Since Iraq, Neoconservatives have deserved their reputation as not only wrong but criminally so. Yet somehow Charles Krauthammer has secured a permanent editorial spot in most of Rupert Murdoch’s papers, and that includes the Standard Times.
His latest piece is “Collapse of the Cairo Doctrine.” Krauthammer laments the demise of American influence and the halcyon days when, as in both 1953 and 2003, we could effect regime change any time we chose. He whines that we have fallen so far, so fast, that now we have to ask NATO to help wage wars. He’s upset that Russia has told the US to butt out of Syria and just ordered USAID “democracy builders” out of Russia itself.
Krauthammer says we need not apologize for anything we’ve done, whether Iraq or the 1953 coup in Iran that replaced an elected, secular government with a dictator, or for supporting a dictator in Egypt for 30 years; that we have selflessly intervened in the Middle East six times for no other reason than altruism; and that there must be no daylight between the US and Israel.
Krauthammer accuses Obama of being soft on the mullahs, of turning his back on the Iranian Green Revolution. But clearly a president who has thrown the harshest sanctions at Iran, unleashed crippling computer viruses on its infrastructure, and just taken the MEK (a terrorist group) off the State Department’s terrorist list, can hardly be regarded as “soft.”
The heart of Krauthammer’s argument is that, unless we force our will on the Middle East through military force and regime change, and expand military bases and influence, the resulting vacuum will be filled by angry mobs of Salafists. He forgets that Egyptians just had peaceful elections and that Libyans just threw militias out of Benghazi.
These are the same, stale Neoconservative arguments that got us into Iraq.
I was in Jerusalem with a peace group on June 4th, 2009, watching President Obama on television with a Palestinian Anglican priest. The priest’s take on Obama’s speech was essentially: “well, we’ll see.” His skepticism turned out to be justified because, despite Krauthammer’s rant, there has been no seismic shift in our foreign policy, only minor calibrations. The only real difference is that Krauthammer would engorge the Defense budget a few trillion dollars more than Obama.
To many liberals, Obama’s failure to close Guantanamo was a big disappointment, but it shouldn’t have been a surprise.
When the US invaded Libya, Democrats like John Kerry actually pushed for the war. So why is Krauthammer so miserable? Because it was accomplished at lower cost, with international cooperation, thereby repudiating Neocon verities. But, again, basic foreign policy never really changed. We are still in the regime change business.
What Krauthammer sees as American decline is actually the rise of other regional players, including nations like Egypt that have thrown off US-supported dictators. Turkey, an ally, is eager to do more than being a “yes man” for US policy, yet it was rebuffed by Obama after proposing a variation of a nuclear processing deal with Iran that the US had previously floated. Russia, now a global energy giant itself, is reasserting its influence in the Middle East, particularly in Syria. And neither Krauthammer nor Obama likes it.
Contrary to Krauthammer’s wishes, a superpower can’t use military power all day long. It must create real and lasting friendships. Because of the legacy of our “selfless” incursions, our list of friends in the region is rather small. We don’t yet know enough about Egypt; it doesn’t even have a constitution yet, but it did hold peaceful elections and remove both a dictator and a military junta without bloodletting. And the US-Israel relationship is as cozy as ever. In Cairo, to the students of Al-Azhar University, Obama said the same thing he said previously to AIPAC: “America’s strong bonds with Israel are well known. This bond is unbreakable.” Our relationship with Israel, which includes looking the other way at the crimes and injustices of a 63-year occupation and shielding Israel from accountability at the UN, doesn’t win many friends. But Obama hasn’t changed it.
So, for all Krauthammer’s tantrums, and for all the President’s oratory, little has altered the status quo. The US is as friendly as ever toward Israel, as tough on Iran as ever, and as ready to use drones and war as the hardliners from the Bush administration.
Krauthammer should be buying Obama a beer.
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