By M.G. Oprea
Monday, October 05, 2015
Last week, Iraq formally agreed to coordinate with Iran,
Syria, and Russia to fight ISIS. This comes just weeks after Russia announced
it is deploying military aid to Bashar al-Assad in the form of fighter
aircraft. U.S. officials were evidently surprised by the announcement. To add
to the embarrassment, the Iraq agreement came during the United Nations (UN)
summit at which President Obama and Vladimir Putin were to formally meet for
the first time in more than two years.
Our influence in the Middle East is receding, and others
are taking our place. American officials should not be, or should not feign to
be, shocked or surprised. After all, this is precisely what President Obama has
always wanted.
America, the
Horrible
Obama has always advocated for America to step back from
the international stage and allow others to play a more prominent role. At the
time of his election, the country was weary from the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan and open to a strategy that would allow others to police the
unstable regions of the world.
But Obama was not merely reacting to the post-9/11 wars.
The idea that America should “lead from behind” has been part of the Left’s
ideology of post-colonial injustice for decades. Obama learned this from his
years in academia.
In the academic canon, America is the great evildoer. We
foist democracy on poor, unsuspecting countries, plundering as we go, and
impose capitalism, which, according to the Left, does not raise people out of
poverty but subjects them to the cruelty of corporations and the greed of
consumerism. For these ideological reasons, America ought to back away and
allow other countries to step forward, under the vague presumption that their
motives and outcomes will be better than ours.
So, what has “leading from behind” looked like in the
Middle East? Obama dramatically withdrew our troops from Iraq when stabilization
there was just becoming a reality. We have given insufficient assistance to the
Iraqi government in the fight against ISIS, offering them limited ground
support and ineffectual air support that has done little to “degrade and
destroy” ISIS.
Meanwhile, we have allowed our primary ally in the
region, the Kurds, to be bombed by Turkey without consequence, while Assad
continues to use chemical weapons against his opponents in Syria, despite the
much-lauded treaty Obama’s administration wags about. Now, the Taliban has
seized control of Kunduz, a city in northern Afghanistan—its first major
territorial win in more than 14 years—while we have plans to withdraw our
troops by 2016.
If We Believe Hard
Enough, War Won’t Happen
The Iraqis have grown tired of being let down by the
United States. They are wary of us, with good cause. Without the United States
as a reliable and consistent partner, they are turning to others for aid and
cooperation. What’s more, America is no longer deemed important enough by other
major world powers to consult with on a shift in strategy to confront the
biggest crisis in the Middle East since the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire
in 1922.
We have been caught unawares as three powers with dubious
backgrounds take charge of the most unstable region in the world. Russia, a
country with a terrible record of suppressing political dissent and
assassinating opposition journalists, has explicitly declared its desire to
return to its Cold War-era status. Iran, a country that openly calls for the
destruction of Israel, is a known sponsor of international terrorism groups,
most notably Hezbollah. Syria, under the control of the Assad regime, uses
chemical weapons on its citizens, even after signing a “treaty” with the
international community.
This shift in power dynamics is dangerous. Bret Stephens
has pointed out that, although many countries agreed after World War II that
war is to be avoided at all costs, we ought not assume that all countries
reject it as a viable option. Yet this is the very assumption Obama has made
when it comes both to Russia and to Iran. He has argued that the Iranians have
no motivation to break the Iran nuclear deal because they want to avoid
economic sanctions, and he has refused to take seriously Russia’s looming presence
in Ukraine. He has even cast doubt on the seriousness of the religious
convictions of the members of ISIS.
Russia’s reassertion in the Middle East is of a piece
with its actions on the European continent. They desire to matter again, to be
a major world power. Despite this, Obama seems to be either unaware, or
unconcerned, with Russia staking out a place in the Middle East, much less its
encroachment on the former members of the USSR. Russia has made clear that it
wants to keep Assad in power, a policy the United States opposes. Obama and
Putin clashed over this at the UN last week. But was this confrontation not
foreseen? Did Obama not see this would be a consequence of stepping back in the
region?
Neglect Breeds
Chaos
Many of us cringe when we hear news of our increasing
irrelevance on the international stage, not only because of what it portends
for world stability, but also because a pang comes with knowing that our
country, flawed though it is, is being scoffed at abroad. After Assad crossed Obama’s
“red line” on the use of chemical weapons in Syria without consequence, after
ISIS filled the vacuum we left in Iraq, and after we signed a nuclear deal that
made dangerous concessions to the Ayatollah in Iran, America seems and feels
impotent.
American opinion on our position in the world has
remained steady over the course of Obama’s presidency, despite the damage he
has done to our reputation and effectiveness internationally. Although this
seems to indicate the public does not disapprove of his policies, public
opinion was already very low coming out of the Bush years. Obama’s approach has
done nothing to improve this.
Regardless of opinion on the level of policing that
America ought to do abroad, we cannot afford to ignore the danger that our
neglect breeds. Eventually the chaos will touch us at home. Before ceding our
leadership role, we ought to have considered how our presence on the
international scene has affected its stability, and what are the implications
of putting alternative powers in place. Not doing so is beyond irresponsible.
If the announcement of the formal cooperation of Syria,
Iran, Russia, and Iraq was a surprise to the U.S. government, then we should
all be very worried that our country’s leadership is so out of touch.
The other possibility, the one that is perhaps more
unsettling, is that this was not a surprise at all. That many in the Obama
administration have foreseen and desired this for some time: others stand up so
we can sit down, regardless of the consequences. The goal is to achieve a sort
of global democracy where all countries have a fair share in world affairs.
Maybe next we can throw North Korea into the mix?
The question remains: will the Obama administration see
its folly and come to regret its policy of “following from behind”? And if so,
will it already be too late?
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