Our So-Called Foreign Policy: How Much Change Will the Afghanistan Debacle Really Bring?

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Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, Biden, Central America, Donald Trump, failed states, globalism, Immigration, migration, nation-building, Northern Triangle, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, terrorism, The National Interest, Vietnam War

Since just yesterday, two big articles in the Mainstream Media have told us that President Biden’s latest speech on America’s (going-going-gone?) military involvement in Afghanistan could usher in a new, more circumspect era for U.S. foreign policy. (See here and here.) Me, I’m not so sure, even though I’d like to see nothing better, since I’ve been calling for such changes for no fewer than 35 years.

In fact, it’s not even clear whether Mr. Biden’s decision to pull the plug on this longest of America’s wars will profoundly influence America’s approach to world affairs on the level of day-to-day operations. For example, the President has insisted that “I was not going to extend this forever war. And I was not extending a forever exit”; and that with the Al Qaeda threat to attack the U.S. homeland and American allies squelched; and that the United States has “no vital interest in Afghanistan.” Nonethless, he still declared that “We will maintain the fight against terrorism in Afghanistan and other countries.”

Moreover, Mr. Biden acknowledged that the “over-the-horizon capabilities” that now enable attacks on “terrorists and targets” without fighting ground wars (through drone strikes and the like) will still require some “American boots on the ground.” That’s because you need some physical presence in order to identify and track the targets (which move around a lot), and because these forces need bases of some kind out of which to operate.

Further, the President claimed that “The terror threat has metastasized across the world, well beyond Afghanistan. We face threats from Al Shabab in Somalia, Al Qaeda affiliates in Syria and the Arabian Peninsula, and ISIS attempting to create a caliphate in Syria and Iraq and establishing affiliates across Africa and Asia.”

Even if he thinks that those over-the-horizon capabilities can suddenly meet this challenge (and obviously, they can’t now, or else we’d have seen a lot more of them and a much faster Afghanistan troop pullout), we’re talking about a non-trivial number of American boots on the ground in a huge number of countries – including more than a few states as failed, or as always-mythical, as Afghanistan.

President Biden was also pretty emphatic about “moving on” from what he suggested was the post-September 11 mindset of nation-building in places like Afghanistan – where democracy and unity and even cohesion has “never” existed.

But take another look at his “Strategy to Address the Root Causes of Migration in Central America.” The idea is to turn El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras into places acceptable enough to live in to convince huge portions of their populations to remain there, rather than seek better lives in the United States. And to achieve this aim, the administration’s blueprint “identifies, prioritizes, and coordinates actions to improve security, governance, human rights, and economic conditions in the region.”

That sounds pretty nation building-y to me, even if you believe that, unlike Afghanistan, these “Northern Triangle” countries have ever deserved to be called “nations” to begin with – rather than simply relatively large groups of very poor people exploited by (rotating) smaller groups of people possessing enough money and guns to climb to and stay on top for a while.

And since all the countries and regions that Mr. Biden has identified as new sources of terrorism suffer many of the same problems, there’s no reason to rule out the administration eventually dreaming up similar plans for them. According to the President’s speech, that would certainly be preferable to putting more American military boots on the ground.

But there’s a more fundamental reason to doubt that the President will engineer a major shift even in nation-building-type policies, much less in American foreign policy’s broader direction: Although the label didn’t emerge until after the September 11 attacks, nation-building has always been a core precept of the globalist approach that American foreign policy has carried out since Pearl Harbor, and Mr. Biden is a long-time card-carrying globalist. That’s the “back” to which he so proudly proclaimed America would return during his presidency.  

I explained what I mean by that most recently in a 2018 article for The National Interest. Globalism’s root assumption, I wrote, “has stemmed from the ostensibly timeless lessons of the nation’s 1930s indifference to aggression in Europe and Asia: that America’s security, freedom and prosperity are inseparable from the security, freedom and prosperity of a critical mass of the rest of the world in which trouble anywhere is sure to spread like wildfire unless checked.” And to prevent such contagions from emerging to begin with, “the entire global environment needed to be managed adequately” – including turning failed states and other breeding grounds for terrorism and all sorts of turmoil and instability into entities that are substantially better, or at least more tranquil.

That same article pointed out, however, that globalism’s grip on American foreign policy is so tight that even an avowed disrupter and America First champion like Donald Trump couldn’t shake it off completely – and even doubled down on some major globalist policies (like deepening America’s – nuclear – commitment to Europe’s security against Russian expansionism). Indeed, his Middle East and anti-terrorism policies were especially conflicted – as he himself admitted.

So the likeliest transformation I can envision for post-Afghanistan U.S. foreign policy is what I’ve called “globalism on the cheap” – retaining every ounce of this strategy’s grandiose objectives, but pretending that they can be pursued exclusively in neat, safe, and aesthetically appealing ways. In fact, this was the course chosen after another foreign policy debacle – the Vietnam War. And revealingly, Mr. Biden touted some of them yesterday: “diplomacy, economic tools, and rallying the rest of the world for support” (along with those over-the-horizon capabilities).

These and other tactics in principle can have their place in U.S. foreign policy, depending on circumstances. But calling them substitutes for major military deployments and operations in carrying out a globalist strategy is first-order misinformation spreading. And it makes me wonder just how damagingly globalism, on the cheap or otherwise, will need to fail before genuinely new foreign policy eras will begin.

 

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Toward Avoiding New Afghanistans

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Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, America First, Antony J. Blinken, Barack Obama, Biden, China, credibility, globalism, Jack Keane, jihadism, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Taliban, terrorism, Washington Post

The humanitarian calamity seemingly sure to erupt in Afghanistan now that the Taliban have taken over means that this is no time for I-told-you-so-type gloating – even by long-time critics of U.S. military involvement and nation-building since these jihadist extremists were driven from power in late 2001.

So as one of those long-time critics, I offer the following two observations simply as an attempt to help avoid repeats of this disaster going forward. And interestingly, they’re both inspired by a single Washington Post article.

The first concerns a statement from early this month by a spokesman for the Chinese defense ministry. According to one Colonel Wu Qian, Washington “bears an unavoidable responsibility for the current situation in Afghanistan. It cannot leave and shed the burden on regional countries.”

There’s no doubt that the U.S. military withdrawal could have been handled much better – especially for the local U.S. allies who will be left to the mercy of violent, reactionary, misogynistic Islamists. In particular, as retired U.S. Army General Jack Keane asked on Friday, why did President Biden decide to complete the pullout in the middle of Afghanistan’s fighting season – when the weather is warm enough to permit aggressive, large-scale Taliban military campaigns? Why didn’t he wait till the winter – when, as has consistently been the case, the cold has prevented such operations?

But this notion that America “cannot leave and shed the burden on regional countries”? What on earth is Colonel Wu talking about? Not only can the United States do exactly that. It should have done exactly that long years ago, once the main mission was accomplished of ousting the Taliban regime that permitted Al Qaeda to turn the country into a base for launching terrorist strikes like the September 11 attacks.

And the reason is pretty simple: As I recently posted, Afghanistan is in China’s neighborhood. Not to mention Russia’s and Iran’s. And it’s as far away as it can be from America’s neighborhood. As a result, it’s always been the case that once the United States left, it would have been the regional countries’ burden, and therefore, these countries (which aren’t exactly weak mini-states) would have had no choice but to figure out how to deal with a Sunni Muslim jihadist-led country capable of causing big problems for all of them.

How could this be done? Frankly, that’s not America’s problem. Because the only valid reason Americans ever had to have any significant self interest in who runs Afghanistan had to do with its terrorist base potential. And once the Taliban was gone, along with the unique threat it posed of giving sovereign-state shelter to a terrorist organization, that challenge has always best been handled with a genuine America First strategy: genuinely securing the U.S. border (something Washington can reasonably hope to control) rather than (1) chasing jihadists around a Middle East so dysfunctional that it’s bound to keep breeding new extremist groups faster than existing groups can be neutralized by the American military; much less (2) trying to build nations where none have existed before.

At the same time, more than cynicism and opportunism may be responsible for that Chinese statement. For it comes against the backdrop of decades of Washington acting like Afghanistan’s political makeup and regional behavior indeed mattered more to the United States than it mattered to Afghanistan’s neighbors.

Just as important, the statement also comes against the backdrop of decades of pre-Trump, globalist U.S. politicians, like Mr. Biden, prattling on about how America is and must be the world’s leader and “indispensable nation.” It seems perfectly reasonable, therefore, to suppose that even countries like China, which clearly has some global leadership ambitions of its own, have taken the idea seriously, at least on some subliminal level. That is, the indispensable stuff looks like it’s backfired big-time in the case of Afghanistan. So maybe Washington, and especially the globalists, could bring such bloviation, and the cluelessness and hubris behind it, to an end?  

The second statement that I hope can guide wiser post-Afghanistan U.S. foreign policy decisions (sort of) came today none other than Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken. According to the Washington Post‘s account:

“…Blinken rejected criticisms that the withdrawal damages U.S. credibility. He said staying mired in a conflict that is not in the ‘national interest’ would do far more damage.

“‘Most of our strategic competitors around the world would like nothing better than for us to remain in Afghanistan for another year, five years, 10 years, and have those resources dedicated to being in the midst of a civil war,’ Blinken told CNN. ‘It’s simply not in our interest.'”

I said “sort of” because if you look at the transcript of the interview from which this statement came, Blinken didn’t make the global credibility connection explicit. But since Mainstream Media news organizations like the Washington Post play such a big role in creating dominant narratives on issues like this, he might as well have.

And this connection matters, because it essentially echoes my main point from yesterday’s post: America’s global credibility depends most not on trying to stamp out every foreign challenge that arises, and even less on sticking with obviously lost causes. In fact, pretensions of omnipotence that are just as obviously groundless, and an unwillingness to cut losses, are likeliest to be seen, and have been seen, as signs of lousy judgment.

The real source of U.S. global credibility is demonstrating the wisdom to avoid plunging into conflicts or problems in low priority areas in the first place, and correcting such mistaken moves ASAP.

Former President Barack Obama put it cogently: “Don’t do stupid sh– (stuff).” It seems like a low bar for American foreign policy to meet. But especially as long as the country is led by globalists – like Mr. Biden – who for decades characteristically have viewed security and prosperity as internationally seamless wholes that will unravel disastrously if a single thread becomes loose, any sign that his administration may be learning the Obama lesson is unmistakably encouraging.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: How Trump Can Pass His Afghanistan Test

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Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, America First, border security, globalism, Immigration, Iraq, ISIS, jihadism, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, September 11, Syria, Taliban, terrorism, Trump, Tucker Carlson

So it seems we’re soon going to see another major test of how much of an America First-er on foreign policy President Trump really is: Will he or won’t he withdraw the U.S. troops remaining in Afghanistan if he can strike an acceptable deal with that country’s Taliban insurgents?

Globalists across the political spectrum – that is, supporters of America’s pre-Trump decades of seeking to address foreign policy challenges through various forms of active engagement in foreign affairs around the world – and especially conservative globalists, are awfully skeptical, to say the least, and they have numerous understandable and specific reasons. One that stands out: Why should anyone trust the Taliban to keep the promise that the President is seeking – a pledge to ensure that no part of Afghanistan left under its effective control by any agreement to end or even suspend the conflict between it and the Afghan government becomes a terrorist base once again.

After all, the Taliban was the group that permitted Al Qaeda to use such territories as safe havens from which to plan and train for the September 11 terrorist attacks. A U.S. invasion and nearly twenty years of ongoing military operations have clearly played a major role in ensuring that no September 11 repeats have taken place, or at least strikes emanating from Afghanistan. And there’s no sign of any ebbing in the Taliban’s violent, anti-American nature. In addition, similar American-led and assisted operations against ISIS have prevented that group from creating safe havens in Iraq and Syria large enough to possess September 11-like potential.

All in all, therefore, such interventions look like a resounding success for the idea that defeating terrorists “over there” is the best guarantee that they won’t do any harm “over here.” And there’s compelling evidence that the President has bought into this argument.

As he told Fox News talk show host Tucker Carlson in an early July interview:

“…I would like to just get out [of Afghanistan].  The problem is, it just seems to be a lab for terrorists.  It seems — I call it the Harvard of terrorists. 

“When you look at the World Trade Center, they were trained.  They didn’t — by the way, they attacked the wrong country.  They didn’t come from Iraq, all right.  They came from various other countries.

“But they all formed in Afghanistan, and it’s probably because it’s at the base of so many countries, but they all formed and it’s rough mountains and you get a lot of — you know, you get a lot of good hiding places.

“But I would leave very strong intelligence there.  You have to watch because they do — you know, okay, I’ll give you a tough one.  If you were in my position and a great looking central casting and we have great generals, a great central casting general walks up to your office, I say, ‘We’re getting out.’  ‘Yes, sir.  We’ll get out.  Yes, sir.’

“I’ll say, ‘What do you think of that?’  ‘Sir, I’d rather attack them over there, then attack them in our land.’  In other words, them coming here.  That’s always a very tough decision, you know, with what happened with the World Trade Center, et cetera et cetera.

“When they say that, you know, no matter how you feel, and you and I feel pretty much very similar.  But when you’re standing there, and you have some really talented military people saying, ‘I’d rather attack them over there than have them hit us over here and fight them on our land.’  It’s something you always have to think about.”

But what the President surprisingly seems to forget is that the September 11 terrorists were able to come “over here” not only because they were able to organize in Afghanistan, but because American border security was so unforgivably lax. This description of that situation comes from a group strongly on the restrictionist side of the immigration debate (as am I). But the evidence presented of visa overstays and examples of other hijackers being in the country illegally when they launched the attacks is highly specific and comparably convincing.

Further, then-U.S. Representative Candice S. Miller, a Republican from Michigan and former chair of the House Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security, stated at hearings in 2012 that “more than 36 visa overstayers have been convicted of terrorism- related charges since 2001.”

As I’ve written previously, tightening border security enough to quell the terrorist threat completely is no small task. At the same time, it should also be clear that stepped up border security measures, along with intensified domestic counter-terrorism activities, have played some role in not only preventing more September 11 attacks but in greatly reducing the number of attacks from jihadist-inspired homegrown lone wolves.

Just as important, whenever making policy seriously, and therefore determining priorities and thus allocation of resources, the question always needs to be asked which of any competing approaches is more promising. In the case of anti-terrorism approaches, this challenge boils down to whether the nation is best advised to focus on further improving border security (a situation over which it has relatively great control) or on continuing to police the terminally dysfunctional Middle East (a situation over which is has relatively little control).

Given that the Taliban is still a force to be reckoned with in Afghanistan after eighteen years of fighting the U.S. military and forces from allied countries plus those of Afghan governments in Kabul; and given new Pentagon claims that ISIS is already “solidifying” its “insurgent capabilities in Iraq” and “resurging in Syria,” the case for a domestic, i.e., America First-type focus instead of continuing to play whackamole in the Middle East looks stronger than ever. And that’s the case whether America’s generals look like they come from central casting or not.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Why the Khashoggi Incident Really Matters

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Al Qaeda, America First, arms sales, Cold War, energy, globalism, globalists, Iran, ISIS, Islam, Israel, Jamal Khashoggi, jihadism, Middle East, oil, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, September 11, terrorism, Trump

Important though it is, the most important question surrounding the possibility that Saudi Arabia’s monarchy has killed Jamal Khashoggi is not whether the United States responds or how it responds if the kingdom did murder the dissident journalist – who happens to be a legal resident of the United States.

Instead, the most important question is really two-fold. First, do the many U.S. foreign policy traditionalists calling for severe punishment understand how such a move could undercut the decades-long approach toward the Saudis that they themselves have strongly supported? Second, and even more intriguing, do these globalists understand that the Khashoggi affair is simply the latest in a long string of signs that it’s well past time for the United States to adopt a genuine America First approach and leave the hot, dysfunctional mess that is the entire Muslim Middle East?

Given the prominence of maintaining good relations with the Saudis in the strategies of American globalists across the the board, it’s nothing less than jaw-dropping to see how many of them – liberal and conservative alike – are calling for strong counter-measures if Khashoggi is in fact dead at Saudi hands. Here’s a representative example from no less than former CIA chief John Brennan – who’s gone on Never Trump rampage in part because he views Trump’s foreign policy views as anathema. My astonishment, however, is justified even if much of the outrage is no more than outrage-signaling – posturing assumed to be safe because the Trump administration will eventually not upset the felafel cart.

After all, since World War II, Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Persian Gulf region has been valued as a prime source of the oil desperately needed for the world economy to function acceptably in peacetime, and crucial to prevailing over ruthless global enemies in hot and cold wars alike. Once the Soviet threat disappeared, the region’s oil retained all of its perceived importance, and the critical mass of the foreign policy establishment gravitated toward seeing first Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and then Iran’s theocracy as the prime threat to the world’s unimpeded access. Crucially, not even evidence of (unofficial?) Saudi support for the Islamic extremists of Al Qaeda who launched the September 11 attacks ever truly threatened the U.S.-Saudi connection. 

Indeed, in recent years, even far left-of-center American politicians joined widespread calls for Washington to create a Middle Eastern-dominated coalition to handle most of the fight against ISIS (a successor group to Al Qaeda). And one of the anchors of this arrangement was expected to be none other than Saudi Arabia.

As I’ve argued for years now, none of the arguments for a close, if informal, U.S.-Saudi alliance holds any more water. North America possesses all the fossil fuels needed by the United States, and thanks to the shale/fracking-led energy technology revolution, the Persian Gulf’s role as key global oil supplier is greatly diminished as well. The terrorist threats likely to keep emanating from the region are best dealt with through much stronger U.S. border controls, not repeated American military interventions or fantasies about the Muslim Middle East’s decrepit (and highly compromised) regimes becoming a strong, reliable bulwark against jihadism.

And those claiming that Israel’s security warrants continuing America’s Middle East policy status quo need to remember that Israel and Saudi Arabia (and most other Sunni monarchies) have now created a tacit alliance to counter Shi’ite Iran. Moreover, Washington can always keep selling or simply giving the Israelis all the weapons they need.

The situation has changed so much that the most compelling argument against steps like cutting off or suspending U.S. arms sales to the Saudis has been advanced by President Trump: a boatload of revenue and jobs would be lost by the American economy, and the Saudis could always turn to alternate suppliers (like the Chinese and, more credibly – because their military equipment is still better – the Russians). In addition, don’t forget this irony: Consistent with its anti-Iran goals, Israel and its own impressive defense-related technologies could also partly fill the vacuum left by a U.S. withdrawal from the Saudi market.

At the same time, there’s no shortage of countries living in dangerous neighborhoods that would remain or could become massive buyers of American weapons. And as pointed out here, the Saudi military has relied on so much U.S. equipment for so long that changing its complexion would be as complicated as it would be expensive. Not to mention the years it would take for a regime that faces imminent threats to complete this task.

As a result, even if Khashoggi miraculously reappears one day, or even if he doesn’t but the Saudis are innocent, here’s hoping that the uproar over his disappearance triggers some major rethinking of America’s Middle East policy. After all, to paraphrase a famous recent remark about governing, a policy firestorm is a terrible thing to waste.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The Afghanistan Opportunity Trump Has Missed

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Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, Barack Obama, Barry Posen, border security, George W. Bush, Iran, Iraq, ISIS, Middle East, nation-building, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, refugees, Russia, September 11, Syria, Taliban, terrorism, The Atlantic, travel ban, Trump

Although I usually oppose U.S. overseas military interventions, I can understand President Trump’s decision this week to keep significant numbers of American troops in Afghanistan and even expand the presence (to some unannounced extent). What I do find disappointing is Mr. Trump’s apparent neglect of more promising alternatives that couldn’t possibly be called “defeat” or “retreat,” and his failure to describe realistically what may be the biggest fundamental choice the nation still faces in Afghanistan.

I shouldn’t have to remind anyone that Afghanistan under Taliban rule provided the base for the Al Qaeda terrorists responsible for the September 11 attack and so many other atrocities (on top of those that they have inspired by supportive groups and individuals). So clearly conditions inside that country (a problematic term, to be sure, as will be explained below) matter for U.S. national security. And it’s hard to imagine that even most Americans who are terribly – and understandably – frustrated with the sixteen-year U.S.-dominated military operation that has followed would disagree. The main question has always been how best to defend American interests.

After the Taliban were overthrown by a (highly successful) U.S.-led military campaign in the fall of 2001, Presidents Bush and Obama tragically opted for a standard American counter-insurgency effort to keep the Taliban out of power that combined continued military pressure on their remaining forces and strongholds with programs to promote Afghan economic, social, and political reform.

As critics (including me) predicted, this strategy of “nation-building” failed mainly because Afghanistan lacked the crucial prerequisites for nation-hood to begin with. So several years ago, as the Taliban began mounting a comeback largely as a result, I began supporting a fundamentally different approach: abandoning reform efforts and focusing on securing the United States’ essential aim in Afghanistan – preventing the Taliban or similar groups from consolidating control in enough territory to reestablish a safe haven capable of generating more terrorism.

This strategy would still involve U.S. military forces. But their top priority by far would not be supporting whatever Afghan government military exists, or training such forces (unless some especially promising units can be identified). Instead, the main American mission would be harassing the Taliban and its allies sufficiently to prevent that territorial consolidation, and the main instruments would be special forces and air strikes. And I argued that such operations could prevent ISIS in Iraq and Syria from posing a similar threat. Finally, I recommended that this approach be supplemented – and eventually superseded – by strengthening the security of America’s borders, to reduce greatly the likelihood that terrorists that still might originate from Afghanistan or anywhere else could actually reach the U.S. homeland.

The main advantages of this approach were, initially, concentrating American efforts on overseas goals that seemed both vital and attainable, as opposed to desirable for non-essential; and recognizing that the U.S. government ultimately is much likelier to succeed in controlling access to the United States than in comprehensively manipulating events in far-off lands.

In his speech this week, President Trump did a good job in describing the urgency of continuing to deny terrorists a safe haven in Afghanistan. But although he (once again) disparaged nation-building, he also paid it enough lip service to make clear that the basic goal remains in place. For example, he argued that “Military power alone will not bring peace to Afghanistan or stop the terrorist threat arising in that country” and asked India (and possibly America’s European allies) to “help us more with Afghanistan, especially in the area of economic assistance and development.” Surprisingly, moreover, he never connected his Afghanistan strategy with his so-far successful efforts to control American borders more effectively. Indeed, Mr. Trump didn’t even mention his proposed suspension of travel from terrorist-wracked countries (a list that, oddly, never included Afghanistan itself).

And the picture drawn by the President of his ultimate objective(s) was confusing, at best. Notably, on the one hand, he insisted that “From now on, victory will have a clear definition:  attacking our enemies, obliterating ISIS, crushing al Qaeda, preventing the Taliban from taking over Afghanistan, and stopping mass terror attacks against America before they emerge.” On the other, he stated that the “strategically applied force” his administration will apply in Afghanistan “aims to create the conditions for a political process to achieve a lasting peace.” Still more puzzlingly, he allowed that a political settlement could include “elements of the Taliban.” To be sure, in a technical sense, these objectives aren’t mutually exclusive. But they sure don’t coexist easily, at least not at this point.

One especially worrisome consequence of this Presidential rhetoric is its suggestion, however cautious, that there’s an ultimate, satisfactory solution in Afghanistan that results from continuing U.S. involvement, at least in the foreseeable future. Much skepticism is warranted, mainly because the chances of Afghanistan becoming something politically cohesive enough to “take ownership of their future, to govern their society,” in Mr. Trump’s words, flies in the face of so much of this area’s history.

But that doesn’t mean that the United States should simply pull up stakes, either now, or somewhere down the road – because of that safe haven threat. My own preferred strategy would have resulted in America’s leaders acknowledging that Afghanistan is not a problem to be solved but, as if often true in world affairs, a condition that requires continual management – and then explaining that some forms of management are vastly more realistic, and cheaper, than others.

Nonetheless, an even more appealing alternative has emerged over the last week. In an August 18 article in The Atlantic, MIT political scientist Barry Posen made the case for a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan based on the intriguing observation that the countries neighbors, Russia and Iran, both have compelling interests in ensuring that the Taliban and similar groups don’t return to power. In the words of the piece’s title, the aim would be “to make Afghanistan someone else’s problem.”

Of course, I couldn’t help but notice that this proposal strongly resembles my recommendation for handling the challenge of increasingly powerful North Korean nuclear weapons. I’m also impressed, though, by Posen’s observation that both Russia (which is vulnerable to Islamic extremism infecting its own sizable Muslim population) and Iran (a Shia Muslim-dominated country theologically opposed to Sunni groups like the Taliban and Al Qaeda) have compelling reasons to frustrate America’s enemies in Afghanistan.

Posen also intriguingly responds to fears that a combined Russian-Iranian success would strengthen those anti-American countries’ efforts to dominate the entire Middle East. As he points out, Pakistan and China both would find this prospect alarming, too, and would seek to check Russian and Iranian influence.

Is Posen’s scheme fool-proof? Of course not. But it looks at least as promising as Mr. Trump’s plan, and it’s discouraging that this supremely, if Machiavellian, America-First strategy apparently wasn’t even considered by the Trump administration in its efforts to fix a badly broken U.S. Afghanistan policy.

Im-Politic: When Media Bias Turns Downright Incompetent

Tags

Al Qaeda, Alexi McCammond, Axios.com, Barack Obama, Im-Politic, Islam, King Abdullah, King Salman, Michelle Obama, protocol, Queen Elizabeth II, Saudi Arabia, terrorism, Trump

It’s only the middle of a Saturday afternoon and I’ve already changed my mind twice about what to write about. So it goes in the blog business. I confess it’s not the most important subject on the merits that I’ve read about in the last 24 hours. But it is arguably one of the most emblematic of the era of instinctively anti-Trump media coverage (I refuse to dignify it with the word “journalism”) in which we’re living.

As I’m sure you know by now, President Trump left Washington, D.C. yesterday for his first foreign trip, and the first stop has been Saudi Arabia. And almost on cue, the new-ish media site Axios.com posted an article with the sensational headline “Conservatives ignore Trump’s bow to Saudi leader.” And if you know anything about recent U.S.-Saudi diplomacy and protocol, this does indeed seem like an inexcusable example of American right-wing hypocrisy.

After all, conservatives did blast former President Obama in 2009 for bowing to the Saudi king at a meeting in London. And in my view, they were right to do so. Monarchs insist on such gestures as acknowledgments of their supremacy over all supposedly lesser mortals. Why on earth should any U.S. leader – or any American – feed this deeply un-democratic and profoundly un-American conceit? And by the way, I’d apply the same standard to the Queen of England – who, unlike any kings of Saudi Arabia (in all likelihood a major funder of Al-Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist groups), seems like a perfectly nice and in many respects admirable individual.

So indeed – what the heck was Mr. Trump doing emulating his predecessor? And why aren’t conservatives up in arms? Here’s why. As is clear from the two photos in question, Mr. Trump was just bowing slightly to enable King Salman – who is shorter – to give him a medal. Then King Abdullah was also shorter than Mr. Obama. But no act like a medal award was involved that required a lowering of the Obama noggin or a bend at the waist.

Moreover, Axios reporter Alexi McCammond overlooked a genuine opportunity to point out a Trumpian hypocrisy on this score. The president’s wife and daughter, who accompanied him on the trip, and wore no headscarves – something that’s ordinarily a major no-no in Saudi Arabia’s arch-conservative Islamic theocracy. Lately, the Saudis have been making exceptions for visiting foreign dignitaries – hence the bareheaded Trump women. But private citizen Trump didn’t seem to know this in 2015, when he slammed then First Lady Michelle Obama for going headscarf-less on a visit to the Kingdom.

So not only are we living through an era of almost pervasively biased and double standard-ridden “journalism” and social media commentary (coming from all sides, as shown by the Trump comment above). Even by their own debased norms, we’re living through an era of thoroughly incompetent “journalism”:and social media commentary.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The Holes in Obama’s Middle East “Doctrine”

Tags

Al Qaeda, border security, Democratic Party, foreign policy establishment, Iran, ISIS, Jeffrey Goldberg, Middle East, missile defense, Obama, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, September 11, terrorism, The Atlantic

If you have any interest in American foreign policy, international affairs, President Obama’s overarching strategy, or simply how he makes decisions generally, The Atlantic‘s current cover story based on a series of lengthy interviews with the chief executive is an absolute must-read. Kudos, incidentally, to author Jeffrey Goldberg for his skill at inducing Mr. Obama to open up so completely.

In fact, the only legitimate criticism – and clearly this wasn’t under Goldberg’s control – involves how late in the president’s term most of these thoughts came out. The public would have had a much better basis for judging Mr. Obama’s record and talent as a commander-in-chief and diplomat – and a much better chance of influencing his moves – had this window into his mindset appeared much earlier.

Any number of RealityChek posts can – and I hope will – come out of this material, but to me what deserves spotlighting right away is the completely incoherent approach the president has taken to the Middle East. Specifically, it could not be more obvious that he has concluded that the region is as utterly hopeless as I have contended repeatedly. Yet he still refuses to overhaul American policy, much less American objectives, in ways that logically follow. The result is what Goldberg calls an “Obama Doctrine” that still leaves gaping Middle East-related holes in America’s security.

Not that the president has always dismissed the notion that, within the foreseable future, the Middle East can even be minimally pacified or stabilized, much less modernized or democratized. As the author shows, “The story of Obama’s encounter with the Middle East follows an arc of disenchantment. In his first extended spree of fame, as a presidential candidate in 2008, Obama often spoke with hope about the region. In Berlin that summer, in a speech to 200,000 adoring Germans, he said, ‘This is the moment we must help answer the call for a new dawn in the Middle East.’”

Two years in office didn’t change Mr. Obama’s outlook appreciably: “Through the first flush of the Arab Spring, in 2011, Obama continued to speak optimistically about the Middle East’s future, coming as close as he ever would to embracing the so-called freedom agenda of George W. Bush, which was characterized in part by the belief that democratic values could be implanted in the Middle East. He equated protesters in Tunisia and Tahrir Square with Rosa Parks and the ‘patriots of Boston.’”

According to Goldberg, what soured Mr. Obama on the region was a combination of growing pique with most of its leaders and then the failure of his Libyan intervention. That debacle “proved to him that the Middle East was best avoided. ‘There is no way we should commit to governing the Middle East and North Africa,’ he recently told a former colleague from the Senate. ‘That would be a basic, fundamental mistake.’” Added Goldberg, the president now believes that “thanks to America’s energy revolution [the Middle East] will soon be of negligible relevance to the U.S. economy.”

Goldberg’s explanation is something of a paradox: “The rise of the Islamic State deepened Obama’s conviction that the Middle East could not be fixed—not on his watch, and not for a generation to come.” Yet in the president’s own words, ISIS “has the capacity to set the whole region on fire. That’s why we have to fight it.”

In fact, these passages reveal one big internal contradiction of the Obama approach. On the one hand, he’s happy to talk endlessly in public about his genuine belief that the Middle East is little more than one big potential Vietnam-like quagmire for America. Indeed, he told Goldberg that the region’s tribalism is “a force no president can neutralize” and is a major source of his fatalism. On the other hand, Mr. Obama insists, as above, that the United States has no choice but to try preventing conflagration.

As a result, here’s the clearest way that the president can describe how he determines when and how to act: “We have to determine the best tools to roll back those kinds of attitudes. There are going to be times where either because it’s not a direct threat to us or because we just don’t have the tools in our toolkit to have a huge impact that, tragically, we have to refrain from jumping in with both feet.” But when Middle East threats are “direct” but the “toolkit” is wanting, the United States should just…what exactly? No wonder so few Americans have confidence in the president’s national security chops.

The more fundamental flaw with the Obama doctrine, however, is its evident assumption that when “direct threats” to American security emerge in the Middle East, or show signs of stirring, extensive intervention in the region’s madhouse politics – whether with meaningful allied assistance or not – is America’s only option.

That’s certainly been the American Way for decades. But as I’ve pointed out, because of the nation’s favorable geography, two vastly superior alternatives have been available since the September 11 attacks so dramatically revealed that simple benign neglect of the region had become unacceptable. The first alternative measure is to establish genuine border security, to ensure that terrorists face much greater obstacles entering the United States and remaining in the country (the visa overstay problem). The second is to build the kind of missile defense that could protect America from the kind of small-scale nuclear strike that Iran could launch in the policy-relevant future if the worst fears about its military ambitions and the president’s de-nuclearization deal come to pass. (Such a system would help counter North Korean nuclear threats.)

Of course, because these programs will take years to complete, a bridging strategy is needed. That should focus on using special forces units and airstrikes to keep ISIS and Al Qaeda (which hasn’t disappeared) sufficiently off balance to prevent consolidation of a terrorist state that could be used as a training center and launchpad for September 11-like operations. Accordingly, talk of finally defeating ISIS et al should be eliminated – because even if the goal is achieved, successor groups will surely arise.

A final point worth making: One of the most important services performed by Goldberg is documenting beyond any reasonable doubt that most of the current Democratic Party foreign policy establishment – including presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton, Mr. Obama’s former Secretary of State – is much less ambivalent about interventionism than he is. And generally speaking, these attitudes are even more pronounced in Republican ranks. That’s why it’s hard to look at the politics of 2016 and feel much confidence that the United States will have the wit and wisdom to extricate itself safely from the looney-bin Middle East any time soon.

Im-Politic: Can You Pass This “Islamic Terrorism” Quiz?

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Al Qaeda, American Muslims, Bernie Sanders, Caliphate, Hillary Clinton, Im-Politic, ISIS, Islam, Islamic terrorism, Middle East, Muslims, Obama, radical Islam, Sharia, terrorism

Since using the terms “Islamic terrorism” and even “radical Islam” to describe the operations and ideologies of groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda remains such a hot topic, here’s a quiz on the subject that has some surprising and revealing answers. But first, a little background.

President Obama and supporters of his general Middle East approach – including all three major Democratic presidential candidates – have refused to use these characterizations, and voice two main, related objections. First, they explain, the phrase falsely implies that anything in Islamic theology endorses the kind of violence these organizations have perpetrated, and that their actions are supported by anything more than the tiniest fraction of the world’s Muslims. Second, as a result, they insist that using phrases like Islamic terrorism foolishly and needlessly antagonizes that huge majority of Muslims at home and abroad whose cooperation anti-terrorism success will require.

As I see it, these positions hold little water. Other than Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump (who has proposed banning all non-citizen Muslims from entering the United States) , no significant American political figure has even suggested that all or most Muslims pose a threat to U.S. security. Nor has any such figure spoken of Islam as a fundamentally barbaric, dangerous religion.

What many major American leaders have said is that active and passive support for ISIS-style terrorism and abusive and violence-breeding intolerance and misogyny is entirely too common in the ranks of the world’s Muslims. In fact, among these leaders has been one Barack Obama, who has publicly bemoaned the lack of adequate push-back against these views and practices by Muslims theocrats, clerics, and their followers worldwide.

But let’s leave this particular debate aside for the moment, and get to that quiz.

Question 1: Who said, “The struggle against Islamic-based terrorism will be not simply a military campaign but a battle for public opinion in the Islamic world”?

Answer: Then-Senator Barack Obama. The quote is taken from his 2006 book, the Audacity of Hope. Nor was this a one-time mention. At the beginning of the volume, he blamed “Islamic militants” for the 2008 attack in Mumbai, India that claimed 195 lives.

Just as important, why else would the United States and its allies need to wage “a battle for public opinion in the Islamic world” unless a sizable portion of that world was not at least highly sympathetic to terrorism committed in that religion’s name?

Question 2: Who said, “We should pursue a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy, one that embeds our mission against ISIS within a broader struggle against radical jihadism that is bigger than any one group, whether it’s al-Qaida or ISIS or some other network.” Hint: It was the same American who said, “[O]nce and for all, the Saudis, the Qataris, and others need to stop their citizens from directly funding extremist organizations, as well as the schools and mosques around the world that have set too many young people on a path to radicalization.”

Answer: Former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton. The same Hillary Clinton who said (in the same speech!), “Islam is not our adversary. Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism. The obsession in some quarters with a clash of civilization or repeating the specific words radical Islamic terrorism isn’t just a distraction. It gives these criminals, these murderers, more standing than they deserve. It actually plays into their hands by alienating partners we need by our side.”

Yet if Muslims “have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism,” who are all those Saudis, and Qataris? Unitarians? Who are the “radical jihadists”? Hindus? And what’s with the mention of “schools and mosques”? Unless there are enough of them…to mention?

The “distraction” and related “alienation” points are puzzling, too. How can one on the one hand implicate mosques and Muslim schools in the “radicalization” process and on the other hand avoid naming and condemning them for preaching and teaching what can only be a form of Islam? Conversely, does Clinton believe that simply omitting the word “Islam” from the adversary’s label will fool Muslims everywhere into thinking that at least a branch of their faith isn’t being singled out? From another vantage point, what kind of Muslim would be fatally offended by American officials explicitly pointing out the obvious? One who’s genuinely recruit-able to anti-ISIS efforts? Or one looking for an excuse to sign up with or finance or otherwise support the terrorists?

Question 3: Who said, “This is a war for the soul of Islam”? Hint: It’s also the presidential candidate whose website says “ISIS is a major terrorist group currently attempting to establish an Islamic Caliphate—a group of countries under strict sharia, or Islamic, law….” Answer: Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

Sanders of course has never been seen as a Muslim hate-monger. But as with President Obama’s “battle for public opinion” point, if a war is needed to win the soul of Islam for moderation, doesn’t that mean that lots of the soul is deeply – indeed, violently – opposed? And referring to the Caliphate and sharia law can easily be seen as the kind of legitimation that Clinton is warning against.

Using the term “radical Islam” by no means slanders the large numbers of Muslims inside the United States and out who lead peaceful, law-abiding lives, let alone those who have served this nation and others with honor and distinction in public life, law enforcement and first responder positions, and the armed forces. Yet if the threat posed by ISIS, Al Qaeda, and similar terrorists can indeed be neutralized by fighting a war of ideas and ideologies (and because of the Middle East’s deep dysfunctionality, I have major doubts), victory will require allies who can take straight, and perhaps even brutally honest talk. Otherwise, how can precious resources be targeted precisely – and therefore effectively?

Following Up: Glimmers of Progress on ISIS and on Covering Trump

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2016 election, Afghanistan, airstrikes, Al Qaeda, amnesty, Ashton Carter, boots on the ground, Cheap Labor Lobby, Donald Trump, Following Up, Immigration, ISIS, Middle East, offshoring, offshoring lobby, Republicans, Ross Douthat, special forces, terrorism, The New York Times, Trade

Since I have no evidence that either anyone with President Obama’s ear or New York Times columnist Ross Douthat reads RealityChek, I can’t take credit for important insights each one has arrived at in recent days. Even so, it’s gratifying that both America’s latest decision on tactics for fighting ISIS, and Douthat’s new column on dealing with the rise of Donald Trump in American politics, both echo points I’ve been making here for many months.

On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter announced that the Obama administration would send to Iraq American commandos from a unit whose mission has been capturing or killing top terrorist leaders overseas. Carter euphemistically called the commando team a “specialized expeditionary targeting force.” But its deployment represents the most important and useful escalation of the fight against ISIS that the president has approved – and potentially a move toward a strategy I’ve long described as America’s best hope for neutralizing this and similar terror threats.

The conventional wisdom is correct in observing that airstrikes alone are no lasting solution against ISIS and comparable groups. In order to defeat the terrorists on foreign battlefields – thereby preventing them from striking the American homeland – terrorist-held territory will need to be recaptured and then secured, and only significant ground troops can achieve that objective. The conventional wisdom is also correct in observing that the more these boots on the ground are dominated by troops from Middle Eastern countries, the less likely it is to provoke a backlash from local populations.

But as I’ve noted, the conventional wisdom is completely loopy in assigning any chance that Middle Eastern countries will rise to this occasion. For local conflicts pit so many religious and ethnic forces against each other, and thus have so many dimensions, that each local power invariably has numerous other agendas than defeating ISIS – including those they consider more important.

So the beginning of wisdom in countering ISIS begins with realizing that no major locally dominated ground campaign is in the offing, and then searching for substitutes. The best that I can think of is focusing not on decisively defeating terrorists on the battlefield, but on keeping them off balance enough to deny them the secure control of territory needed to create bases for planning strikes on the United States, and to prevent their leaders from spending significant time for planning – as opposed to running for their lives.

In conjunction with strengthening border security, such an approach would concentrate on interests that are truly vital to America – protecting the homeland, as opposed to the pipe dream of pacifying or reforming the Middle East. And unlike those aims, it has the added virtue of being achievable at acceptable cost and risk. And as I’ve also noted, this very strategy showed real promise in Afghanistan, where it long neutralized and actually did “degrade” Al Qaeda, to use a favorite Obama term.

Mr. Obama’s decision to send commandos after ISIS leaders means that one leg of my preferred strategy is being put in place – though their numbers may not be adequate. Intensified airstrikes could represent the second leg – though their intensity may still not suffice. If only genuine resolve to secure America’s borders wasn’t still sorely lacking.

This morning, The New York Times‘ Douthat provided more reinforcement for recent RealityChek posts on the presidential campaign. He wrote compellingly (and it’s worth quoting in full) that:

“[F]reaking out over Trump-the-fascist is a good way for the political class to ignore the legitimate reasons he’s gotten this far — the deep disaffection with the Republican Party’s economic policies among working-class conservatives, the reasonable skepticism about the bipartisan consensus favoring ever more mass low-skilled immigration, the accurate sense that the American elite has misgoverned the country at home and abroad.

“If Republicans don’t want Trump the phenomenon to turn into an actual movement, if they don’t want the intimations of fascism in his appeal to cohere into something programmatically dangerous, then tarring his supporters with the brush of Mussolini and Der Führer right now seems like a shortsighted step — a way to repress the problem rather than dealing with it, to dismiss discontents and have them return, stronger and deadlier, further down the road.

“The best way to stop a proto-fascist, in the long run, is not to scream ‘Hitler!’ on a crowded debate stage. It’s to make sure that he never has a point.”

I made similar arguments last Saturday, and can only say “Amen.” Here’s hoping that Douthat’s good sense will start spreading to his fellow journalists (including at The New York Times) – and more important, to both other Republicans and Democrats. But I have my doubt, since the corporate Offshoring and pro-amnesty Cheap Labor Lobbies remain so influential over both parties, and since many Democrats and liberals in particular seem to value ever greater immigration inflows over the interests of native-born workers. So you can expect me to keep calling out those who prioritize Trump demonization over ensuring that America’s economy starts working for the great majority of Americans once again.

Im-Politic: The New York Times Fails the Test of Media Bias on Refugees/Terrorism

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ABC News, Al Qaeda, Cato Institute, FBI, Im-Politic, ISIS, Jeff Sessions, jihadists, media, media bias, Middle East, New America Foundation, Obama, radical Islam, refugees, September 11, terrorism, The New York Times

The New York Times has long proclaimed itself to be the nation’s (and maybe the world’s) newspaper of record, dedicating to publishing “All the news that’s fit to print.” But when it comes to its coverage of the debate over admitting refugees from today’s war-torn Middle East, the paper’s approach seems to be “All the news that fits support for leniency.” For twice within the last week alone, The Times has put out features that completely ignore some of the most important facts that have complicated this controversy.

Last Friday, The Times ran an item emphasizing how long refugees from Syria must wait to enter the country, and how many background checks they face. That’s undoubtedly useful information. But did reporters Haeyoun Park and Larry Buchanan even mention the complete absence of independent corroborating information available to the federal or United Nations officials trying to vet them? No. Did their editors believe that such information was pertinent, and that Times readers deserved to know it? Apparently not.

In fact, there’s no evidence that the reporters consulted with specialists on refugee admissions and border security who harbor major doubts about screening’s sufficiency. Nor is there evidence that the editors requested more diverse sourcing. This conclusion seems justified because the only sources of information listed at the item’s end are agencies of an Obama administration that’s been vigorously, and often belligerently, insisting that the vetting situation is under control, and two non-profit organizations that strongly support this position. So the article unavoidably created the impression that not only are current Syria refugee procedures painstaking, but that they are painstaking enough.

Comparable lapses characterize today’s Times offering on “the origins of Jihadist-inspired attacks in the U.S.” According to this article, “All of the Sept. 11 attackers entered the United States using tourist, business or student visas. Since then, most of the attackers in the United States claiming or appearing to be motivated by extremist Islam were born in this country or were naturalized citizens. None were refugees.”

That’s important to know. But it’s at least as important to know that Alabama Republican Senator Jeff Sessions has released a list of 12 vetted refugees who this year alone have been charged or implicated in federal courts of participation in Jihadist attacks in the United States.

In addition, two years ago, ABC News reported that “The discovery in 2009 of two al Qaeda-Iraq terrorists living as refugees in Bowling Green, Kentucky — who later admitted in court that they’d attacked U.S. soldiers in Iraq — prompted the [FBI] to assign hundreds of specialists to an around-the-clock effort aimed at checking its archive of 100,000 improvised explosive devices collected in the war zones, known as IEDs, for other suspected terrorists’ fingerprints.”

ABC then proceeded to quote by name the FBI agent in charge of the bureau’s Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center as stating that “We are currently supporting dozens of current counter-terrorism investigations like that.” Moreover, according to the report (which quotes numerous other FBI agents by name), “Several dozen suspected terrorist bombmakers, including some believed to have targeted American troops, may have mistakenly been allowed to move to the United States as war refugees….”

These disclosures don’t invalidate the article’s claim about the great number and severity of the terrorist threats to Americans that have not come from refugees. But they completely invalidate the clear suggestion that tighter restrictions on refugee admissions, which President Obama has so far adamantly refused to consider, can not meaningfully enhance Americans’ security. Nor did either Times piece mention the live possibility that the refugee threat could grow significantly going forward, as the Middle East experiences ever heavier, bloodier conflict, and as the U.S. and other militaries keep failing to put the kind of pressure on ISIS that kept Al Qaeda on the run for much of the post-September 11 period.

Also revealing – and unacceptable: Similar to the first piece, none of the “security experts” quoted in the piece contradicted the Obama line. The only ones mentioned by name come from the New America Foundation, which has a long record of backing the president’s domestic and foreign policies, and the Cato Institute, which has long favored an Open Borders approach to American immigration policy. How difficult would it have been for Times reporters Sergio Pecanha and K.K. Rebecca Lai to find specialists who disagreed? And again, did their editors even make this request?

The point here isn’t that Mr. Obama and his supporters are indisputably wrong and that their opponents are indisputably right about refugee policy. The point is that the issue is complicated, that important evidence can be cited to support both of the groups of approaches that have recently emerged, and that a responsible newspaper would not have pretended that the case for the status quo is airtight. If the powers-that-be at The Times want to make that case (as is of course their right), they should use the editorial page.