There’s more to the Obama presidency than Obamacare. While
the president’s signature program twists in the wind and while the Republicans
are actively damaging themselves, the world continues to turn.
Today, three seasoned foreign policy experts, David
Ignatius, Fouad Ajami and Leslie Gelb want us to examine to the
Obama administration’s calamitous Middle Eastern foreign policy.
Such issues are lacking in visible drama, so they never
really make the evening news. Yet, it is best to pay heed before they become
worse.
Last week Saudi Arabia declined a place on the United
Nations Security Council and declared that it was sending a message to
the United States. The Saudis have long been displeased by the Obama foreign
policy in the region. Now they are putting their displeasure on the world
diplomatic stage.
David Ignatius described how the relationship soured when America
turned against Hosni Mubarak during the so-called Arab Spring. Saudi
displeasure was noted at the time, but the administration did not feel a need
to do very much about it. Further administration actions confirmed Saudi
suspicions:
Writing in the Washington
Post Ignatius said:
The bad
feeling that developed after Mubarak’s ouster deepened month by month: The U.S.
supported Morsi’s election as president; opposed a crackdown by the monarchy in
Bahrain against Shiites protesters; cut aid to the Egyptian military after it
toppled Morsi and crushed the Brotherhood; promised covert aid to the Syrian
rebels it never delivered; threatened to bomb Syria and then allied with
Russia, instead; and finally embarked on a diplomatic opening to Iran, Saudi
Arabia’s deadly rival in the Gulf.
Ignatius explained that the concern is not just coming from
Riyadh:
What
should worry the Obama administration is that Saudi concern about U.S. policy
in the Middle East is shared by the four other traditional U.S. allies in the
region: Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Israel. They argue (mostly
privately) that Obama has shredded U.S. influence by dumping President Hosni
Mubarak in Egypt, backing the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi, opposing the
coup that toppled Morsi, vacillating in its Syria policy, and now embarking on
negotiations with Iran — all without consulting close Arab allies.
It’s a portrait of a dangerous incompetence.
Fouad Ajami also sounded a cautionary note in the Wall Street Journal. He noted that Saudi Arabia and other states in the
region are frightened by Obama’s willingness to negotiate with Iran. For them,
and for Ajami, the problem dates to before the Arab Spring. It began with the
administration’s failure to support the 2009 Democracy protests in Iran.
In Ajami’s words:
The
promised "opening" to Iran, the pass given to Bashar Assad's tyranny
in Syria, the abdication of the American gains in Iraq and a reflexive unease
with Israel—these were hallmarks of the new president's approach to foreign
policy.
Now we
are simply witnessing the alarming consequences of such a misguided, naïve
outlook.
When
antiregime protests roiled Iran in Mr. Obama's first summer as president, he
stood locked in the vacuum of his own ideas. He remained aloof as the Green
Movement defied prohibitive odds to challenge the theocracy. The protesters had
no friend in Mr. Obama. He was dismissive, vainly hoping that the cruel rulers
would accept the olive branch he had extended to them.
No one
asked the fledgling American president to dispatch U.S. forces into the streets
of Tehran, but the indifference he displayed to the cause of Iranian freedom
was a strategic and moral failure.
For remaining silent and allowing the mullahs to crush the
protesters, Obama received exactly nothing. Ajami described an administration
whose own misguided ideas are blinding it to the realities on the ground:
The
gullibility of Mr. Obama's pursuit of an opening with Iran has unsettled
America's allies in the region. In Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates there is a powerful feeling of abandonment. In Israel, there is the
bitter realization that America's strongest ally in region is now made to look
like the final holdout against a blissful era of compromise that will calm a
turbulent region. A sound U.S. diplomatic course with Iran would never have run
so far ahead of Israel's interests and of the region's moderate anti-Iranian
Arab coalition.
Leslie Gelb also sounded a note of alarm in The Daily Beast. While he left open the
possibility that Prince Bandar was sending a wake-up call to the
administration, he agreed that we are watching a major foreign policy failure:
Prince
Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi Intelligence Chief, told European diplomats that
Saudi Arabia would make a “major shift” in policy away from the United States.
This bombshell was leaked by an unnamed source. Still, it should have triggered
eruptions in Washington. After all, the mighty oil rich Kingdom and investor in
the American economy has been a mainstay of U.S. policy in the Mideast for over
half a century. So, why the silence?
Where Ajami saw the administration following its own basic,
though misguided and naïve principles, Gelb suggested that the nations in the
region are looking away from America because they see Obama’s policy as
incoherent.
In Gelb’s words:
Neither
the Saudis nor other Arab states (nor, in fact, Israel) understand Obama’s
Mideast policy—and that’s the heart of the problem. That’s what is truly
spooking them. Obama and his minions have been all over the lot. Arab leaders
were, frankly, shocked that Obama had far more contact with Mohamed Morsi, the
recently-overthrown Muslim Brotherhood President of Egypt, than Obama had with
any other Arab leaders. They were happy when Washington ousted Colonel Gaddafi
of Libya, and then unnerved when Washington simply walked away from the
resulting chaos and extremism. And they certainly have not been reassured by
what Washington has been telling them about its talks with Iran. For Secretary
of State Kerry and others to simply say that the U.S. won’t make any agreement
with Iran that endangers America’s allies in the region sounds to them like
blowing hot air. Arab leaders have no idea where Obama administration leaders
think they are going in relations with Tehran.
Unfortunately, Gelb sees the failure as endemic to the Obama
administration approach to foreign policy:
The
absence of an Obama strategy in the Mideast, and indeed in other parts of the
world, is truly nothing new. This U.S. President has not had a clear and
compelling strategy on most international issues and regions, in the opinion of
most foreign leaders. The White House can and does deny this, but it will
continue to be so at its own peril and the peril of the United States. Obama
has got to provide a compelling overview for what he is trying to do throughout
this explosive region of the world. Prince Bandar’s leak—and the hundreds of
conversations along similar lines—reflect two facts: Arab leaders are spooked
by U.S. indecision and lack of clarity, and they are trying to spook America
into getting its act together.
Ignatius, Ajami and Gelb are simultaneously drawing out
attention to events that everyone is ignoring. We do well to pay heed.
1 comment:
Concur with Gelb. If (IF!) there really is a policy, it's either bad or badly implemented, or both. On the other hand, Benghazi Barry does want the US to be unexceptional, so this could be a part of that.
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