s national image is not only tarnished for our unwarranted invasion of Iraq, but for all the other cynical interventions and misadventures carried out by presidents of both parties over the years. Anyone who is surprised people dislike America needs to read their history.

That covers two of the members Bush’s “Axis of Evil.” Leaving aside North Korea for the time being, Afghanistan should be mentioned. Eric is correct that the Clinton administration did not take the opportunity to nab Osama Bin Laden in Sudan during the 1990s when it could have. But the Bush administration is responsible for ignoring the memos left by the Clinton policymakers warning that Bin Laden was the #1 threat to US security in 2001. Instead, Bush’s cabinet myopically focused on China until 9/11. Worse, Bush is guilty of obsessing over Iraq when in reality it had nothing to do with Al Qaeda. Islamists like Bin Laden and secular thugs like Saddam do not get along. But it’s probably too much to expect such subtleness from an administration that invented the Axis of Evil. The kindergarten simplicity of linking the mortal enemies of Iran and Iraq together with Kim Jong Il’s crackpot regime is stupefying, though typical.

As far as Eric’s claim that “wars in Iraq and Afghanistan produced more tangible results” than anywhere else turns logic on its head. The reasons Iran and North Korea are able to pursue nuclear weapons more freely now is because America got entangled in the ridiculous sideshow that is Iraq. We’ve severely harmed our moral authority by invading an independent country—however mean their leader was—without sufficient proof of danger. We’re too busy to effectively threaten Iran and North Korea now, and much of the world is busy pointing that out. How can we tell the Russians to stay out of Georgia with a straight face? Not being a blatant hypocrite is a big advantage in foreign policy. Eric mentions the crisis in Darfur. Had America not been involved in Iraq, we could have intervened in Darfur for humanitarian reasons, doing a good deed and clamping down on a country that breeds terrorism.

The choice of Barack Obama as president would represent a break with the almost unprecedentedly stupid policies of the Bush administration, and perhaps a break with the diplomacy of the post World War II era. Having a president who admits when America screws up, as every country does sometimes, would go a long way toward repairing the American image abroad. It would also put a man in the White House who understands that you can’t fight international terrorism by alienating most of the world through arrogance and stupidity, and that you need a sophisticated, subtle strategy to fight Al Qaeda, not the crude, bludgeoning tactics of the over simplistic neoconservatives. The Bush approach failed, and we need a chief executive who can appreciate that and move on.

Eric covered a great deal in his last post, and I’ve said a lot here, so I’ll respond to the rest of his comments about Europe, NATO and the UN in a separate post.

In the meantime, register to vote, people! The deadline in most states is between October 4 and 7.

-Ian