There are two problems with US policy toward the Middle East: both the analysis
and response aren’t just wrong, they make things much worse.
The White
House has supported the anti-Semitic, anti-American Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt
and Syria; insisted the Brotherhood is moderate; gave untrained, unreliable
Libyans control over the US ambassador’s security leading to his death; denied
revolutionary Islamists attacked the US embassy and ambassador in Libya for
reasons having nothing to do with a California video; apologized for the video
in a way that escalated the crisis elsewhere; wrongly claimed al-Qaida is
finished, etc.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration responds with a
democracy- will-solve-everything approach which the same people ridiculed when
President George W. Bush advocated it. The errors are deepened in Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton’s latest defense of these wrong-headed policies in a
speech given at my first employers, the Center for Strategic and International
Studies in Washington.
Her argument is that the United States should
ignore violence and extremism and help build democracies.
The problem is
that most of the violence and extremism comes from forces that the Obama
administration supports or groups basically allied with those
forces.
Everything she says lays a basis for disaster:
- The US
government must not be deterred by “the violent acts of a small number of
extremists.”
The problem is not a “small number” of extremists – implying
al-Qaida – but a large number of them. Extremists now rule in Egypt, the Gaza
Strip, Tunisia, and – despite camouflage – Turkey. They may soon be
running Syria.
More than a decade after September 11, the Obama
administration is fighting the last war – the battle against al-Qaida – rather
than recognizing that a small group committing periodic terrorist acts is less
important than a huge organization taking over entire countries. - “We
recognize that these transitions are not America’s to manage, and certainly not
ours to win or lose.”
Of course the United States doesn’t manage these
transitions, but does – or can – have influence. In Egypt, the Obama
administration used its influence to push the military out of power and
encourage the Brotherhood. In Syria, it backed management by the pro-
Brotherhood Turkish regime and the choice of a Brotherhood-dominated exile
leadership. In Bahrain, if not stopped by the State Department it would have
helped bring to power a new regime likely to have been an Iranian
satellite. - “But we have to stand with those who are working every day
to strengthen democratic institutions, defend universal rights, and drive
inclusive economic growth. That will produce more capable partners and
more durable security over the long term.”
Yet the Obama administration
has definitely not stood with those people! It has not channeled arms to
moderates in Syria, but rather to the Brotherhood, and tolerated Saudi Arabia
supplying arms to Salafis. It has done nothing to protect the rights of women or
Christians.
Moderates in Lebanon, Syria and Egypt – as well as Turkey and
Iran – know the Obama administration has not helped them. - “We will
never prevent every act of violence or terrorism, or achieve perfect security.
Our people cannot live in bunkers and do their jobs.”
Yes, perfection is
hard. But what does that have to do with sending the ambassador to Libya into a
lawless city with no protection? And of course you can’t achieve even minimal
security if you refuse to recognize where unrest and anti-American hatred
originate.
For example, the Egyptian government knew that there would be
a demonstration outside the US embassy in Cairo and must have known the
demonstrators would storm the compound. Their security forces did nothing to
protect the embassy. Why? Because they want to stir up anti-Americanism and use
it to entrench themselves in power, even as the Obama administration praises the
Brotherhood’s regime and sends lots of money. - “For the United States,
supporting democratic transitions is not a matter of idealism. It is a strategic
necessity.” This is absurd. Are “democratic” regimes always better for
American strategic concerns than dictatorships? That’s untrue in Egypt and many
other countries in the past half-century.
Clinton said there has been a
backlash against extremist groups in Libya and Tunisia. But the backlash is by
frightened people who fear, with good reason, that the extremists are
winning. - “We stand with the Egyptian people in their quest for
universal freedoms and protections.... Egypt’s international standing
does depend both on peaceful relations with its neighbors and also on the
choices it makes at home and whether or not it fulfills its own promises to its
own people.”
In fact, Egypt’s people voted – 75 percent in parliamentary
elections and about 53 percent in presidential balloting – for those opposing
universal freedoms and protections.
And if Obama won’t get tough, the
Brotherhood regime knows it can repress people at home and let terrorists stage
cross-border attacks against Israel without concern for its international
standing. - “We have, as always, to be clear-eyed about the threat of
violent extremism. A year of democratic transition was never going to drain away
reservoirs of radicalism built up through decades of dictatorship.”
Drain
away? This year has empowered radicals! An Obama administration so far from
reality subverts US interests and makes the Middle East a far more tragic and
dangerous place.
They are doubling down on their errors and will no doubt
continue to do so if they have four more years to continue making costly
mistakes.
The writer is director of the Global Research in International
Affairs (GLORIA) Center, Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, and editor of the
Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) journal. His latest books
are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition)
, The Long War for Freedom: The Arab
Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley)
, and The Truth About Syria
(Palgrave-Macmillan)
. GLORIA Center is at www.gloria-center.org.