[Originally published in the Barre Times-Argus and Rutland Herald.]
Since World War II, perhaps as a reaction to European appeasement of Nazi Germany, the United States has become more and more interested in and committed to military responses to international problems.
In recent decades, the Republican Party has consistently advocated a foreign policy that features the projection of U.S. power abroad. During the past eight years, that position has been further amplified through the extraordinary influence of the neoconservatives on Bush administration foreign policy.
The neoconservatives believe that foreign policy should be based strictly on issues of good and evil (choose sides and take the moral high ground); that the prime tool in foreign policy is military power and our willingness to use it pre-emptively in a new unipolar world; that we should avoid conventional diplomacy including international organizations, particularly the United Nations; and that our focus should be on the Middle East and global Islam as the principal theaters for U.S. overseas interests.
It is impossible to argue logically that these neocon principles have not been the backbone of Bush administration foreign policies. So, the issue is not the nature of our foreign policy; it is whether that policy is serving our national interests.
We have had seven years of a pre-emptive, unilateral foreign policy. It has lost us whatever hopes we initially had for Afghanistan. It has brought us a political, ethnic/secular stalemate inside Iraq with little progress by those factions toward stable governance. It has cost us trillions of dollars, mortgaging our country to foreign investors. It has lost us just about all our traditional allies and turned neutral nations against us. It has stretched our military establishment to, or if you believe the Pentagon, perhaps beyond the breaking point. It has helped fundamentalist Muslim terrorist recruiting, training (the Iraq experience) and fundraising. Our uneven approach to democracy in the Middle East, as embodied in pushing it in Iraq and ignoring it in Palestine, has alienated Arabs and the greater Muslim world.
At the same time, we have accomplished nothing to promote a solution for the critical Palestine issue. Further, we have had no effect on Iran’s nuclear ambitions. We continue to occupy Iraq and to station our troops in Muslim countries to the displeasure of their peoples. And we give political and material support to the most repressive regimes in the region to the detriment of their people.
As a result, America has little credibility in the world in general and the Middle East in particular. No one likes us, no one respects us and no one fears us. Now that we have overextended ourselves politically, economically and militarily in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have become fair game for other world powers that do not share our goals or views. Let’s face it, the only weapons we have in sufficient numbers are nuclear and that is neither a flexible or useable tool.
The Russians are ignoring us and our threats in Georgia because they know there is little we can do other than complain. The Israelis, Palestinians and other Arabs have simply gone about discussing their issues without us. Pakistan ignores us while most of Afghanistan unites against us. Iran and North Korea do what they please in connection with their nuclear programs. The rest of the world treats terrorism as a criminal matter while we continue our “war,” with all its negative implications. In short, the world is going about our business without involving us and they are doing so because of their strong disagreement with our motives, goals and tactics.
Our woes in the world are the result of seven years of a go-it-alone, my-way-or-the-highway foreign policy. It is a simple fact that as long as our standard answer to foreign policy problems is a unilateral military response, we will continue to have major troubles internationally.
It is time to ask whether continuing these policies is in our interest. If it is, then we should elect John McCain who has been clear in his support of the “long war” in the region. On the other hand, Republicans have always painted Democrats as unwilling or unable to project American power abroad. Under that formulation, if you think we are on the wrong track, Barack Obama might appear to represent an alternative.
The fact is, however, that Democrats are ambivalent about the use of force. Even though he wants us out of Iraq, Obama wants to use additional force in Afghanistan. About the best we can hope for out of that adventure is political and military frustration, the further loss of American treasure, deeper troubles with Pakistan and continued collateral damage with its unintended consequences. Success, however it’s defined, will be extremely elusive. Although Obama’s position is probably driven by a perceived need to rebut ongoing Republican attacks on him for his “naiveté and inexperience,” the fact is that the military option remains high up in both candidates’ lists despite its many drawbacks.
We can’t have it both ways. If we continue our unilateral, pre-emptive military policies, we will need masses of money we don’t have and an infinitely larger military establishment to handle the predictable, coming threats that we are encouraging with our current policies.
Given the results we already have had from those policies, we need to look at alternatives. The “military option” is valid only if we are feared. Given our economic and military problems and the world’s current opinion of us, the only policy that makes much sense is a combination of diplomacy, alliances and negotiation, a policy that has served us so well in the past.
Unfortunately, neither candidate is wedded to that approach. Although Obama appears to support that policy on matters other than Afghanistan, McCain is openly opposed and dismissive, preferring to pursue the concept of the “long war.”
Haviland Smith is a retired CIA Station Chief who served in East and West Europe and the Middle East and as Chief of the Counterterrorism Staff. He lives in Williston.
