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: 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 Does Obama Really Think About the Iran Military Option?

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Arab Street, Bashir Al-Assad, Council on Foreign Relations, Iran, Iran deal, Iraq, ISIS, John Kerry, Middle East, nuclear weapons, Obama, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Shiites, Sunnis, Syria

I’ve suggested that the less President Obama and his top advisers say about their new Iran nuclear deal, the better its chances of Congressional approval, and Secretary of State John Kerry recently provided a great example that somehow escaped even the critics’ notice.

The president plainly thinks that one of the strongest arguments on behalf of the deal is that it’s America’s best option for keeping Iran nuclear weapons-free short of war. And most of his critics plainly agree with his assumption that such a conflict would be terrible. Otherwise, why would they keep insisting despite all the evidence that tougher sanctions, or a prolonging of current sanctions, can get the job done?

I agree that a military strike could be very dangerous. It’s anything but clear that the U.S. government knows where all of Iran’s key sites are, and secret facilities would almost by definition survive American bombs and missiles. Moreover, military actions have a nasty habit of producing unexpected and harmful consequences.

But here’s the funny thing: According to Secretary of State John Kerry, the president actually isn’t so worried. And Kerry’s stated views could legitimately be interpreted as agreeing – at least if you take seriously some July 24 remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City.

The Council, just to remind, is a combination foreign policy education and discussion group and research organization, and its members include many of America’s top private business and financial leaders as well as current and former government officials (along with, less impressively, chattering class types like think tank staffers and journalists). So Kerry (a member himself) presumably was choosing his words even more carefully even than usual. It’s worth quoting at some length what he said about the military option:

“Now, I know there’s been a lot of railing through the years over their [Iran’s nuclear] program, and people rant and rave. And we know we’ve seen the prime minister with a cartoon of a bomb at the UN and so on and so forth. But what’s happened? What has anybody done about it? Anybody got a plan to roll it back? Anybody got a plan that’s viable beyond bombing them for one or two days or three days that might slow their program down for two years or three years? To which, as most of you as practical human beings, you know what the response will be.

“I mean, we can do it, and we haven’t taken it off the table. Let me make that absolutely clear. This President is the only president who has actually developed something called the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, the MOP, which has been written about publicly. And not only has he asked it to be designed, he’s deployed it.

“…And when I became Secretary of State, when he called me into the Oval Office and I sat with him, I said, ‘Mr. President, if I’m going to be your Secretary of State, I want to know that if I’m going around and talking to countries in the Middle East and I say you’re prepared to use military action, I don’t want to be a Secretary of State for whom you’ve pulled out the rug.’

“…And he looked at me and he said, ‘John, let me tell you something directly. Iran will not get a nuclear weapon and I will do whatever is necessary, but I believe diplomacy has to be put to the test first.’”

So according to Kerry, although Mr. Obama is by no means anxious to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, his position that all options needed to remain “on the table” has not simply been talk. He gave the orders to develop a weapon needed to achieve success and to put it into service.

Kerry’s own views of using force and of its consequences are at least as interesting. He told Council members that “We can do it” and that between one and three days of strikes “might slow their program down for two years or three years.” To be sure, the Secretary did add, “you know what the response will be.” In fact, though, this matter is far from clear.

For example, what Kerry didn’t mention during this appearance was the possibility of such attacks triggering a region-wide Middle East war. Nor did he bring up the prospect that the so-called “Arab Street” might rise up in anger. Maybe that’s because, if anything, Sunni Arab public opinion could well welcome action against Shia Iran. Meanwhile, the region’s other Shiites – in Iraq and Syria – seem to have their hands full with ISIS and with embattled Syrian dictator Bashir Al-Assad’s remaining forces.

Kerry might be referring to a point he has made elsewhere – that Iran’s knowledge of the nuclear fuel cycle can’t be “bombed away,” and that Tehran could simply start all over again. At the same time, if this is Kerry’s point, it hardly proves that military action would be futile. After all, creating enough physical destruction to slow Iran’s weaponization plans by two to three years sounds pretty impressive – especially compared with a deal whose flawed verification and sanctions snap-back provisions could easily permit Tehran to continue progressing toward weapons capability with its remaining human and physical infrastructure intact. Moreover, if the Iranian nuclear program shows signs of attaining critical mass again, it could be attacked again.  

Again, none of the above means that I favor the military option. What it does mean is that the president himself might not believe one of the main arguments for his Iran deal.  If true, that could ironically hearten many opponents – but frighten many supporters.

 

 

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Why the Iran Deal (So Far) Worries Me

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allies, Biden, European Union, Iran, Iran deal, Iran talks, Kerry, Middle East, nuclear weapons, Obama, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, sanctions, Saudi Arabia, Shiites, State Department, Sunnis, Susan Rice

I still haven’t yet examined all the statements made by participants about the nuclear weapons deal announced yesterday by the United States, five other major world powers, the European Union, and Iran. So I can’t comment on all of the possible loopholes created by the agreement, which include differing interpretations of its provisions by the signatories (not to mention the inevitable discrepancies among wording in different languages, plus any that might be deliberately created by the various governments involved). In fact, as far as I can tell, no actual agreement text has been made public by the Obama administration. The only official U.S. document I’ve seen is this description posted on the White House website.

So like most of us, I’m somewhat hamstrung in evaluating the accord – which, to complicate matters further, is a work in progress, that everyone acknowledges leaves many critical details up in the air. Further, I’m no expert in the technology involved in producing nuclear weapons and peaceful nuclear energy.

All the same, what I know of the deal worries me as much today as it did the day before its unveiling. My main – non-technical – concerns:

>Iran is an awfully big country – the world’s 18^th largest. At more than 636,000 square miles, it’s just under 18 percent the size of the United States, and slightly less than 2.5 times bigger than Texas. A country that big will contain a great many hiding places, and will be challenging for the international community to monitor.

>All of the strategic conditions that, at least in principle, have been driving the Iranians to develop so many of the capabilities for building nuclear weapons remain firmly in place. Their theocracy represents a hated minority sect located in a region demographically dominated by its main theological rivals – which include not only large countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, but unspeakably violent terrorist groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda and its various offshoots.

At least as important, Iran has used force to challenge the United States, which has in recent years toppled adversary regimes in Iraq and Libya, and has worked hard to oust the Assad dictatorship in Syria. Even a small nuclear arsenal would practically ensure the Iranian regime’s indefinite survival against its most powerful foreign threat by far.

And don’t forget – Iran’s neighborhood is overwhelmingly likely to remain hostile and dangerous long after the end of the various fixed-term provisions envisioned by the framework.  Therefore, going nuclear could still just as strongly appeal even to a future Iranian regime much more moderate than today’s.

>America’s foreign policy team doesn’t even deserve to be called the JV. Secretary of State Kerry was known during his Senate career as a “showhorse,” not a “workhorse.” And even with a strong legislative record on Capitol Hill, there is no reason to consider him anywhere near a match for Iranian negotiators. Like Vice President Biden, he’s traveled extensively, and accumulated much face time with foreign leaders. Whether either of them has learned anything useful from these experiences is not entirely clear. As for national security advisor Susan Rice, she’s simply a climber devoid of any substantive accomplishment.  Her career has been nothing more than a monument to over-promotion and possibly racial tokenism. And then there’s the president himself, who of course, had amassed only a half a Senate term’s worth of national policy-making experience before winning the White House in 2008.

Has foreign policy experience been any guarantee of good results for the United States? Hardly. It was the “best and the brightest,” after all, who led the nation into Vietnam and other debacles. What’s worrisome about the current administration is that it’s a combination of down-the-line (liberal) establishment thinkers completely lacking in any meaningful private sector or other real-world experience, and the wisdom and judgment they usually nurture.

>As has widely been noted, the Obama administration is heavily invested in Iran deal’s success for many reasons. Both the president and Kerry clearly have the legacy thing on their minds – both in the positive sense of achieving an historic and enduring breakthrough, and in the negative sense of burnishing records that look decidedly bleak so far. How enthusiastic will the president and his aides be to conclude that Iran is cheating? In fact, between now and the next (June 30) deadline, how plausible is it that they’ll hold fast on the framework’s decisive conditions when firmness could blow up an enterprise on which they’ve worked so hard for so long?  

Add to these influences – to which all politicians, and other human beings, are subject – the strong tendency of the State Department, the diplomatic establishment, and their Mainstream Media enablers to value perpetuating diplomatic “processes” at least as much as achieving results. Just think of how the endless, on-and-off Israeli-Palestinian peace talks are continually described. Not that it’s out of bounds to believe that “talking is better than fighting.” But time is not necessarily America’s friend here – both because of Israeli threats to solve the problem militarily, and because of the related likelihood of continuing Iranian progress toward weapon-ization.

>America’s allies in keeping Iran nuclear weapons-free are hardly known for steadfastness. The European Union and most of its individual members have been ambivalent enough about responding to Russia’s expansionism over the last year – and that’s a threat in their own neighborhood. Economics looks like the most powerful explanation. The continent is stagnating economically, and even though Russia is no giant on the global economic stage, it’s been a major market, and fuel supplier, for many European countries – notably Germany. Growth-starved European economies are bound to be just as tempted by potential customers in Iran. As a result, it’s not just President Obama who could be reluctant to accuse Tehran of cheating. Many allies could be equally unwilling. Which means that, barring the most frightening and flagrant examples of Iranian cheating on a final nuclear agreement, the threat of promptly and completely reimposing sanctions to punish agreement violations looks ominously empty. 

>Finally, the administration’s explanation of why Iran has come this far literally sounds too good to be true, especially given the existential advantages Tehran would create for itself by going nuclear. As Mr. Obama has made clear, he doesn’t believe that sanctions possible in current circumstances by themselves can change Iran’s nuclear plans. He has repeatedly stated that using force in the Middle East has usually been a disastrous mistake for the United States in recent years. Yet he credits current sanctions with, first, seriously committing Iran into a diplomatic exercise aimed expressly at eliminating any nuclear option and, second, with producing Iran’s signature onto a framework fully capable (as the president sees it) of achieving this epochal objective.

I readily concede that the sanctions have hurt Iran economically. Yet as a friend reminded me a few weeks ago, it’s a country for which levels of economic privation unknown to Americans are still a warm memory. The population’s ability to endure further hardships shouldn’t be underestimated – especially considering the national power it could bring and the pride it could foster. Indeed, Russia may be teaching Washington a lesson in economic resilience right now.

But let’s close on an encouraging note. The Wall Street Journal today reported that, as the Iran talks have proceeded, the Obama Pentagon has been upgrading its biggest bunker buster bombs – weapons that can be used in principle to destroy even heavily protected Iran nuclear facilities. Perhaps despite much evidence to the contrary, when administration officials keep saying that they’re not operating in a perfect world, they really do know it.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: It’s High Time for America to Take the Hint(s) in the Middle East

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border security, foreign policy, Iran, Iraq, ISIS, John Boehner, Jordan, Middle East, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Palestinians, Shiites, Sunnis, terrorism, Yemen

Sometimes, when countries are lucky, reality knocks them over the head with a two-by-four before they make fatal mistakes. The United States, over whom God is said to watch (along with fools and drunks) has just gotten two of them in connection with the Middle East in the last week. Yet no one should bet the ranch that these broadest of hints will be taken.

The first came in a Saturday Washington Post news article on the regional situation just before a Saudi-led coalition started intervening in Yemen’s civil war. As Post reporter Liz Sly explained it:

“The United States is aligned alongside Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and against them in Yemen. Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, who have joined in the Saudi offensive in Yemen, are bombing factions in Libya backed by Turkey and Qatar, who also support the Saudi offensive in Yemen. The Syrian conflict has been fueled by competition among all regional powers to outmaneuver one another on battlefields far from home.”

The clear message: This is a madhouse that even Bismarck couldn’t deal with, much less Susan Rice.

The second sign that current Middle East policy is flying the United States into a mountain came from, of all people, House Speaker John Boehner. Now traveling through the region, the Ohio Republican declared, “America’s ability to lead in the world depends on Jordan’s ability to remain a stabilizing force in the Middle East, and we could not ask for a more solid partner.”

This is the same Jordan whose Sunni king from an Arabian peninsula tribe rules over a population that’s long been more than half comprised of always restive Palestinians, but whose demographic profile is now being reshaped by enormous refugee waves from disintegrating neighboring countries. Among the newcomers – hundreds of thousands of Shiites who comprise that sect’s first significant presence in the country. In other words, Boehner believes that the future of America’s global leadership depends on the national equivalent of a time bomb whose ticking he can’t, or won’t, hear.

As I’ve written before, it’s time for the United States to go. But not in the belief that various surrogates – like Arab coalitions – can effectively replace or even supplement American power. Or that the domestic energy revolution is already advanced enough to make the region marginal to U.S. economic interests.  Or that ISIS is so brutal that it will ultimately tear itself apart or provoke a powerful backlash.  Or that one of these days, Iran and Saudi Arabia may be ruled by moderates and genuine modernizers. Or that (similarly), Islam in all its forms might undergo a Reformation and help lead all the Middle East’s peoples out of dysfunction.

Instead, the United States urgently needs to begin actively and explicitly preparing its exit by using domestic policies to minimize Middle East dependencies and threats. This means ensuring that the economy develops energy sources large and diverse (geographically as well as in terms of fuel types) to turn Middle East oil producers into permanent global energy market followers, not leaders. It means securing U.S. borders well enough to keep out terrorists from within the region (and their supporters from without). And until marginalization policies are firmly in place, it means (a) harrassing ISIS with air strikes and special forces to keep it off balance, and (b) either preventing Iran from building a nuclear weapon, or crippling its economy through sanctions if current negotiations fail, until marginalization policies are in place.

Above all, it means that American leaders must realize that foreign policy-making isn’t first and foremost about acting out their fantasies – whether imperial or humanitarian. (Yes, I know – the two often overlap.) Instead, foreign policy-making is first and foremost about promoting and defending the nation’s security and welfare. Before the energy revolution in particular, the United States had no viable alternative to active, often dangerous, involvement in the Middle East’s deadly affairs. Now the vastly superior disengagement option, which emphasizes (domestic) conditions that Washington can reasonably hope to control, is within our grasp. I’d hate to be the one to have to explain to future generations why this opportunity wasn’t aggressively seized.