That Failed Grand Strategy in the Middle East. By Walter Russell Mead. Wall Street Journal, August 23, 2013. Also here.
WRM in WSJ: Obama’s Failed Grand Strategy. By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, August 24, 2013.
America’s march of folly in the Middle East continues. By Abraham Ben-Zvi. Israel Hayom, August 23, 2013.
Mead:
In the
beginning, the Hebrew Bible tells us, the universe was all “tohu wabohu,” chaos
and tumult. This month the Middle East seems to be reverting to that primeval
state: Iraq continues to unravel, the Syrian War grinds on with violence
spreading to Lebanon and allegations of chemical attacks this week, and Egypt
stands on the brink of civil war with the generals crushing the Muslim
Brotherhood and street mobs torching churches. Turkey’s prime minister, once
widely hailed as President Obama's best friend in the region, blames Egypt's
violence on the Jews; pretty much everyone else blames it on the U.S.
The
Obama administration had a grand strategy in the Middle East. It was well
intentioned, carefully crafted and consistently pursued.
Unfortunately,
it failed.
The
plan was simple but elegant: The U.S. would work with moderate Islamist groups
like Turkey’s AK Party and Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood to make the Middle East
more democratic. This would kill three birds with one stone. First, by aligning
itself with these parties, the Obama administration would narrow the gap
between the “moderate middle” of the Muslim world and the U.S. Second, by
showing Muslims that peaceful, moderate parties could achieve beneficial
results, it would isolate the terrorists and radicals, further marginalizing
them in the Islamic world. Finally, these groups with American support could
bring democracy to more Middle Eastern countries, leading to improved economic
and social conditions, gradually eradicating the ills and grievances that drove
some people to fanatical and terroristic groups.
President
Obama (whom I voted for in 2008) and his team hoped that the success of the new
grand strategy would demonstrate once and for all that liberal Democrats were
capable stewards of American foreign policy. The bad memories of the Lyndon
Johnson and Jimmy Carter presidencies would at last be laid to rest; with the
public still unhappy with George W. Bush’s foreign policy troubles, Democrats
would enjoy a long-term advantage as the party most trusted by voters to steer
the country through stormy times.
It is
much too early to anticipate history’s verdict on the Obama administration’s
foreign policy; the president has 41 months left in his term, and that is more
than enough for the picture in the Middle East to change drastically once
again. Nevertheless, to get a better outcome, the president will have to change
his approach.
With
the advantages of hindsight, it appears that the White House made five big
miscalculations about the Middle East. It misread the political maturity and
capability of the Islamist groups it supported; it misread the political
situation in Egypt; it misread the impact of its strategy on relations with
America’s two most important regional allies (Israel and Saudi Arabia); it
failed to grasp the new dynamics of terrorist movements in the region; and it
underestimated the costs of inaction in Syria.
America’s
Middle East policy in the past few years depended on the belief that relatively
moderate Islamist political movements in the region had the political maturity
and administrative capability to run governments wisely and well. That proved
to be half-true in the case of Turkey’s AK Party: Until fairly recently Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whatever mistakes he might make, seemed to be
governing Turkey in a reasonably effective and reasonably democratic way. But
over time, the bloom is off that rose. Mr. Erdogan’s government has arrested
journalists, supported dubious prosecutions against political enemies,
threatened hostile media outlets and cracked down crudely on protesters.
Prominent members of the party leadership look increasingly unhinged, blaming
Jews, telekinesis and other mysterious forces for the growing troubles it
faces.
Things
have reached such a pass that the man President Obama once listed as one of his
five best friends among world leaders and praised as “an outstanding partner
and an outstanding friend on a wide range of issues” is now being condemned by
the U.S. government for “offensive” anti-Semitic charges that Israel was behind
the overthrow of Egypt’s President Mohammed Morsi.
Compared
with Mr. Morsi, however, Mr. Erdogan is a Bismarck of effective governance and
smart policy. Mr. Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood were quite simply not ready
for prime time; they failed to understand the limits of their mandate, fumbled
incompetently with a crumbling economy and governed so ineptly and erratically
that tens of millions of Egyptians cheered on the bloody coup that threw them
out.
Tinfoil-hat
conspiracy theorists and incompetent bumblers make a poor foundation for
American grand strategy. We would have done business with the leaders of Turkey
and Egypt under almost any circumstances, but to align ourselves with these
movements hasn’t turned out to be wise.
The
White House, along with much of the rest of the American foreign policy world,
made another key error in the Middle East: It fundamentally misread the nature
of the political upheaval in Egypt. Just as Thomas Jefferson mistook the French
Revolution for a liberal democratic movement like the American Revolution, so
Washington thought that what was happening in Egypt was a “transition to
democracy.” That was never in the cards.
What
happened in Egypt was that the military came to believe that an aging President
Hosni Mubarak was attempting to engineer the succession of his son, turning
Egypt from a military republic to a dynastic state. The generals fought back;
when unrest surged, the military stood back and let Mr. Mubarak fall. The
military, incomparably more powerful than either the twittering liberals or the
bumbling Brotherhood, has now acted to restore the form of government Egypt has
had since the 1950s. Now most of the liberals seem to understand that only the
military can protect them from the Islamists, and the Islamists are learning
that the military is still in charge. During these events, the Americans and
Europeans kept themselves endlessly busy and entertained trying to promote a
nonexistent democratic transition.
The
next problem is that the Obama administration misread the impact that its
chosen strategies would have on relations with Israel and Saudi Arabia—and
underestimated just how miserable those two countries can make America’s life
in the Middle East if they are sufficiently annoyed.
The
break with Israel came early. In those unforgettable early days when President
Obama was being hailed by the press as a new Lincoln and Roosevelt, the White
House believed that it could force Israel to declare a total settlement freeze
to restart negotiations with the Palestinians. The resulting flop was President
Obama’s first big public failure in foreign policy. It would not be the last.
(For the past couple of years, the administration has been working to repair
relations with the Israelis; as one result, the peace talks that could have
started in 2009 with better U.S. management are now under way.)
The
breach with Saudis came later and this one also seems to have caught the White
House by surprise. By aligning itself with Turkey and Mr. Morsi’s Egypt, the
White House was undercutting Saudi policy in the region and siding with Qatar’s
attempt to seize the diplomatic initiative from its larger neighbor.
Many
Americans don’t understand just how much the Saudis dislike the Brotherhood and
the Islamists in Turkey. Not all Islamists are in accord; the Saudis have long
considered the Muslim Brotherhood a dangerous rival in the world of Sunni
Islam. Prime Minister Erdogan’s obvious hunger to revive Turkey’s glorious
Ottoman days when the center of Sunni Islam was in Istanbul is a direct threat
to Saudi primacy. That Qatar and its Al Jazeera press poodle enthusiastically
backed the Turks and the Egyptians with money, diplomacy and publicity only angered
the Saudis more. With America backing this axis—while also failing to heed
Saudi warnings about Iran and Syria—Riyadh wanted to undercut rather than
support American diplomacy. An alliance with the Egyptian military against Mr.
Morsi’s weakening government provided an irresistible opportunity to knock
Qatar, the Brotherhood, the Turks and the Americans back on their heels.
The
fourth problem is that the administration seems to have underestimated the
vitality and adaptability of the loose group of terrorist movements and cells.
The death of Osama bin Laden was a significant victory, but the effective
suppression of the central al Qaeda organization in Afghanistan and Pakistan
was anything but a knockout blow. Today a resurgent terrorist movement can
point to significant achievements in the Libya-Mali theater, in northern
Nigeria, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere. The closure of 20 American
diplomatic facilities this month was a major moral victory for the terrorists,
demonstrating that they retain the capacity to affect American behavior in a
major way. Recruiting is easier, morale is higher, and funding is easier to get
for our enemies than President Obama once hoped.
Finally,
the administration, rightfully concerned about the costs of intervention in
Syria, failed to grasp early enough just how much it would cost to stay out of
this ugly situation. As the war has dragged on, the humanitarian toll has grown
to obscene proportions (far worse than anything that would have happened in
Libya without intervention), communal and sectarian hatreds have become
poisonous almost ensuring more bloodletting and ethnic and religious cleansing,
and instability has spread from Syria into Iraq, Lebanon and even Turkey. All
of these problems grow worse the longer the war goes on—but it is becoming
harder and costlier almost day by day to intervene.
But
beyond these problems, the failure to intervene early in Syria (when “leading
from behind” might well have worked) has handed important victories to both the
terrorists and the Russia-Iran axis, and has seriously eroded the Obama
administration’s standing with important allies. Russia and Iran backed Bashar
al-Assad; the president called for his overthrow—and failed to achieve it. To
hardened realists in Middle Eastern capitals, this is conclusive proof that the
American president is irredeemably weak. His failure to seize the opportunity
for what the Russians and Iranians fear would have been an easy win in Syria
cannot be explained by them in any other way.
This is
dangerous. Just as Nikita Khrushchev concluded that President Kennedy was weak
and incompetent after the Bay of Pigs failure and the botched Vienna summit,
and then proceeded to test the American president from Cuba to Berlin, so
President Vladimir Putin and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei now believe
they are dealing with a dithering and indecisive American leader, and are calibrating
their policies accordingly. Khrushchev was wrong about Kennedy, and President
Obama’s enemies are also underestimating him, but those underestimates can
create dangerous crises before they are corrected.
If
American policy in Syria has been a boon to the Russians and Iranians, it has
been a godsend to the terrorists. The prolongation of the war has allowed
terrorist and radical groups to establish themselves as leaders in the Sunni
fight against the Shiite enemy. A reputation badly tarnished by both their
atrocities and their defeat in Iraq has been polished and enhanced by what is
seen as their courage and idealism in Syria. The financial links between
wealthy sources in the Gulf and jihadi fighter groups, largely sundered in the
last 10 years, have been rebuilt and strengthened. Thousands of radicals are
being trained and indoctrinated, to return later to their home countries with
new skills, new ideas and new contacts. This development in Syria looks much
more dangerous than the development of the original mujahedeen in Afghanistan;
Afghanistan is a remote and (most Middle Easterners believe) a barbarous place.
Syria is in the heart of the region and the jihadi spillover threatens to be
catastrophic.
One of
the interesting elements of the current situation is that while American
foreign policy has encountered one setback after another in the region, America’s
three most important historical partners—Egypt’s military, Saudi Arabia and
Israel—have all done pretty well and each has bested the U.S. when policies
diverged.
Alliances
play a large role in America’s foreign policy success; tending the Middle
Eastern alliances now in disarray may be the Obama administration’s best hope
now to regain its footing.
As the
Obama administration struggles to regain its footing in this volatile region,
it needs to absorb the lessons of the past 4½ years. First, allies matter.
Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Egyptian military have been America's most
important regional allies both because they share strategic interests and
because they are effective actors in a way that groups like the Muslim
Brotherhood and smaller states aren’t. If these three forces are working with
you, then things often go reasonably well. If one or more of them is trying to
undercut you, pain comes. The Obama administration undertook the hard work
necessary to rebuild its relationship with Israel; it needs to devote more
attention to the concerns of the Egyptian generals and the House of Saud. Such
relationships don’t mean abandoning core American values; rather they recognize
the limits on American power and seek to add allies where our own unaided
efforts cannot succeed.
Second,
the struggle against terror is going to be harder than we hoped. Our enemies
have scattered and multiplied, and the violent jihadi current has renewed its
appeal. In the Arab world, in parts of Africa, in Europe and in the U.S., a
constellation of revitalized and inventive movements now seeks to wreak havoc.
It is delusional to believe that we can eliminate this problem by eliminating
poverty, underdevelopment, dictatorship or any other “root causes” of the
problem; we cannot eliminate them in a policy-relevant time frame. An ugly
fight lies ahead. Instead of minimizing the terror threat in hopes of calming
the public, the president must prepare public opinion for a long-term struggle.
Third,
the focus must now return to Iran. Concern with Iran’s growing power is the
thread that unites Israel and Saudi Arabia. Developing and moving on an Iran
strategy that both Saudis and Israelis can support will help President Obama
rebuild America’s position in the shifting sands. That is likely to mean a much
tougher policy on Syria. Drawing red lines in the sand and stepping back when
they are crossed won't rebuild confidence.
President
Obama now faces a moment similar to the one President Carter faced when the
Soviets invaded Afghanistan. The assumptions that shaped key elements of his
foreign policy have not held up; times have changed radically and policy must
shift. The president is a talented leader; the world will be watching what he
does.
Ben-Zvi:
Despite
the fact that these history lessons are in plain view for another liberal
president to see – a “poor man’s Kennedy” who goes by the name Obama – the
American march of folly continued onward, this time to Cairo.
Upon
assuming the presidency in January 2009, Obama was determined to open a new,
more conciliatory chapter with the Muslim world. He sought to offer an array of
confidence-building gestures that would eventually lead the world to a utopia
of moderation and pragmatic deal-making. Yet even before it was possible to
gauge the practicality of this dramatic initiative (which was introduced to the
world in the form of the Cairo speech delivered by the president on June 4,
2009), the Arab Spring burst onto the scene with a violent bang and completely
reshuffled the deck.
Since
the emergence of the Arab Spring, one would be hard-pressed to pinpoint one
realistic, sober-minded move by the Obama administration in the region,
particularly over Egypt. In light of the endless stream of mistakes and
mishaps, one can only be sorry that famed historian Barbra Tuchman, who penned
such classics as the unforgettable The March of Folly, is no longer with us. Otherwise, she would have been able
to add an entire chapter about one of many follies that have been committed in
Washington's dealings with Cairo.
The
explosion of the Arab Spring in the town squares of the Egyptian capital in the
winter of 2011 and the slogans of democracy that were bandied about at the time
fell on attentive ears in Washington. Like Kennedy, Obama quickly became
convinced that a window of opportunity had presented itself, one which would
allow him to advance the process of Western-style democratization in Egypt. He
believed this despite the fact that Egyptian society and its institutions had
not undergone the requisite moral metamorphosis necessary for a democracy to
take root.
The
administration was completely blinded by its own lofty rhetoric, which
supporters of the revolution used in their struggle to bring down Hosni
Mubarak's regime. That was when the U.S. decided to abandon its longtime,
reliable ally. As it did with Iran during the waning days of the Shah's
government, the U.S. repeated its stance 30 years later in the Egyptian
context. There is no doubt that Mubarak acted with aggression against his
political rivals, and that his regime bore none of the hallmarks of democratic
governance.
From a
geostrategic standpoint, on the other hand, the tremendous, years-long
contribution that Mubarak, as a pivotal member of the moderate Sunni camp, made
to Western security cannot be disputed. Nonetheless, despite his status as a
valued asset, the Egyptian president was left to his own devices.
This
American tragedy continued after the Egyptian elections, when Obama gave his
stamp of approval to the man who ascended to the top office, Mohammed Morsi.
The
fact that the new president did not even bother to internalize the essence and
the spirit of democratic governance and instead worked tirelessly to tighten
his grip on power while at the same time cutting the opposition down to size
did not prompt the White House to reassess its support of the Muslim
Brotherhood-led government.
Since
Morsi’s government was removed from power six weeks ago by the military (which
espouses an avowedly pro-Western orientation), it appears the White House has
yet to recover from the shock of what is perceived as Egypt's regression to the
pre-democratic era. The administration’s attitude to the new strongman in
Cairo, General Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, is chilly, even bordering on hostile.
Not a
day goes by without Washington complaining to the new regime about its
behavior. The most recent dustup came as a result of the decision to arrest
Muslim Brotherhood chief Mohammed Badie.
