In Mideast, U.S. Policy Is In Shambles
Diplomacy: As the U.S. careens from debacle to debacle, our policy in the Middle East is now in disarray. American influence is waning, as radical Islamists take over in nation after nation. The damage may be irreversible.
Arab Spring has given way to Arab Fall, and things aren't going well. Not only is Israel, our best friend and only true ally in the region, under siege by its Arab neighbors, but we seem to be walking away from the problem.
Meanwhile, in country after country, those who hate the West in general and the U.S. in particular are making great strides. Increasingly, Iran seems to be the victor. It has long sought to replace the U.S. as the area's dominant influence. Now its hand has been strengthened by the feckless and self-defeating diplomacy carried out by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and, of course, President Obama.
Crudely, Clinton strode into Libya crowing, "We came, we saw, he died." And yes, Gadhafi was murdered, in part with our help. But what really died was U.S. power in the region — to be replaced by an ad hoc, improvised foreign policy based not on broad U.S. national interest, but on narrow domestic political gain.
Across the Mideast, U.S. interests are taking a beating:
• Iraq: Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has asked the U.S. to pack up and leave, and Obama, hoping to shore up support with the anti-war left, agreed. Now, after more than 4,000 killed, and hundreds of billions of dollars spent, Iraq will be left with no significant continuing U.S. presence.
"The tide of war is receding," Obama says. Really? A new poll shows 73% of Iraqis fear a U.S. withdrawal will let Iran destabilize Iraq. It looks almost as if the U.S. is handing Iraq over to Iran — despite Clinton's empty vow to "stand with our allies and friends, including Iraq."
• Libya: Even proponents of the Arab Spring were dismayed by the rebels setting on Moammar Gadhafi like a pack of feral dogs. It doesn't bode well for democracy or the rule of law. Libya's first post-Gadhafi leader, Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, wants Sharia to be the "basic source" for Libya's law, killing off any hopes for civil society in the country and dimming hopes for a moderate democracy to replace Gadhafi's tyranny.
• Egypt: The White House earlier this year walked away from America's long-time support for Hosni Mubarak's regime, as Egypt became poster-boy for the Arab Spring. What did it bring us? A new, hard-line against Israel, and the strong possibility that the radical Muslim Brotherhood will take a leading role in the new regime — a major setback for Egypt and, despite $2 billion a year in aid, for U.S. influence.
• Afghanistan: It was Obama who called this the war we needed to fight. Increasingly, though, as in Iraq, he seems inclined to cut and run. Despite the effective use of drones to kill suspected Taliban and other terrorist leaders, he is looking for a way out, signaling interest in talking to the Taliban.
Worse, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, whose democratic regime has been propped up by more than $55 billion in aid and 2,774 American deaths, said he would "stand by Pakistan" if it went to war with the U.S. Another diplomatic triumph.
• Pakistan: Despite its ally status, it continues to shelter Taliban and al-Qaida remnants in its northwestern frontier. Formal defense ties with the U.S. belie the harsh reality: Pakistan's powerful ISI intelligence agency is almost openly pro-Islamist, with extensive ties to Islamic terror groups in the region.
Worse, there are growing signs Pakistan, the only country in the region other than India with nuclear weapons, is aiding other nations in the region to acquire "Islamic" nukes, possibly for use against Israel.
• Turkey: The election of Tayyip Erdogan has heralded a major change. Once a staunch U.S. ally and still a member of NATO, the once-secular government has turned Islamist, with predictable results: It has embraced Iran and rejected its once-warm ties with Israel. Turkey's government let itself be used as a staging ground for a provocative, gun-running flotilla to break Israel's blockade on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Because of inept U.S. diplomacy, Turkey can no longer be counted in the Western camp.
• Tunisia: The place where the Arab Spring started, this is another country whose election this month, coming shortly after Gadhafi's death, was supposed to be a peaceful benchmark for democratic hopes. But as of Monday, that didn't appear to be the case.
The Islamist Ennahda party was leading in the polls. Its leader, Rachid Ghannouchi, wants to do to Tunisia what Erdogan has done to Turkey — Islamicize its legal system and government. So much for democracy and civil society.
• Syria: The nation's Baathist leader, Bashar al-Assad, has launched a massive repression of protests — murdering hundreds for exercising their most basic rights. Amnesty International reports the regime has resorted even to torturing dissenters in the hospital.
• Iran: We've saved the worst for last. U.S. policy toward Iran is almost entirely a botch. During the 2009 "Tehran Spring," the U.S. remained weirdly silent — though this was the one revolt that might have actually born democratic fruit. Today, Iran edges closer by the week to having a nuclear weapon, as it continues to deny its people basic rights and executes those who oppose it.
It openly aids terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas, while giving arms and cash to Islamic extremists who kill U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran has all but declared war against the U.S., but Obama and congressional Democrats simply refuse to recognize the depth of Iran's enmity.
This is a long list of our recent failures, but by no means a comprehensive one. Increasingly, Obama has taken an arms-length approach to the region, preferring to use drones and proxies to get rid of those we dislike — Egypt's Mubarak, Libya's Gadhafi and, perhaps soon, Syria's Assad.
Unfortunately, the administration's weakness will leave a void for radical Islamists to fill.