Friday, August 15, 2014

Inland empire - Even in foreign affairs America is hopelessly self-obsessed

When outsiders watch how America debates foreign policy issues, they are usually taken by the extent to which these become almost entirely domestic conversations.

Before the Iraq war in 2003, as the Bush administration was preparing the ground for an invasion, Americans seemed little concerned for the Iraqis themselves. What preoccupied them was what it all meant for America. And today, as President Barack Obama adds caveats to a new American military intervention in Iraq, it is clear that his main concern is support at home, not the suffering of Arabs or Kurds, Yazidis or Christians.

That may be normal in a democracy, but it can also quickly morph into navel-gazing. Much of what America does in the rest of the world, good or bad, very quickly ends up being about America itself. So, when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made comments critical of Obama’s foreign policy to The Atlantic last week, the story quickly turned into one about Hillary, Barack, their interaction at Martha’s Vineyard, where both are vacationing, and the next presidential election.

Many people reflected on Clinton’s remarks about Obama’s Syria policy. She declared, “The failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against Assad – there were Islamists, there were secularists, there was everything in the middle – the failure to do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled.”

The secretary of state had been among those in the administration calling for assistance to the Syrian rebels in 2012, but Obama never acted on that recommendation. Today, with the Islamic State having expanded deep into Iraq, and with fears rising that jihadists could strike against targets in the United States and Europe, Clinton’s accusations put Obama in a very unpleasant spot.

However, Clinton said something else with significant ramifications for America’s role in the world. The interviewer, Jeffrey Goldberg, noted: “At one point, I mentioned the slogan President Obama recently coined to describe his foreign-policy doctrine: ‘Don’t do stupid shit’ (an expression often rendered as ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ in less-than-private encounters).”

In response to Goldberg’s observation, Clinton tartly stated: “Great nations need organizing principles, and ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle.”

Few seem to have focused on that devastating rejoinder. What Clinton was effectively saying was that there was no substance to – or underlying principle guiding – Obama’s foreign policy.

One can mock the need for a foreign policy strategy, but presidents have long considered this a key component of their administrations, as well as a vital aspect of their own philosophy. When Jimmy Carter announced that he would pursue human rights in the world, and created the post of assistant secretary of state for human rights, choosing Patricia Derian as his appointee, he was making as much a statement about himself and his beliefs as he was about his vision for America.

Obama, on the other hand, cannot be identified with very much in his approach to the world. Any overview of his foreign policy statements over the years would show only dismal boilerplate – nothing indicating the pursuit of a particular agenda, of specific objectives the president hopes to attain in the world. There is little about which Obama, a cold fish, appears to feel strongly.

And Obama’s adversaries have his number. Whether it is Vladimir Putin, Bashar al-Assad, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, or anyone else, they all know that the president, when given an opportunity to avoid a confrontation abroad, will embrace it with alacrity, even if it means they can advance their own interests to the detriment of those of the United States; and even if it means that American officials are undermined.

That is what happened, for instance, in August 2013, when Obama announced he would bomb Syrian military targets after the Assad regime had used chemical weapons against civilians, killing well over 1,000 people, including many children. At the last minute, Obama accepted a Russian plan to postpone an attack and remove Syrian chemical weapons, even while his officials were publicly defending impending military action.

Secretary of State John Kerry was embarrassed, as the episode showed he had not been consulted. As for the moral cost of allowing a regime that had just committed a terrible atrocity to get off without reprisals, it was profoundly disturbing.

Obama’s friends in the media have defended him at every turn. And American public opinion has become so isolationist that the president has faced little domestic censure for his inaction.

However, America’s position in the world has suffered, and this has bearing on American power. With the United States increasingly seen as disengaged from the world, its ability to affect global outcomes has been reduced. When Obama implies that the world must adapt to less of America, he reinforces a belief that American power is waning. Is that really the message he, allegedly a political realist, wants to flash out to the world?

Perhaps it is, but many Americans would not endorse Obama if he stated it so bluntly. The problem is that there is no internal exchange today over America’s role in the world. Because the public has become more insular, politicians and media echo that mood. No one gains by highlighting its negative consequences.

That’s why Clinton’s criticism was transformed into a personal matter between her and the president. Would they reconcile in Martha’s Vineyard, or not? Clinton’s serious foreign policy point dissolved into a soap opera. Such is the parochialism of America these days that no one found this even remotely annoying.

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