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.

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

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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.

Following Up: On the Middle East, the “Serious” Candidates are Less Serious Than Ever

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2016 elections, air strikes, allies, burden sharing, coalition, Defense Department, Following Up, free-riding, Iran, Iraq, ISIS, Kurds, Middle East, Pentagon, Saudi Arabia, Sunnis, Syria, terrorism

A recent RealityChek post explained why the label “serious” shouldn’t be used for presidential candidates (in either party) who claim that the United States can create a meaningful anti-ISIS military coalition. More recently, a report from the Pentagon itself further mocks the idea that office-seekers – or anyone else – believing that America’s allies will share much of the burden of defeating the terrorist group have any significant knowledge of the Middle East or world affairs generally. As my post noted, most of the presidential hopefuls in both parties fall into this category – including all of the “mainstream” or “establishment” figures, along with President Obama .

The Defense Department report tallied by country the number of air strikes carried out against ISIS as of January 19, and here are the findings. Overall, of the 9,782 such attacks conducted on targets in Syria and Iraq, the United States has been responsible for 7,551, or more than 77 percent. By target countries, U.S. war planes have carried out nearly 69 percent of the anti-ISIS strikes in Iraq, and just under 94 percent of these operations in Syria. (These counts don’t include Russian activity, or the more than 65,000 “sorties in support of operations” in the two countries, like reconnaissance and targeting missions.)

DoD doesn’t break down the non-U.S. figures by country; according to CNN, one reason is that these various governments define and count “air strike” in many different ways. But given the focus in the United States on local Middle East countries, and the expectation that their own gut level self-interest in will motivate them to practically lead the fight against a group they say is a literally mortal threat, it seems reasonable to surmise that Saudi Arabia et al are dropping the ball.

It’s important to point out that one reason that the United States has dominated the air war against ISIS is that the United States is the world’s dominant military power. At the same time, the U.S. air power is deployed all around the world in order to handle threats in nearly every region. America’s Middle East allies have no military responsibilities beyond their neighborhood.

Moreover, if these countries aren’t all-in for the air war, how realistic is it to expect them to charge into a major ground war against ISIS? The answer: It’s the height of inanity – and ignorance. And the reason is pretty simple: As has repeatedly been the case since the end of World War II, the United States needlessly has made itself vulnerable to the free-rider phenomenon. Under Democratic and Republican presidents alike, Washington has been so infatuated with exercising “global leadership,” and has so loudly advertised its conclusion that America’s own security depends on the security of every corner of the globe, that its European NATO allies, Japan, and South Korea have understandably assumed that the United States would protect them no matter how modest their own efforts.

In the impossibly byzantine Middle East, the free-rider syndrome has been exacerbated by all the other items on the security agendas of countries ranging from Saudi Arabia (like countering Iranian ambitions in the region, and supporting lots of Islamic radicalism itself) to Turkey (like preventing Iraq’s anti-ISIS Kurds from becoming strong enough to create an independent state that would attract Turkey’s own Kurdish minority).

The failure of the “serious” presidential candidates to recognize the coalition delusion shows that accumulating “experience” in making national security policy in Washington by no means proves that they’ve accumulated wisdom or even developed simple common sense. The same of course holds for the establishment media, which keeps clinging to and parroting the same off-the-mark convictions.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Putting the “Dip” in U.S. Diplomacy

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bailouts, Brazil, China, China meltdown, China stock markets, CNN, Congress, coupling, decoupling, Denise Labott, emerging markets, Exim, Export-Import Bank, export-led growth, free trade agreements, global leadership, Hillary Clinton, IMF, International Monetary Fund, international organizations, Iran, Iran deal, Jackie Calmes, Obama, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, The New York Times, TPP, Trans-Pacific Partnership, Wendy Sherman

It was unintentional to be sure, but the establishment media should get some credit for providing the following two reminders of how positively dippy American foreign policy, and the analysis of this diplomacy, has become.

The latest came just yesterday, in New York Times correspondent Jackie Calmes’ article titled “I.M.F. Breakthrough Is Seen to Bolster U.S. on World Stage.” And in the likely case that Calmes isn’t responsible for the headline, the thrust of the piece is clear from the lead paragraph:

“A string of agreements between the White House and Congress, capped by last month’s surprise accord that ended a five-year impasse over the International Monetary Fund [IMF] has eased, though not dispelled, concern that America is retreating from global economic leadership.”

I’ve already explained here and here (among other places) why Calmes decision to include on this list Mr. Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal and Congress’ decision to restore to life the Export-Import Bank makes no sense. So I’ll concentrate on the development she focuses on: Congress’ agreement to approve reform of the International Monetary Fund that grants more voting power to so-called “emerging market” (EM) countries like Russia, India, and especially China.

The IMF decision itself is idiotic enough. The rationale – supported by virtually every other member of the Fund – has been that these countries represent the rising powers in the global economic system, and therefore deserve more clout in one of the international organizations charged with overseeing this system. The trouble is, these countries’ wherewithal was greatly exaggerated even when they were growing strongly. The main reason is that their growth depended heavily on exporting to wealthier countries like the United States.

They’re still largely export-dependent, but rather than global growth leaders, they’ve become global growth laggards. Brazil, for example, is facing the prospect of its worst recession in more than a century. On top of its geopolitical trouble-making, Russia’s an economic mess. And China looks not only to be slowing dramatically, but completely incompetent in regulating its financial markets (not to mention its own aggressive regional moves). Even acknowledging that the United States, the European Union countries, and Japan haven’t been economic standouts either for many years, what’s the merit case now for augmenting these countries’ international influence?

But Calmes’ thesis is inane on many more fundamental levels, too. Chiefly, it parrots a series of commonplaces that, though endlessly repeated by mainstream foreign policy analysts and the politicians that bewilderingly still listen to them, keep undermining the effectiveness of American diplomacy. They start with the idea that the IMF, or any other international organization, has counted for much in world affairs. These institutions are logistically useful in providing fora (i.e., “buildings”) in which leading powers that communicate, negotiate, and otherwise deal with each other. But they have no autonomous ability to affect the course of events.

The Fund is often seen as an exception even by avowedly realist thinkers who normally take a dim view of international organizations, but contrary to Calmes’ claim, it per se has never served as “an international lender of last resort to foster global stability.” After all, it has no capacity to create wealth or other resources. In the last analysis, its lending function has always been carried out by the United States and the other major powers, who have used the Fund as a conduit. For two decades starting in the 1970s, the Fund addressed a series of financial crises in developing countries with a series of bailouts (again, financed ultimately by its members) that were conditioned on economic reform programs. But even the Fund’s staff now acknowledges that much of the advice it dispensed was lousy.

And since institutions like the Fund don’t serve as significant force multipliers for strong, wealthy countries like the United States, they’re anything but indispensable for American world leadership, economic or otherwise. As with the case of all countries aspiring to this goal, that flows from America’s own capabilities. Indeed, given America’s still crucial role as the world’s market and consumer of last resort, we’ll know that its economic leadership is at risk when its trade partners figure out another way to grow adequately.

Finally, there’s the question of whether the United States needs world leadership in the first place. I’ve explained in detail why a country this strong, wealthy, and geographically secure can remain more-than-adequately safe and prosperous even in a deeply troubled world. Indeed, America’s matchless capacity for self-sufficiency nowadays argues for less of what foreign policy types call world leadership by Washington – and therefore less exposure to the world’s woes – not more. I’m not saying that these views are beyond criticism. I am saying that they were worth debating even during the Cold War, they’re worth debating more now, and it’s dismaying that no one relying on Calmes or her Mainstream Media counterparts for their news in 2016 would have a clue that it’s not still 1956 strategically.

The second example of foreign policy dippiness came during the summer, from CNN’s Denise Labott’s August profile of Wendy Sherman, the chief staff-level U.S. negotiator of the nuclear weapons deal signed with Iran. Although I’m not enthusiastic about the agreement, I still view it as the best possible option available to America to keep Iran bomb-free short of military strikes. My confidence, however, has definitely been shaken having read Labott’s cheery revelation that “Her first career as a social worker and community organizer may seem like odd training for nuclear negotiations. But Sherman said she actually drew upon those experiences with her Iranian counterparts.”

Continued Labott : “Her ‘caseload’ may be more global, but she said the work is similar — involving the complex relationship and budding detente between Washington and Tehran, as well as managing a series of clients both inside and outside the meeting room.

“‘That skill set came in handy,’ she said. ‘You have to see all the parts in front of you. You really learn how to understand people.'”

Meaning no disrespect for the profession, but I can’t think of a background less suitable than social work for dealing with regimes like Iran’s (or North Korea’s – which was a Sherman responsibility under former President Clinton). Unless you think that the ruthless mullahs in Tehran or the arguably sociopathic leadership in Pyongyang have anything in common with a troubled American individual or family? And that the assignment is providing relief?

From another standpoint, social work and comparable activity are defined by enhancing a client’s well-being. Self-interest doesn’t even enter the picture. Is that how Sherman viewed her priorities? At least judging from this article, that’s how it seems. And Labott apparently considered this nothing less than delightful.

An optimist could finish Labott’s profile relieved that Sherman is now esconced in the academic world. A pessimist, though, could note that she’s a close confidante of her former Foggy Bottom superior, Hillary Clinton, and that she’s being talked about as a possible Secretary of State herself should the Democratic front-runner win the White House.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: U.S. Cyber Strategy Still Seems Full of Holes

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arms control, asymmetrical war, China, cyber-war, deterrence, Iran, James Clapper, Joseph S. Nye, multilateralism, North Korea, nuclear weapons, Obama, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Politico, Project Syndicate, Russia, treaties

Terrorism has understandably grabbed all the recent national security headlines lately, but two big articles this week have also valuably reminded us that major cyber threats still loom. Unfortunately, these pieces also (unwittingly) remind of all the reasons to worry that Washington still doesn’t have its arms around two of the biggest challenges facing the nation on the cyber front. The first is the asymmetry issue, which is a fancy way of saying that many of America’s current and likely cyber adversaries have much less to lose than the United States in a computer-war exchange. The second is the unlikelihood that the kinds of legalistic foreign policy approaches favored by much of the American establishment can meet this challenge.

Actually, the asymmetry issue has several cyber-related dimensions. One, widely noted (and especially by Chinese strategists), is that today’s civilian computer networks, whose development has long emphasized openness and information sharing, are vulnerable to attacks even from relatively low-tech countries. So for that reason alone, cyber-war can be a great geopolitical equalizer.

The second, however, is less widely noted. As I’ve written, the decision to launch a cyber attack against an adversary with significant cyber-war capabilities of its own rests on much more than a calculation of whether any assets the attacker values (its own cyber forces, its other military forces, its economy or broader society) can survive a retaliatory strike in meaningful form. This decision also hinges on more than how “meaningful” is defined for one or both parties to the conflict. It depends as well on a more fundamental, more political assessment regarding how much pain the two countries and societies can withstand.

Paradoxically, and especially relevant to Americans, the more advanced a country is, the less able it arguably is to deal satisfactorily with the disruptions stemming from a major cyber strike. And because the converse makes sense, too, it may not be decisive that the United States could inflict more damage in absolute terms in a cyber exchange on foes such as North Korea or Iran or Russia or even China than vice versa. The kinds of hardships stemming from the disabling of modern infrastructure could be much more tolerable for the peoples of these less developed, less prosperous countries than for Americans because much greater percentages of them rely so much less on these systems. Moreover, life without them is a much more recent memory – as are knowledge of and experience with coping.

That’s where, for all the information it contains (and keeping in mind that national cyber capabilities are closely guarded secrets), this detailed new Politico article on U.S. forces in this realm falls short. Even if America’s technological edge is as strong as portrayed, some of its adversaries might not be impressed enough to be deterred. One big possible policy implication: Asymmetry means that shoring up the nation’s cyber defenses, difficult as that is, is at least as important for ensuring cyber-security as creating matchless offenses. And as RealityChek readers know, U.S. intelligence chief James Clapper and other senior officials have said – for attribution – that these offenses actually aren’t so matchless. Another big implication – at least against China, trade and broader economic sanctions may be the most effective cyber counter-moves, since China’s dictators will struggle so to remain in power without the growing prosperity created largely by exporting to the United States.

One conclusion that shouldn’t be drawn from this cyber predicament is that a realistic way out is an international treaty or code of conduct banning or limiting cyber war. In this respect, it’s encouraging that Joseph S. Nye’s new essay for Project Syndicate is hardly a ringing endorsement of such legalisms and their effectiveness. But he does suggest that these measures can strengthen deterrence, and notes approvingly that

“major states have agreed that cyber war will be limited by the law of armed conflict, which requires discrimination between military and civilian targets and proportionality in terms of consequences. Last July, the United Nations Group of Government Experts recommended excluding civilian targets from cyberattacks, and that norm was endorsed at last month’s G-20 summit.”

Nye isn’t an Obama administration official, but he has been at the center of Democratic Party foreign policy circles for decades, and his pioneering emphasis on “soft power,” multilateralism, and other supposed substitutes for military might fits right in with Mr. Obama’s belief that world affairs is coming to be dominated by a fundamentally new, more cooperative set of dynamics and relationships. 

So it’s important to note that these ideas are simply efforts to define America’s biggest international problems – and international tensions in general – out of existence. Think about it: If the United States faced cyber-armed adversaries who were willing to abide fully by the conflict-limiting agreements they signed, these agreements wouldn’t be needed in the first place. For those countries would never take such commitments seriously unless they decided that their stake in maintaining whatever degree of (shaky) global peace and order prevails significantly outweighs whatever goals they could hope to achieve through major use of cyber-weapons – or any other weapons.

That is, if the world’s Chinas, Russias, and Irans were truly devoted to competing for influence peacefully and according to a set of rules, the rules would simply codify that reality. Their existence on a piece of paper cannot create it. And the asymmetry problem makes assuming their reasonableness (at least as Americans judge it) or perceived support for the global status quo even less reasonable.

Moreover, anyone believing that the history of nuclear arms control debunks that pessimism doesn’t understand that the various Cold War agreements signed by the United States and Soviet Union had nothing important to due with preventing armageddon. Instead, in this case, the conditions for a successful “balance of terror” – of mutual deterrence – were obviously in place. Fears of final physical destruction trumped all other considerations and produced restraint.

Sadly, there’s no evidence that any of the presidential candidates this year have better ideas. But as I wrote above, what the public doesn’t know about America’s cyber-war programs and strategies greatly (and properly) exceeds what it knows. So perhaps there’s some hope that truly realistic approaches are being developed, and that the next president will start learning about them once he or she is elected.

Im-Politic: About Those “Serious” Presidential Candidates

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2016 election, Arabs, Bashir Al-Assad, Chris Christie, Im-Politic, Iran, ISIS, Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, Middle East, Muslims, Obama, Qatar, Republicans, Saudi Araabia, Shiites, Sunnis, Syria, terrorism, Yemen

According to the nation’s mainstream political and media classes, this year’s Republican presidential hopefuls are divided into two main categories. One is comprised of the “serious” candidates who, whether you agree with them or not, clearly know the issues inside out thanks to their experience in government which has exposed them both to the complexities of America’s leading challenges and to the community of – mainstream of course – experts, many of them former policymakers themselves, who constantly fill them in on critical details and new findings. The other is comprised of the candidates who are manifestly non-serious – who can’t possibly know what they’re talking about because they lack both that governing experience and those connections with experts.

It’s a seductive typology – until you realize that all of their experience hasn’t prevented the supposedly serious candidates, and their galaxies of experts, from backing ideas that are completely whacko. Here’s just one prominent example: The belief that America has reliable allies in the Sunni Muslim world and that all that’s been preventing them from banding together into an effective anti-ISIS coalition is President Obama’s lack of resolve.

Propounders of this view have been Republican candidates Jeb Bush and Chris Christie – who the mainstream media has allowed to portray themselves as foreign policy authorities even though they’ve mainly been state governors with no direct background in the field. It’s also been a staple of Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, and John Kasich, who at least can boast of having legislative responsibilities in national security. All of which goes to show you that experience is no guarantee of knowledge and common sense, let alone wisdom.

None of these ostensible diplomatic geniuses seem to know that the Sunni Muslim governments preside over fragile and sometimes failing states that are simply too divided internally and peopled with deeply anti-Western, scapegoating-happy movements and populations to go all-in on any military campaigns in which the United States – the leading symbol of historic Western success (and Arab Muslim failure) – plays any meaningful role. Even more dangerous for Sunni Arab leaders’ survival would be joining with the West to wipe out a group that claims to seek the return of Islam’s glory caliphate days.

But that’s not the biggest obstacle to creating a regional alliance against ISIS. For among the leading anti-Western scapegoaters have been the Sunni Muslim governments themselves. As widely noted, it’s been a great way to divert their populations’ attentions from their own records of keeping their countries backward and oppressed – and in some cases poverty-stricken. In addition, the political and economic elites of countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar are filled not only with ISIS sympathizers. They’re filled with leading ISIS funders. More broadly, as The Economist (not known for iconoclasm) has observed:

“among observers of the Muslim world, it’s a commonplace that Saudi Arabia’s religious establishment has used its wealth to propagate, globally, its own puritanical school of Sunni Islam, one that despises more elaborate forms of worship and their practitioners. A catchall term for this kind of Islam is Salafism, a school that stresses the life of Muhammad and his immediate successors and distrusts any thinking or practice that emerged later. Salafism can be politically quietist, and it has some peaceful adherents, but it can also be ultra-violent. It can provide soil in which terrorist weeds can flourish.”

Finally, the Sunni Arab leaders are anything but united behind American geopolitical aims (which are pretty confused themselves). For example, the top Syria priority of conservative Persian Gulf monarchies like Saudi Arabia isn’t defeating ISIS. It’s ousting dictator Bashir Al-Assad, a long-time ally of their arch-enemy Iran, the world’s leading Shiite Muslim power. Indeed, reports have multiplied that the Saudis have slacked off even their initial anti-ISIS military moves in Syria in order to concentrate more of their resources on countering Iranian influence in their southern neighbor, Yemen.

To be sure, the conventional wisdom isn’t always wrong, and experience doesn’t always produce disaster. But establishment Republican candidates’ infatuation with the fantasy of a powerful Middle Eastern anti-ISIS coalition just waiting to be created makes alarmingly clear that it often is and can. So does recalling that the major supporters of U.S. military intervention in Vietnam were considered “the best and the brightest,” and that almost no major economists predicted the last, almost catastrophic, financial crisis. By the same token, the unconventional wisdom and inexperience can’t guarantee success, or avert calamitous failure.

Instead, the real lesson here is that the word “serious” has been thrown around way too carelessly, and self-servingly, in this campaign season – especially considering the recent records of establishment politicians in both major political parties. Encouragingly, poll results so far are making clear that big portions of the public aren’t buying these labels. Is it too much to hope that the political and media classes might display comparable savvy? Are are these self-styled taste- and king-makers too conflicted?

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: A Conflicted but Noteworthy Call for a U.S. Middle East Pullback

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Council on Foreign Relations, energy, Foreign Affairs, foreign policy establishment, Henry Kissinger, Iran, ISIS, Middle East, Obama, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Saudi Arabia, Syria, terrorism

The signs are getting curious-er and curious-er that the American foreign policy establishment is becoming more and more taken with the idea of just throwing up its collective hands in exasperation and walking away from the Middle East. In addition to being personally gratifying to yours truly, as I’ve been urging this course change for many months, it would be great for the nation as a whole, as the region has become completely dysfunctional on every level imaginable. Therefore, the notion that any outside power can intervene or try to manage events constructively has become a formula for disaster.

Last week, I noticed that former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, clearly still one of America’s foremost foreign policy gurus, published a column in The Wall Street Journal that could easily be read as a thinly disguised brief for withdrawal. This essay has now been followed by one in Foreign Affairs that argues explicitly for a U.S. pullback – mainly in military terms. That journal has for nearly a century rightly been seen as the flagship publication of the national foreign policy establishment – or, more accurately, its increasingly underwhelming remnants – because it’s sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, the closest approximation the nation has to Establishment HQ. And to thicken the plot further, Kissinger has long been a leading power in the Council’s counsels.

Skeptics can observe that the article’s authors are two former Obama administration White House foreign policy advisers, and that, just to keep a premature campaign promise, the president wants nothing more than to wash his hands of the Middle East and its seemingly endless wars and turmoil. But its appearance in Foreign Affairs means that a much broader – and powerful – part of the establishment has at least decided that this recommended strategy has now become legitimate to bring up. And such developments and the signals they send throughout not only the policy and political communities, but into the upper ranks of business and finance, have a habit of influencing decision-makers sooner or later.

The main problem with “The End of the Pax Americana” – which Foreign Affairs‘ editors billed as pointing to a “Post-American Middle East” – is that the pullout depends on a great many things going right in a region where confidence in the future has rarely been justified. The authors’ overall prescription is that Washington seek to advance America’s “primary interest” in the Middle East – “regional stability” – by acting as an “offshore balancer.” As they explain, this political science-y term entails “refraining from engagement in overseas military operations and forgoing quasi-imperial nation building to focus instead on selectively using its considerable leverage to exert influence and protect U.S. interests.”

But usually when analysts use phrases like “use its considerable leverage to exert influence,” it’s a sign of fudging. On the one hand, they’re seeking to dispel the illusion that the United States remains powerful enough simply to dictate outcomes in the region. On the other hand, they’re insisting – for no apparent reason – that the amount of influence that can be exerted will always, or at least often enough, suffice to achieve the desired goal.

It also seems that the authors are saying that whatever interests the United States retains can’t be addressed militarily (hence their warning that “Political and economic developments in the Middle East have reduced the opportunities for effective American intervention to a vanishing point….”) but can be handled diplomatically. Which seems awfully, and inconvincingly, convenient.

But the bases for the authors’ optimism are also specific and concrete, though no more persuasive. Will the United States really be able to continue deterring Iran’s ambitions to be the Middle East’s kingpin even after it becomes clear that a major military campaign against ISIS has been ruled out?

Indeed, it’s doubtful that the authors themselves believe this. In the first place, they pointedly add that Iran probably isn’t strong enough to dominate the region. And in the second place, even though they portray a major ant-ISIS campaign as the height of strategic folly, they argue that “a serviceable regional U.S. military presence” can “prevent ISIS from expanding further (into Jordan, for example) and…deter Iranian breaches of the nuclear deal and respond to any destabilizing Iranian moves, such as a major ground intervention in Iraq.” Even, apparently, though this presence should never be used.

Moreover, the serviceable presence itself turns out to be pretty big. In fact, they maintain that “The American military footprint in the region should not change.” In fact, neither should the Obama administration’s current military strategy:

“The air campaign against ISIS should continue, and American troops will still need to be deployed occasionally on a selective basis to quell terrorist threats or even respond in a limited way to large-scale atrocities or environmental disasters. But a resolute policy of restraint requires that any major expeditionary military ground intervention on the part of the United States in the Middle East be avoided and that regional partners be encouraged to take on more responsibility for their own security.”

And that reveals a further weakness with the authors’ proposals: As they themselves point out, Washington has few, if any, local countries it can rely on. Worse, its supposedly closest allies, like Saudi Arabia, seem deeply conflicted about the desirability of defeating the terrorists – as opposed to trying to use them to overthrow Syrian dictator Bashir Al-Assad.

Nonetheless, even though “The End of Pax Americana” doesn’t make a sound case for U.S. withdrawal from the Middle East, and in fact seems to back only the slightest actual policy changes, its appearance in Foreign Affairs is a minor milestone. It pushes the foreign policy mandarinate – and therefore the nation as a whole – one step closer to a strategically sensible and prudent case for exiting the region, one that recognizes America’s potential to deal with the threats the region still generates mainly through domestic policy that capitalize on its geographical remoteness from the Middle East and its potential for even greater energy self-sufficiency.

But all the progress in the world won’t make a difference unless it takes place fast enough to prevent a new regional disaster for the United States. And so far, it’s been tough to justify genuine optimism on that score.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Kissinger’s (Unwitting?) Case for a Middle East Exit

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Bashir Al-Assad, energy, Henry Kissinger, Iran, Iran deal, ISIS, Middle East, Obama, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Shiites, Sunnis, Syria, terrorism, Vladimir Putin

I’m pretty sure that Henry Kissinger doesn’t view his latest op-ed column as an explanation of why the United States needs to refocus its Middle East strategy on the goal of strategic withdrawal. Nonetheless, that’s exactly what it is.

To his credit, the former Secretary of State acknowledges that U.S. policy is “on the verge of losing the ability to shape events” in the region. And the last quarter or so of his article presents what at first glance looks like a six-point plan for restoring American influence. The trouble is, it doesn’t add up to much of a strategy. To be sure, he does argue clearly for making ISIS’ defeat Washington’s top priority – to the point of of both dropping the aim of ousting Syrian dictator Bashir Al-Assad and even acquiescing in a Russian military role in the anti-terrorist campaign.

Kissinger’s arguments about Russia are especially interesting, diametrically opposed both to the prevailing Republican and conservative outrage over Vladimir Putin’s intervention, and also to the Obama administration’s weaker protests. In fact, Kissinger portrays Moscow’s involvement as mainly defensive (to prevent Islamic radicals from creating a base from which they could foment unrest among the large Muslim populations of Russia’s southern regions). Therefore, he contends that allowing the Russians to play a role in defeating ISIS is better than leaving the field open for “Iranian jihadist or imperial forces” to claim major credit for victory – and therefore will help contain Iran’s future influence.

The former Secretary also endorses President Obama’s policy of supplementing his Iran nuclear weapons agreement with “assurances” to help protect the region’s Sunni states, like Saudi Arabia, resist Tehran’s designs. But he also appears to agree with Mr. Obama that it’s worth trying to persuade the Iranians to stop destabilizing the region.

After that, though, the Kissinger approach gets pretty fuzzy: “The reconquered territories should be restored to the local Sunni rule that existed there before the disintegration of both Iraqi and Syrian sovereignty”? “The sovereign states of the Arabian Peninsula, as well as Egypt and Jordan, should play a principal role in that evolution”? “After the resolution of its constitutional crisis, Turkey could contribute creatively to such a process”? What on earth do those statement mean?

Ditto for “A federal structure could then be built between the Alawite and Sunni portions. If the Alawite regions become part of a Syrian federal system, a context will exist for the role of Mr. Assad, which reduces the risks of genocide or chaos leading to terrorist triumph.” Especially given Kissinger’s own (correct) judgment that a central challenge facing current U.S. Middle East policy is that “two rigid and apocalyptic blocs are confronting each other….”

In fact, the “Kissinger plan” dissolves into gauziness precisely because, as he makes so clear, that Sunni-Shiite conflict barely begins to describe the complexity and intractability of the region’s dysfunction. As he writes, the Middle East order that prevailed since 1973 “in shambles,” and four local states having literally fallen apart (Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen). Therefore, what’s left of the Sunni world (which includes America’s dubious allies, notably Saudi Arabia, “risks engulfment by four concurrent sources: Shiite-governed Iran and its legacy of Persian imperialism; ideologically and religiously radical movements striving to overthrow prevalent political structures; conflicts within each state between ethnic and religious groups arbitrarily assembled after World War I into (now collapsing) states; and domestic pressures stemming from detrimental political, social and economic domestic policies.”

More important, “The U.S. is now opposed to, or at odds in some way or another with, all parties in the region: with Egypt on human rights; with Saudi Arabia over Yemen; with each of the Syrian parties over different objectives. The U.S. proclaims the determination to remove Mr. Assad but has been unwilling to generate effective leverage—political or military—to achieve that aim. Nor has the U.S. put forward an alternative political structure to replace Mr. Assad should his departure somehow be realized.”

If he really is an archetypical realist, Kissinger should recognize that not all international problems are fated to be solved peacefully, and that geography has given the United States the priceless gift of distance from this hopeless mess. As I’ve repeatedly explained, because terrorist attacks remain all too possible, and because Middle East tumult continually endangers access to its energy supplies, America is not yet in a position simply to walk away. But as I’ve also repeatedly explained, the United States is eminently capable of addressing these issues predominantly through domestic policies like securing its borders better and stepping on the energy production revolution gas.

Henry Kissinger has all but accepted that the United States cannot become safe from Middle East dangers by manipulating the region’s players and societies. Indeed, moreover, his article, intriguingly, is titled, “A Path Out of the Middle East Collapse.” Is he still hoping against hope that the regional diplomatic circle can be squared?  Or do those first three words constitute his real message?  

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: What to Do About Russia in Syria

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Afghanistan, Donald Trump, energy, Iran, ISIS, Middle East, national interests, Obama, oil, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Persian Gulf, Putin, Russia, Shah of Iran, Soviet Union, Syria, terrorism, Vietnam

During the Cold War, American leaders got into two bad habits that often wound up costing the country dearly. First, the Soviet Union, or some of its surrogates (like Cuban military advisors), or some local forces calling themselves Communists would show up or emerge in a place that rigorous thinking made clear had no important strategic or economic value to the United States. And all of a sudden, Washington would act like the fate of this place would make or break that of Western civilization. Second, a major setback would be incurred in a region of genuine importance, and since no viable countermeasures were available, the United States would simply assume that things would turn out OK eventually.

Worrisomely, variations of both bad habits are evident in the foreign policy world’s reactions to Russia’s recent burst of military intervention in the Syrian civil war. They demonstrate that if Washington’s response – either under President Obama or whoever succeeds him – winds up enhancing American security and prosperity, U.S. leaders will have to focus like the proverbial laser beam on American interests.

Vietnam of course was the prime example of the first pattern. As most surely remember, it showed the disasters that can result from massive conflicts not remotely justified by the tangible stakes. Iran and Afghanistan were great, though more obscure, examples of the second. After the pro-Western Shah was thrown off his throne in Tehran in 1979, and after Soviet forces plunged into Afghanistan later that year to try keeping their stooges in power, all manner of rationalizations for U.S. inaction popped up – even though America and the world desperately needed the Persian Gulf’s oil. Even though the worst case never unfolded and the flow of crude has continued pretty much uninterrupted, America’s ongoing exposure to the region’s turmoil indicates that hope isn’t an acceptable foundation for policy.

Russia’s entry is certainly a new factor not only in the Syrian conflict but into the entire Middle East/Persian Gulf equation. And it’s one I didn’t expect. But even though it greatly increases the chance of some kind of dangerous mishap involving U.S. and Russian forces operating in an uncoordinated manner in a relatively confined theater of action, Moscow’s move doesn’t change the fundamental situation, which consists of three main components.

First, the Middle East, because of its energy resources and its potential as a platform for terrorist strikes against the United States, remains a vital concern for Americans. Second, as a result, and equally important, Washington can’t afford to depend on optimistic predictions about the so-called foreseeable future. And third, Putin’s venture has no bearing on the inability of the United States – whether acting alone or multilaterally – to turn Syria or the Middle East into a substantially more stable, less dangerous region from America’s standpoint.

In other words, President Obama is wrong to be confident that whatever energy or terrorism threats will eventually fade because Vladimir Putin will get bogged down militarily, or because Russia’s economy can’t sustain prolonged military ventures, or because Moscow will ultimately turn the Sunni Muslim world against him. Other dovish voices are wrong to oppose a stronger U.S. response simply because past interventions have flopped and arguably worsened the region’s instability, and to suggest that standing aloof per se will somehow produce better results.

Donald Trump is wrong as well to assume that simply because Russian leaders also oppose Islamic terrorism that Washington should simply count on their military conveniently doing the dirty and dangerous work of defeating ISIS – and bogging themselves down in the Middle East. And both Democratic and Republican hawks are wrong to believe that the Russian gambit strengthens their case for deeper U.S. armed involvement in Syria and the region as a whole, whether to create no-fly zones to protect civilian populations or to start sending American troops into the fray whether in “advisory” or more active roles.

Therefore, the best American approach to the Middle East post-Putin remains exactly the same as it was pre-Putin – transitioning from a strategy of countering threats emanating from the region by trying to transform it into something better, to one of dealing with these threats through domestic policy measures like accelerating efforts to marginalize the Gulf in the national and global energy pictures, and preventing terrorist attacks by securing America’s borders.

As I’ve written, because the second goal in particular remains far from achievement, the United States can’t simply pick up militarily from the Middle East and go home. But its operations need to be linked tightly to the transition strategy, which means air and some ground activity (e.g., special forces) to keep ISIS and similar groups off balance enough to prevent them from consolidating control over areas large enough to become training centers for overseas attacks. These operations, however, need not and should not continue for one additional minute once the U.S. government has reliable systems in place for keeping terrorists away from its frontiers.

Defeating ISIS may actually entail actively cooperating with the Russian military until the mission is accomplished, and in fact the greater the burden on Russian forces, the better for Americans. But realizing longer term benefits from such efforts – either for relations between Washington and Moscow, or for the Middle East – is as unrealistic as expecting American shows of force to drive the Russians out.

And it’s as unnecessary. The root problem posed for the United States by the Middle East stems not from the specific activity or designs of hostile or potentially hostile local or outside forces, but from the fact that this terminally dysfunctional, and thus easily exploitable region matters to America at all. Washington’s top priority still should be ending this importance, and becoming indifferent to the Middle East’s future no matter how it evolves or who’s (supposedly) in control.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Hillary Clinton’s Dangerously Muddled Iran Deal Message

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Hillary Clinton, Iran, Iran deal, John Kerry, nuclear proliferation, nuclear weapons, Obama, Our So-Called Foreign Policy

The Middle East continues its matchless record of scrambling whatever intelligence, logic, and common sense America’s most prominent political leaders and commentators may boast. Just look at Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s recent speech on President Obama’s Iran nuclear deal.

Its big problem – which got no attention, as far as I can tell – was a position on using force to block illicit Iran’s bomb-building efforts that’s just as confusing and incoherent as that expressed by the president she served as Secretary of State. More important, it contained just as much potential to send Iran a message exactly the opposite of its intent – of U.S. weakness rather than resolve.

To kick off her remarks, Clinton didn’t exactly repeat Mr. Obama’s claim that it’s the deal or war (get quote.). But she came awfully close: “Either we move forward on the path of diplomacy and seize this chance to block Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon, or we turn down a more dangerous path leading to a far less certain and riskier future.” And as she continued explaining her support for the agreement, her reasoning inevitably raised the same fundamental and disturbing questions as the president’s – about why using military force is being treated as the last option America should use against Iran’s nuclear program, not the first.

Six weeks ago, I noted that the Obama position on the matter as stated was difficult to understand at best – even accepting (as I do) that military actions are inherently difficult to bring off successfully, and that American lives are a precious commodity. Let’s look at the issue more closely.

On the one hand, the president has emphasized that Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon was so threatening to the security of the nation as a whole that it would not be allowed under any circumstances. But on the other hand, his main defenses of the deal have been that, whatever flaws critics could identify, Congress’ acceptance was imperative because keeping the allies and other negotiating parties on board with sanctions meant that no additional efforts to address these flaws was possible.  

Iranian leaders could easily be forgiven for viewing these contentions as adding up to an implicit admission Mr. Obama believed that America had no viable military option to prevent their development of a weapon, including through violating the agreement, and that he was basing all his nonproliferation hopes on the threat of “snapping back” multilateral sanctions in response to cheating by Tehran. At the same time, however, as my post noted, Mr. Obama’s current Secretary of State has said publicly that not only does the president believe that the nation’s military options are viable, but that he has actually approved the development and deployment of the weapons he thinks can get the job done.

Yet if the president thinks that the Iranian program and any prospect of cheating can indeed be bombed out of existence now, if it’s such an intolerable threat to U.S. security, and if a reasonable chance exists that Iranian cheating – or a move to break-out as the deal’s key provisions expire starting ten years from now – could result in a bomb, why not take out the facilities ASAP and remove any uncertainty? The more so because the longer America waits, in theory, the bigger and therefore harder to completely eliminate Iran’s bomb-building infrastructure will become.

Nor do the two most commonly cited objections hold much water. Although Secretary of State John Kerry is indeed right in noting that the knowledge to build a nuclear weapon can’t be bombed out of existence, there would be nothing barring America from attacking anew if Iran’s scientists began reconstructing the program. In other words, Iran’s nuclear ambitions could be one of those many international problems that can’t be completely solved, at least for the time being, but that needs to be contained or managed.

Second, it’s hard to imagine global public opinion being upset for too long – even among populations that the United States does need to care about. Far from exploding in paroxysm of anti-American protest, riots, and terrorism, the Sunni Muslim world and its governments are likely to be cheering. The European allies would surely grumble, but would they really disrupt any aspect of their relations with the United States?  

Shiite reactions of course would be dramatically different, but Israel seems to have Hezbollah under control, and Syrian dictator Bashir Al-Assad plainly has his hands full just clinging to power against ISIS and a host of other internal and external enemies.  Ditto for Iraq’s Shia leadership and the more anti-American Shia elements of that fragmenting country’s population.      

Russia and China would feel the sharpest sense of betrayal, but how would they react? Beijing can’t afford to jeopardize trade and broader economic ties. Would it move (even) more aggressively on disputed Asian territories and waters? Or think twice about its apparent campaign of expansionism? Similarly, would Vladimir Putin be (even) more likely to threaten or intimidate East European allies of a United States that acted so decisively? Certainly, there’s no evidence that U.S. forbearance regarding Iran has generated any Chinese or Russian restraint in their neighborhoods.

Above all, you don’t need to favor military responses at all (and that’s not the purpose of this post) to recognize that Iran’s leaders are surely making the same observations and asking themselves the same questions.  So they could also well conclude that the relative benefits of an American military strike in cold-blooded terms are so compelling that Washington’s reluctance to act reflects President Obama’s belief that his military option actually isn’t promising enough to use, especially if Tehran is clever enough to avoid backing the United States into a corner before presenting it with a fait accompli.

If anything Clinton’s Iran speech last week highlighted such internal contradictions more sharply. The former Secretary of State, for example, went out of her way to express skepticism about Iran’s motives. Her approach, she made clear, would assume that “Iran will test the next president. They’ll want to see how far they can bend the rules.” Her response would be “distrust and verify.” More specifically, and crucially, in addition to relying on sanctions, Clinton would:

“shape Iranian expectations right from the start. The Iranians and the world need to understand that we will act decisively if we need to. So here’s my message to Iran’s leaders: The United States will never allow you to acquire a nuclear weapon. As president, I will take whatever actions are necessary to protect the United States and our allies. I will not hesitate to take military action if Iran attempts to obtain a nuclear weapon. And I will set up my successor to credibly make the same pledge. We will make clear to Iran that our national commitment to prevention will not waver depending on who’s in office. It’s permanent. And should it become necessary in the future, having exhausted peaceful alternatives, to turn to military force, we will have preserved and in some cases enhanced our capacity to act. And because we’ve proven our commitment to diplomacy first, the world will more likely join us.”

Yet there’s certainly a reasonable chance that the big takeaway in Tehran from this passage is the tension between Clinton’s suggestion that (a) America has the capability to “turn to military force” right now, and that (b) she will “exhaust peaceful alternatives” before taking that step. Fueling Iran’s confidence even more strongly might be Clinton’s acknowledgment – significantly different from the blanket defense presented by Obama – of flaws in the deal’s monitoring and inspection provisions, and especially the length of time (up to 24 days) that could pass before Iran must allow access to suspect sites and activities. To view the use of force as a last option against an untrustworthy adversary with a record of cheating simply doesn’t easily square with the view that force is an option in which Clinton has considerable faith. It could look more easily squared with a strategy of placing hope in a bluff.

None of these problems have changed my conclusion that this bad Iran deal is better than no deal at all, Yet they also leave me convinced that America’s best bet by far for security against Middle East threats is disengaging from continuous intervention in this ruined region’s chaotic affairs, and capitalizing on geography’s vast potential to keep them far from the nation’s shores.