Rejecting the Obama Foreign Policy Vision

Few commentators have paid very much attention to writer Ben Judah’s repudiation of his former worldview. They have made a mistake. In a world filled with ninnies screaming that the sky is falling and that Trump and Trumpism are destroying the world, Judah counts as one of the very few who has rejected his formerly held Obama view of the world and the Middle East. He has rejected the liberal idealism of Obamaphiliacs and has seen that the strongman diplomacy practiced by Bibi Netanyahu and various other players on the world stage has prevailed.

The arc of history is not bending toward democracy or justice. It is bending toward more authoritarian rulers. You may like it. You may hate it. But, Judah stands out for having the integrity to examine Middle Eastern geopolitics dispassionately and for having the courage to admit that he was wrong. He wrote about his change of mind in The Atlantic.

He begins by setting out his previous, now discredited beliefs, beginning with the one that posited the centrality of the Palestinian question.

Without a resolution to the Palestinian question, the arc of history was supposed to have bent toward consigning Israel to pariah status—not this.

Judah continues to explain that his theory of history has failed, and not just him. He frankly repudiates the Obamafied vision of the world:

My theory of history had failed me. Back when Bibi was elected in 2009, I believed fervently that Obama was on the right side of history—and that Netanyahu, and Israel, were destined to suffer for their failure to reach a just settlement with the Palestinians.

I was convinced that Obama and yet more Obama was the future of Western politics; that demographic and generational change would lead, inevitably, to a more liberal, less Israel-friendly approach. Bibi, it was clear to me, was endangering the future of his country by resisting.

Judah’s theory told him that Israel would need to surrender to Palestinian terrorism. He joined notable cowards like Peter Beinart in calling for Jews to boycott Jewish settlements, the better to precipitate unilateral surrender:

I was frightened. Taking my lead from the late David Landau, the former editor in chief of the newspaper Haaretz, I believed that unless Israel made painful, unilateral sacrifices, all would be lost. I even felt that it was the duty of the Jewish diaspora to wake Israel up to this inevitable tomorrow. Like Peter Beinart, I advocated boycotts of settler leaders and their produce.

What was wrong with Obama’s theory of history? For one, Judah continues, it did not factor in the influence of non-Western nations. It continued to see a diminished and weakened Western Europe as a major player and ignored China and Russia. Many critics of President Trump are also saying that we need to have strong alliances with nations led by weak-kneed leaders like Theresa May, Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel:

What I hadn’t realized, especially at the time, was that the Obama theory of history was only about the West. Not only did it have nothing to say about China, it also dismissed Vladimir Putin as some kind of throwback—a “19th-century” phenomenon, to quote Obama’s secretary of state, John Kerry—destined to swift irrelevance. It still has nothing to say about the bloodbath that followed the Arab revolutions, or about the strongmen, not the democrats, consolidating power across the Middle East. There was not supposed to be any future for authoritarian capitalism.

He continues:

The West matters so much less. Redrawing the Middle East will no longer come at the wish of the Western bourgeoisie. The great wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen have broken the influence of the Oslo powers. Britain is out, Russia is in. The Europeans are finished, and Saudi Arabia and its quest to stop Iran is what now matters most. The next “peace photo” will feature strongmen in flowing robes, not the heirs of Jimmy Carter.

Netanyahu and even Trump saw the world as it is. Former ballet dancer and aspiring novelist Ben Rhodes, Obama’s foreign policy brain, missed it completely:

Obama saw the “world as it is,” his former adviser Ben Rhodes has claimed. But actually, it was Bibi who saw it more clearly. The “democrats” like Mohammed Morsi and Tayyip Erdogan in whom Obama initially saw signs of hope are now either in jail or autocrats themselves. The Middle East is not democratizing. And this means any peace Israel makes will be made with strongmen, and must be guaranteed by them, in a region the West no longer controls.

Now, Obama is history and the Trump vision of Middle Eastern politics ascends. It is a triumph for the diplomacy practiced by Netanyahu. Keep in mind, Obama treated the Israeli prime minister with contempt. Judah explains:

The U.S. embassy has transferred to Jerusalem. A slew of other nations have moved to support some or all of Israel’s claims to the city, including Guatemala, Brazil, the Czech Republic, and even Australia. Meanwhile, the threat of a common anti-Israel European foreign policy, sanctions and all, has imploded so utterly that Bibi can snub Federica Mogherini, the bloc’s foreign envoy, as though she were an irritating pro-Iranian NGO chief—then play the lavish host to Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian strongman.

And also:

And there is more: the love-in with India; senior Chinese officials flying in; not-so-secret talks, and even coordination, with Saudi Arabia; photo ops with the sultan of Oman; regular audiences with Vladimir Putin. And all with not even a hint of the peace process or pressure over settlements. Israel, it seems, is paying no price for its treatment of the Palestinians.

Obama was wrong. Judah had the courage to see that he too was wrong:

There is no pariah status for Israel. Instead, the right is ascendant across the EU, and national-populist leaders are parading to Jerusalem. Having assiduously cultivated the backlash, Bibi has expertly navigated Israel among the strongmen….

Only watching from Jerusalem, keeping a tab on his visits and his visitors, can you see just how successful Bibi has been. Never before have the leaders of Russia, Brazil, India, Saudi Arabia, the Philippines, and now Italy had such strong ties with Israel. Never before have they seen the leader that sits in Jerusalem as indispensable to their objectives. And this, not John Kerry’s “solutions,” has earned the respect of the strongmen who now rule from Cairo to Ankara to Pakistan.

What happened to those who bought the Obama vision of world history? Like Justin Trudeau, for example:

Obama’s heirs are the ones who now seem isolated: cut down to size on the world stage. The history that I thought was inevitable is fringe. Justin Trudeau is a delightful, charming, and marginal figure while Emmanuel Macron is already yesterday’s tomorrow. I would have wanted an Israel to please them both, but I can no longer pretend to myself that Israel needs to do so.

He concludes that Western liberals are missing the point:

But trapped in debates about Trump and Brexit, liberals have missed how fast the world has changed since their era ended. The West matters so much less. Redrawing the Middle East will no longer come at the wish of the Western bourgeoisie. The great wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen have broken the influence of the Oslo powers. Britain is out, Russia is in. The Europeans are finished, and Saudi Arabia and its quest to stop Iran is what now matters most. The next “peace photo” will feature strongmen in flowing robes, not the heirs of Jimmy Carter.