Restore the three sinews of American influence: our economic strength, our military strength and the strength of our values.
Disturbing developments are sweeping across the greater Middle East. In Syria, tens of thousands of innocent people have been slaughtered. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood has come to power, and the country’s peace treaty with Israel hangs in the balance. In Libya, our ambassador was murdered in a terrorist attack. U.S. embassies throughout the region have been stormed in violent protests. And in Iran, the ayatollahs continue to move full tilt toward nuclear-weapons capability, all the while promising to annihilate Israel.
These developments are not, as President Obama says, mere “bumps in the road.” They are major issues that put our security at risk.
Yet amid this upheaval, our country seems to be at the mercy of events rather than shaping them. We’re not moving them in a direction that protects our people or our allies.
And that’s dangerous. If the Middle East descends into chaos, if Iran moves toward nuclear breakout, or if Israel’s security is compromised, America could be pulled into the maelstrom.
We still have time to address these threats, but it will require a new strategy toward the Middle East.
The first step is to understand how we got here. Since World War II, America has been the leader of the Free World. We’re unique in having earned that role not through conquest but through promoting human rights, free markets and the rule of law. We ally ourselves with like-minded countries, expand prosperity through trade and keep the peace by maintaining a military second to none.
But in recent years, President Obama has allowed our leadership to atrophy. Our economy is stuck in a “recovery” that barely deserves the name. Our national debt has risen to record levels. Our military, tested by a decade of war, is facing devastating cuts thanks to the budgetary games played by the White House. Finally, our values have been misapplied—and misunderstood—by a president who thinks that weakness will win favor with our adversaries.
By failing to maintain the elements of our influence and by stepping away from our allies, President Obama has heightened the prospect of conflict and instability. He does not understand that an American policy that lacks resolve can provoke aggression and encourage disorder.
The Middle East is a case in point. The Arab Spring presented an opportunity to help move millions of people from oppression to freedom. But it also presented grave risks. We needed a strategy for success, but the president offered none. And now he seeks to downplay the significance of the calamities of the past few weeks.
The same incomprehension afflicts the president’s policy toward Israel. The president began his term with the explicit policy of creating “daylight” between our two countries. He recently downgraded Israel from being our “closest ally” in the Middle East to being only “one of our closest allies.” It’s a diplomatic message that will be received clearly by Israel and its adversaries alike. He dismissed Israel’s concerns about Iran as mere “noise” that he prefers to “block out.” And at a time when Israel needs America to stand with it, he declined to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In this period of uncertainty, we need to apply a coherent strategy of supporting our partners in the Middle East—that is, both governments and individuals who share our values.
This means restoring our credibility with Iran. When we say an Iranian nuclear-weapons capability—and the regional instability that comes with it—is unacceptable, the ayatollahs must be made to believe us.
It means placing no daylight between the United States and Israel. And it means using the full spectrum of our soft power to encourage liberty and opportunity for those who have for too long known only corruption and oppression. The dignity of work and the ability to steer the course of their lives are the best alternatives to extremism.
But this Middle East policy will be undermined unless we restore the three sinews of our influence: our economic strength, our military strength and the strength of our values. That will require a very different set of policies from those President Obama is pursuing.
The 20th century became an American Century because we were steadfast in defense of freedom. We made the painful sacrifices necessary to defeat totalitarianism in all of its guises. To defend ourselves and our allies, we paid the price in treasure and in soldiers who never came home.
Our challenges are different now, but if the 21st century is to be another American Century, we need leaders who understand that keeping the peace requires American strength in all of its dimensions.
Well said,Zolt.
To clarify, it is no accident that Moses is usually depicted carrying the ethical tablets of the law, while Mohammed is usually depicted carrying crossed swords.@ Commentator:
The fundamental error is in thinking that Islam is like any other orthodox religion. It is not. Unlike other orthodox religions, it not only believes in regulating the behavior of its believers, but is a religion bent on forcible world domination. In that sense (only) it is little different than Hitler, Stalin, or their historical predecessors.
@ Zolt:
There is NO Muslim democracy–Godless tyrannical oppressive Islam–does not allow genuine democracy!
Mitt Romney–should not have referred to Barack Obama as the president–as he is illegally in office!
Mitt Romney will be better than Barack Obama–but he will not present a “new course” for the middle east!
Mitt Romney has an article in today’s Wall Street Journal, “A New Course for the Middle East.” Especially on the question of the spread of anti-Western violence and jihadism in the Mideast in the wake of the “Arab Spring,” it is painfully disappointing.
He writes:
The Arab Spring presented an opportunity to help move millions of people from oppression to freedom. But it also presented grave risks. We needed a strategy for success, but the president offered none. And now he seeks to downplay the significance of the calamities of the past few weeks.
What Romney is saying is that democracy in Muslim countries can work, but that it can only work if the U.S. has a “strategy for success.” This is the standard neoconservative position that if the U.S. “carefully manages” the new “democracies” (rather than, like Obama, letting them develop on their own), they will develop into nice, liberal, pro-Western, constitutional republics, and not into nasty, sharia-ruled, anti-Western, Islamic republics.
So on one hand Romney acknowledges that Muslim democracy “presents grave risks” (i.e., grave risks of going sharia), and on the other hand he argues that it is in the power of the U.S. to help democratic Muslim countries avoid those risks. He doesn’t think that Muslim democracy is the problem; he thinks the absence of a U.S. strategy to guide Muslim democracy is the problem.
But he does acknowledge that Muslim democracy presents grave risks. Why does it present grave risks? Because of the very nature of Muslim societies. Namely, the majority of people in those societies are observant Muslims who believe, as all good Muslims must, in rule by Islamic law. Therefore if the majority of people in those countries democratically choose their government, they will choose an Islamic-law government. What American “strategy for success” can possibly alter that logic?
The strategy for success Romney is thinking of is strong U.S. involvement in those countries, in which we lecture, cajole, and bribe them to choose a secular-liberal course, rather than an Islamic-sharia course. He writes:
And it means using the full spectrum of our soft power to encourage liberty and opportunity for those who have for too long known only corruption and oppression. The dignity of work and the ability to steer the course of their lives are the best alternatives to extremism.
But, again, if, as Romney implicitly concedes, Muslim democracy by itself will lead in a bad direction, and must be carefully managed and led by “the full spectrum of our soft power” to prevent it from going in a bad direction, then Muslim democracy is not a good thing, right?
Further, if, as is ineluctably the case, Muslims given democratic elections will choose an Islamic-sharia government, then the full spectrum of our soft power cannot, even theoretically, accomplish the difficult task that Romney sets out for it.
Since Romney is of a mathetical cast of mind, I’ll put the problem in the form of an equation:
Muslims + democracy = Islamic-sharia government.
No amount of American guidance, lecturing, support for Muslim liberals, offers of American financial aid to fledgling Muslim democracies, threats to withhold American financial aid from fledgling Muslim democracies, can alter that equation. If Muslims have democracy, they’ll have sharia government. The only way to prevent them from having sharia government is to prevent them from having democracy.
Romney displays not the slightest sign of awareness of the gross illogic of his position. He mindlessly and irresponsibly echoes the mindless and irresponsible neocons.
He still isn’t prepared to take on the Muslim Brotherhood at home or abroad.