Obama's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Foreign Policy
David Petraeus came out hard in a Washington Post interview against the piddling nonsense that our pedant-in-chief so often peddles when talking about the chaotic Middle East. He totally, completely rejected the supposed wisdom of the foreign policy of Obama, all without calling the president out by name.
Petraeus stressed that Iran, not ISIS, should be viewed as the crucial security threat in the region. The message was clear and unambiguous.
The general told us that "if Daesh is driven from Iraq and the consequence is that Iranian-backed militias emerge as the most powerful force in the country – eclipsing the Iraqi Security Forces, much as Hezbollah does in Lebanon – that would be a very harmful outcome for Iraqi stability and sovereignty, not to mention our own national interests in the region."
In the general's recounting of his Iraq War travails, Petraeus places Iran firmly in the enemy camp. One of Iran's generals, Qasem Soleimani, helped to solidify Petraeus's opinion of the Iranian menace when he informed the American general in a telegram: "[Y]ou should be aware that I, Qasem Soleimani, control Iran's policy for Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, and Afghanistan."
General Petraeus told the Post that "the point was clear: He owned the policy and the region, and I should deal with him. When my Iraqi interlocutor asked what I wanted to convey in return, I told him to tell Soleimani that he could 'pound sand.'"
Does anyone remember who Iran's clients are? Obama's recollection in particular seems to be quite spotty. Not only does the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) funnel weapons and material support to Shiite militias, but Iran also has a longstanding military presence in Iraq – one that the Iranians reference loudly and proudly, and one that predates their supposedly selfless cooperation in the effort to roll back the Islamic State. It used to be that one called any force that made its bones killing American troops "the enemy."
Is this not the same devious death machine we were fighting in the first place? Are they not the nation that supports the Houthis' drive across Yemen, capturing the presidential palace and seizing bases of transportation? Or how about when General Mohammad Ali Allahdadi was found amongst the dead in an Israeli attack on a Hezb'allah convoy inside Lebanon? At some point, it has to matter to us that every place that every bad guy calls home also has an Iranian general as part of the installation. When General Petraeus points all of these things out, we must assume he's doing it not only in order to reframe pursuing cooperation with a clear enemy as being dim or wrongheaded, but also to color any negotiations happening with Iran as an exercise in futility.
What will happen if the Iranians receive the imprimatur of the American Executive wrapped like a ribbon around anyagreement the P5+1 powers achieve? Negotiations don't even touch on the issue of developing ballistic missiles capable of reaching any number of civilian targets, in Israel or otherwise, and yet they are prematurely being hailed as a success.
Iranian president Hassan Rouhani offered this artificial, optimistic assessment of the nuclear negotiations: "Achieving a deal is possible." Ali Khamenei, soon after Kerry announced so much progress on the nuclear talks, offered his own: "Death to America."
Out of these two statements, the one backed up by the trail of bloodied American corpses courtesy of Qasam Soleimani, Imed Mugniyeh, and many other proxies of the Iranians is probably the truer one.
Where does the White House find itself, along the chaotic array of Middle-East alliances, other than in the role of beau pursuing an indifferent Persian coquette? Well, we got a pretty good idea when White House chief of staff Denis McDonough showed up at the recent J Street conference, informing all who would listen that "an occupation that has lasted for more than fifty years must end." McDonough is more senior than any representative dispatched by Obama to appear at AIPAC's annual shindig.
Palestinian rejectionism and nearly seven decades of indissoluble Arab hatred against Jews aside, Israel must surely be at fault for defending itself in 1967 and 1973, when it conquered land from Egypt and Jordan after recovering from a defensive posture, and rebuffed Arab attacks on every border. The stated goal of the Arab nations, as Gamel Abdul Nasser put it? "We will make it a decisive battle and get rid of Israel once and for all[.] ... This is the dream of every Arab."
Of course, we are reassured that Obama is, despite his petulance and highly motivated animosity towards Israel, a friend of the Jewish state. With friends like these...
This is all part of the inversion that the president has strenuously practiced: moving Israel and other traditional allies into the category of villain and affixing the label of partner on Iran. Former deputy national security advisor Elliot Abrams spoke of the inconsistency in "Obama's lecturing Israel, the region's only real democracy, two days after a totally free election," with Abrams further offering that it "is quite amazing – considering that in June 2009, for example, he stayed dead silent while the ayatollahs crushed the Green Movement and its demands for democracy in Iran."
Yet, with all the focus on Israel, there is another important alliance that has fallen by the wayside. After the Muslim Brotherhood's botched attempt at imposing universal Islamic fundamentalism in Egypt, General Al-Sisi took control in a military coup, stabilizing a nation reeling from the zealotry and incompetence of an Islamist thugocracy. Soon after, Obama punished Al-Sisi for cracking down on the Brotherhood, an organization of woman-beating church-burners. He suspended vital military aid to the country.
Al-Sisi is the only man, really the only man at all, to call the Muslim world out on its shortcomings. He spoke of the need for "a religious revolution. Because the Islamic world is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost … by our own hands." This was a pretty unusual, even courageous statement for an Arab leader to make considering the climate in which he operates.
Al-Sisi's comments served as acknowledgment of a dark truth. Islam has not passed the Gates of Ijtihad, that metaphorical philosophical checkpoint where old ideas used to be swapped out for new ones, the barrier that Islam once surpassed as it sought to evolve along with human society. No more. Those gates are closed. Islam is, right now, to crib a phrase from historian Gertrude Himmelfarb, in a state of "intellectual sterility."
What can one say about a foreign policy directed by petulance? Obama is willing to prioritize personal retribution, to set vindictiveness at the very top of his agenda. And what of the cold shoulder Al-Sisi is receiving? We have been told that this is due to the human rights violations of the new non-Islamist regime in the world's largest Arab state. Where Egypt's human rights violations fit on a scale that includes the chemical gassing of civilians in Syria is anybody's guess, but Secretary of State Kerry has said he's willing to engage in diplomacy with Bashar Al-Assad as well. Why not? Obama is already cozy enough with Assad's sponsor, Ayatollah Khamenei, to all but promise not to harm the Syrian dictator in any U.S. air attack. So much for that red line.
The traditional goals of the United States – prior to Obama's shift toward pacifying Iran, and the goals of the Israeli security forces, prior to Obama's turn against Israel, and the goals of non-Islamist strongmen in Egypt, prior to Al-Sisi falling into disfavor with Obama – all aligned. But that time is gone now, and we are left with an American president in unknowing competition for the crown of "Worst Foreign Policy President Ever."
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