Caroline Glick
In an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times
Wednesday, former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton warned his
countrymen of the disaster that awaits them if President Barack Obama
does not change the course of US Middle East policy.
Bolton warned that Obama’s three-pronged policy, based on three
negotiation tracks with Iran, Syria, and the Palestinians and Israel,
will almost certainly fail in its entirety.
In his words, “Iran will emerge more powerful, verging on deliverable
nuclear weapons, while still financing and arming terrorists
worldwide. [Syrian President Bashar] Assad seems likely to survive,
which is bad enough by itself, but it will be compounded by the
affirmation it affords Iranian and Russian strength. Israel will trust
Wash – ington even less than now, and ironically, Palestinians will be
even more anti-American, because Obama will not be able to deliver to
them the Israeli concessions he predicted.”
Bolton concluded mournfully, “[T]he increasing danger is that only
another 9/11, another disaster, will produce the necessary
awakening. There is tragedy ahead for our country if we continue on this
course.”
Writing for Strafor the same day, strategic analyst George Friedman explained why Bolton’s warning will be ignored by the public.
Friedman noted that in previous years, recent events in Venezuela,
Ukraine, Russia and beyond would have been the subject to intense public
concern. But, he wrote, “This week, Americans seemed to be indifferent
to all of them.”
Friedman argued that this popular indifference to foreign policy is not
driven by ideological attachment to isolationism, as was the case in the
1930s. “It is an instrumental position,” not a systematic one, he
explained. Because he sees no deep-seated attachment to isolationism
among the American public, Friedman argued that their current
indifference will likely end when circumstances change.
Friedman’s analysis of the American mood is probably right. And Bolton
is certainly right about the dangers inherent to that mood.
Every day the US is subject to greater humiliations and challenges to its power and prestige.
Declarations from Iranian leaders rejecting the dismantling of their
nuclear installations, coupled with threats to attack US installations
and Israel, bespeak contempt for American power and convey a
catastrophic erosion of US deterrent capabilities against Tehran.
As subjects of intense US appeasement efforts, the Palestinians are
second only to Iran. And as is the case with Iran, those efforts come at
the direct expense of Israel, the US’s most important ally in the
Middle East.
Yet like the Iranians, the Palestinians greet US efforts with scorn.
Every day Palestinian leaders pile on their incitement against Israel
and Jews and their derisive condemnations of the Obama administration’s
efforts to force Israel to cater to their every whim.
Since 1979, Egypt served as the anchor of the US alliance structure in
the Arab world. It shared the US’s opposition to Islamic terrorism, and
waged a continuous campaign to defeat the forc – es of jihad in Egypt,
while remaining outside the circle of war against Israel.
When protests began in Egypt three years ago, rather than stand with its
ally, Obama dumped Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and sided with the
jihadist Muslim Brotherhood.
After winning a popular election, the Brotherhood immediately set
about transforming Egypt into an Islamic, pro-jihadist state. And yet,
the administration opposed the military’s decision to oust the
Brotherhood from power last summer even though the move prevented the
most strategically vital Arab state from becoming the cen – ter of the
global jihad. It then cut US military aid to Egypt.
So now the military regime is renewing its ties with Russia, after ditching Moscow for Washing – ton in 1974.
AND SO it goes, throughout the world.
Japan is the linchpin of US power in the Far East. And today, the
Japanese are openly attack – ing Washington as their frustration mounts
over the administration’s weak response to Chinese adventurism.
Etsuro Honda, a key adviser to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, told
The Wall Street Journal this week that Japan needs to develop the
military capacity to defend itself by itself. The impli – cation – that
Japan no longer trusts the US to defend it – is obvious.
While Friedman is right that Americans don’t want to think about foreign
policy, and Bolton is right that their indifference to Obama’s massive
failures is dangerous, the truth is that another attack on the US of a
magnitude comparable to September 11 is not the only thing that can end
their flight from reality.
ALL THAT is needed to wake Americans from their slumber is an
alternative to Obama’s foreign policy and a political leadership capable
of convincing the public that its alternative is better.
Tragically, today the Republican Party vacillates between two foreign
policies that have both failed, were seen to fail by the American
public, and that on key issues have been aligned with central components
of Obama’s failed foreign policy.
On the one hand, there is isolationism. Sen. Rand Paul is the most outspoken advocate of an isolationist foreign policy.
In furtherance of his position, Paul was one of only two Republican
senators who opposed passing further sanctions on Iran in the event the
current nuclear talks fail to produce an agreement that will neutralize
the threat of a nuclear Iran.
As he recently put it, “I think the bottom line is we should give
negotiations a chance. My hope is that sanctions will avoid war. We’ve
been involved in two long wars in the Middle East. And I think it would
be best if we can do anything possible to try to avoid another war now.”
The September 11 attacks discredited isolationism as a foreign affairs
strategy. The attacks showed the American people that threats grow when
they aren’t dealt with. Ignoring America’s enemies is not an option.
Certainly enabling them to acquire nuclear weapons through use – less
negotiations is not a policy that most Americans support.
As most Americans are not isolationists, Paul’s isolationism is not a
viable alternative to Obama’s policies of appeasement. Moreover, since
with regards to Iran, his isolationism is aligned with Obama’s
appeasement, Paul is in no position to mount a serious challenge to
Obama’s foreign policy or rally the public to abandon Obama’s foreign
policy and replace it with his own.
Opposing Paul and the isolationists is Sen. John McCain and the
Wilsonian democrats. Their idea is that the US must intervene abroad to
promote democracy.
While McCain opposes Obama’s policy of appeasing Iran and so enabling
the mullacracy to acquire nuclear weapons, his neo-conservative
ideological assumptions caused McCain to back Obama’s decision to end US
support for Mubarak in Egypt. McCain also advocated for US
participation in the NATO effort to oust neutered Libyan strongman
Muammar Gaddafi from power.
Today McCain supports Obama’s decision to cut US military assistance to
Egypt’s anti-jihadist military regime because the jihadist Muslim
Brotherhood government the military ousted was popularly elected.
The war in Iraq discredited McCain’s Wilsonian neo-conservatism in the
eyes of most Americans. And Obama’s McCain-supported abandonment of the
Mubarak regime in Egypt destroyed US credibility in the Middle East and
paved the way for Russia’s reemergence as a regional power broker for
the first time in 40 years.
Due to the unpopularity among the American public of McCain’s
ideological commitment to use US power to cultivate popularly elected
governments in the Islamic world, and due as well to his periodic
support for some of Obama’s most disastrous policies, like Paul, McCain
cannot mount a credible, popularly supported alternative to Obama’s
foreign policy.
THERE IS a third option, however, that is currently orphaned in the US foreign policy discourse.
That third option begins with understanding the ideological
underpinnings of Obama’s foreign policy, and proceeds with offering an
alternative policy, based on the opposite foundation.
From Russia to Iran, from Israel to the Far East, Obama’s foreign
policy calls for the US to appease its adversaries at the expense of its
allies. At its core, it is informed by the belief that the reason the
US has adversaries is because it has allies.
By this line of thinking, if the US didn’t support Israel, then it
wouldn’t have a problem with the Muslim world. If the US didn’t support
Colombia and Honduras, it wouldn’t have a problem with Venezuela and
Nicaragua. If the US didn’t sup – port Japan and South Korea, it
wouldn’t have a problem with China and North Korea. And if the US didn’t
support Egypt and Saudi Arabia, it wouldn’t have a problem with the
Muslim Brotherhood and its terrorist offshoots, or with Iran and its
terror armies.
The proper response to this worldview and its corresponding policy is a
policy based on sup – porting US allies and opposing US enemies. It is
predicated on the recognition that strong allies deter and weaken
enemies.
In several key cases, supporting US allies will require fewer, rather than more, US oversees deployments.
For instance, as Israel’s leaders have stated since the founding of
the state, Israel has no interest in having anyone else fight its wars
for it. All it requires is the strength – military, economic,
territorial and political – to defend itself by itself.
Rather than seek to weaken Israel by coercing it to recede to
indefensible borders in order to make room for a Palestinian terrorist
state in its historic heartland, the US should abandon its support for
Palestinian terrorists and ensure that Israel has the power to defend
itself in a region marked by unprecedented instability and danger.
A strong Israel will be a force for regional stability and so advance US
security while forming the firm foundation of a renewed US alliance
structure in the region.
So, too, the US should embrace Japan’s readiness to defend itself, by
itself. With no appetite to go to war for its allies, but with rising
concerns about China’s military adventurism, the US should support
Tokyo’s desire to stand on its own.
The same goes for South Korea. Rather than spurn Seoul’s desire to build
uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing facilities, Washing – ton
should support South Korea’s goal of being a counterweight to
Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal and its hyperactive nuclear proliferation.
IT IS A schoolyard rule, but it is as true for nations as it is for
10-year-old boys: Be good to your friends and bad to your enemies. Then
people will want to be your friends. And they won’t want to be their
enemies.
Inspiring in its simplicity and tried and true through the ages, it
can move the American people to recognize the dangers inherent to
Obama’s foreign policy and embrace an alternative policy, and an
alternative leadership, before disaster strikes.
Caroline Glick’s new book, The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East , is due out on March 4
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