Glick:
For the first time in a decade, Americans are beginning to think seriously about foreign policy; But are they too late?
At some
point between 2006 and 2008, the American people decided to turn their backs on
the world. Between the seeming futility of the war in Iraq and the financial
collapse of 2008, Americans decided they’d had enough.
In
Barack Obama, they found a leader who could channel their frustration. Obama’s
foreign policy, based on denying the existence of radical Islam and projecting
the responsibility for Islamic aggression on the US and its allies, suited
their mood just fine. If America is responsible, then America can walk away.
Once it is gone, so the thinking has gone, the Muslims will forget their anger
and leave America alone.
Sadly,
Obama’s foreign policy assumptions are utter nonsense. America’s abandonment of
global leadership has not made things better. Over the past seven years, the
legions of radical Islam have expanded and grown more powerful than ever
before. And now in the aftermath of the jihadist massacres in Paris and San
Bernadino, the threats have grown so abundant that even Obama cannot pretend
them away.
As a
consequence, for the first time in a decade, Americans are beginning to think
seriously about foreign policy. But are they too late? Can the next president
repair the damage Obama has caused? The Democrats give no cause for optimism.
Led by former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential
hopefuls stubbornly insist that there is nothing wrong with Obama’s foreign
policy. If they are elected to succeed him, they pledge to follow in his
footsteps.
On the
Republican side, things are more encouraging, but also more complicated.
Republican
presidential hopefuls are united in their rejection of Obama’s policy of
ignoring the Islamic supremacist nature of the enemy. All reject the failed
assumptions of Obama’s foreign policy.
All
have pledged to abandon them on their first day in office. Yet for all their
unity in rejecting Obama’s positions, Republicans are deeply divided over what
alternative foreign policy they would adopt.
This
divide has been seething under the surface throughout the Obama presidency. It
burst into the open at the Republican presidential debate Wednesday night.
The
importance of the dispute cannot be overstated.
Given
the Democrats’ allegiance to Obama’s disastrous policies, the only hope for a
restoration of American leadership is that a Republican wins the next election.
But if Republicans nominate a candidate who fails to reconcile with the
realities of the world as it is, then the chance for a reassertion of American
leadership will diminish significantly.
To
understand just how high the stakes are, you need to look no further than two
events that occurred just before the Wednesday’s Republican presidential debate.
On
Tuesday, the International Atomic Energy Agency voted to close its
investigation of Iran’s nuclear program. As far as the UN’s nuclear watchdog is
concerned, Iran is good to go.
The
move is a scandal. Its consequences will be disastrous.
The IAEA
acknowledges that Iran continued to advance its illicit military nuclear
program at least until 2009. Tehran refuses to divulge its nuclear activities
to IAEA investigators as it is required to do under binding UN Security Council
resolutions.
Iran
refuses to allow IAEA inspectors access to its illicit nuclear sites. As a
consequence, the IAEA lacks a clear understanding of what Iran’s nuclear status
is today and therefore has no capacity to prevent it from maintaining or
expanding its nuclear capabilities. This means that the inspection regime Iran
supposedly accepted under Obama’s nuclear deal is worthless.
The
IAEA also accepts that since Iran concluded its nuclear accord with the world
powers, it has conducted two tests of ballistic missiles capable of carrying
nuclear weapons, despite the fact that it is barred from doing so under binding
Security Council resolutions.
But
really, who cares? Certainly the Obama administration doesn’t. The sighs of
relief emanating from the White House and the State Department after the IAEA
decision were audible from Jerusalem to Tehran.
The
IAEA’s decision has two direct consequences.
First,
as Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Wednesday, it paves the way for the
cancellation of the UN’s economic sanctions against Iran within the month.
Second,
with the IAEA’s decision, the last obstacle impeding Iran’s completion of its
nuclear weapons program has been removed. Inspections are a thing of the past.
Iran is in the clear.
As Iran
struts across the nuclear finish line, the Sunni jihadists are closing their
ranks.
Hours
after the IAEA vote, Turkey and Qatar announced that Turkey is setting up a
permanent military base in the Persian Gulf emirate for the first time since
the fall of the Ottoman Empire a century ago. Their announcement indicates that
the informal partnership between Turkey and Qatar on the one side, and Hamas,
the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic State on the other hand, which first came to
the fore last year during Operation Protective Edge, is now becoming a more
formal alliance.
Just as
the Obama administration has no problem with Iran going nuclear, so it has no
problem with this new jihadist alliance.
During
Operation Protective Edge, the administration supported this jihadist alliance
against the Israeli-Egyptian partnership. Throughout Hamas’s war against
Israel, Obama demanded that Israel and Egypt accept Hamas’s cease-fire terms,
as they were presented by Turkey and Qatar.
Since
Operation Protective Edge, the Americans have continued to insist that Israel
and Egypt bow to Hamas’s demands and open Gaza’s international borders. The
Americans have kept up their pressure on Israel and Egypt despite Hamas’s open
alliance with ISIS in the Sinai Peninsula.
So,
too, the Americans have kept Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi at arm’s
length, and continue to insist that the Muslim Brotherhood is a legitimate
political force despite Sisi’s war against ISIS. Washington continues to
embrace Qatar as a “moderate” force despite the emirate’s open support for the
Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and ISIS.
As for
Turkey, it appears there is nothing Ankara can do that will dispel the US
notion that it is a credible partner in the war on terror. Since 2011, Turkey
has served as Hamas’s chief state sponsor, and as ISIS’s chief sponsor. It is
waging war against the Kurds – the US’s strongest ally in its campaign against
ISIS.
In
other words, with the US’s blessing, the forces of both Shi’ite and Sunni jihad
are on the march.
And the
next president will have no grace period for repairing the damage.
Although
the Republican debate Wednesday night was focused mainly on the war in Syria,
its significance is far greater than one specific battlefield.
And
while there were nine candidates on the stage, there were only two participants
in this critical discussion.
Sens.
Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz faced off after weeks of rising contention between
their campaigns.
In so
doing, they brought the dispute that has been seething through their party
since the Bush presidency into the open.
Rubio
argued that in Syria, the US needs to both defeat ISIS and overthrow President
Bashar Assad.
Cruz
countered that the US should ignore Assad and concentrate on utterly destroying
ISIS. America’s national interest, he said, is not advanced by overthrowing
Assad, because in all likelihood, Assad will be replaced by ISIS.
Cruz
added that America’s experience in overthrowing Middle Eastern leaders has
shown that it is a mistake to overthrow dictators. Things only got worse after
America overthrew Saddam Hussein and supported the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi
and Hosni Mubarak.
For his
part, Rubio explained that since Assad is Iran’s puppet, leaving him in power
empowers Iran. The longer he remains in power, the more control Iran will wield
over Syria and Lebanon.
The two
candidates’ dispute is far greater than the question of who rules Syria. Their
disagreement on Syria isn’t a tactical argument. It goes to the core question
of what is the proper role of American foreign policy.
Rubio’s
commitment to overthrowing Assad is one component of a wider strategic
commitment to fostering democratic governance in Syria. By embracing the cause
of democratization through regime change, Rubio has become the standard bearer
of George W. Bush’s foreign policy.
Bush’s
foreign policy had two seemingly contradictory anchors – a belief that liberal
values are universal, and cultural meekness.
Bush’s
belief that open elections would serve as a panacea for the pathologies of the
Islamic world was not supported by empirical data. Survey after survey showed
that if left to their own devices, the people of Muslim world would choose to
be led by Islamic supremacists. But Bush rejected the data and embraced the
fantasy that free elections lead a society to embrace liberal norms of peace and
human rights.
As to
cultural meekness, since the end of the Cold War and with the rise of political
correctness, the notion that America could call for other people to adopt
American values fell into disrepute. For American foreign policy practitioners,
the idea that American values and norms are superior to Islamic supremacist
values smacked of cultural chauvinism.
Consequently,
rather than urge the Islamic world to abandon Islamic supremacism in favor of
liberal democracy, in their public diplomacy efforts, Americans sufficed with
vapid pronouncements of love and respect for Islam.
Islamic
supremacists, for their part stepped into the ideological void without
hesitation. In Iraq, the Iranian regime spent hundreds of millions of dollars
training Iranian-controlled militias, building Iranian-controlled political
parties and publishing pro-Iranian newspapers as the US did nothing to support
pro-American Iraqis.
Although
many Republicans opposed Bush’s policies, few dared make their disagreement
with the head of their party public. As a result, for many, Wednesday’s debate
was the first time the foundations of Bush’s foreign policy were coherently and
forcefully rejected before a national audience.
If
Rubio is the heir to Bush, Cruz is the spokesman for Bush’s until now silent
opposition. In their longheld view, democratization is not a proper aim of
American foreign policy. Defeating America’s enemies is the proper aim of
American foreign policy.
Rubio’s
people claim that carpet bombing ISIS is not a strategy. They are right. There
are parts missing from in Cruz’s position on Syria.
But
then again, although still not comprehensive, Cruz’s foreign policy trajectory
has much to recommend it. First and foremost, it is based on the world as it
is, rather than a vision of how the world should be. It makes a clear
distinction between America’s allies and America’s enemies and calls for the US
to side with the former and fight the latter.
It is
far from clear which side will win this fight for the heart of the Republican
Party. And it is impossible to know who the next US president will be.
But
whatever happens, the fact that after their seven-year vacation, the Americans
are returning the real world is a cause for cautious celebration.
