Every so often I read a blog post or newspaper column or article and my immediate reaction is “Man, I wish I’d written that”. That was my reaction on reading Gregory Scoblete’s article, “Will Obama Really Withdraw from Iraq?” at Real Clear Politics, not because I agree with every particular in it (I don’t) but because I approve so wholeheartedly in the pattern of thought reflected in the piece. The piece considers the policies of Barack Obama and John McCain with respect to Iraq. Here’s the nubbin that really caught my attention:
For many, Obama’s reluctance to challenge the current principles of America’s involvement in the Middle East is a reassuring “move to the center.” To others, it is a reminder of how narrow the debate on foreign policy really is. Rather than debate the ends of American policy, we debate the means.
Such a narrow debate is one of the unintended consequences of America’s Cold War victory. A broad, bi-partisan agreement on the nature of U.S. interests and the threat posed to them by the Soviet Union was vital – it allowed the United States to consistently contain communism even as presidential administrations (and thus tactics) changed.
Much like this consensus, our interests in the Middle East are largely derived from the Cold War era, when American power-balancing was necessary to reduce Soviet influence. Rather than adjust those interests when the threat from global communism disappeared, Washington remained content with the status quo. Today, our presidential candidates debate the utility of their policies in advancing agreed upon interests. They debate within the status quo.
He goes on by considering an alternative foreign policy position that we might assume, e.g. we might decide that neither the oil nor Israel nor American preeminence nor regional stability require our defense and, as Edward Luttwak put it, “the peoples of the Middle East should finally be allowed to have their own history”.
My own view, as I have written frequently here, is that we arrived at our current policy in the Middle East through a process, a set of reasonable reactions to events there rather than by some galvanic response or by accident, and the factors that entered into that process still obtain, namely, that in the absence of a robust U. S. presence in the region, it’s rather more likely to descend into chaos than it is to get its collective house in order and maintain a peaceful, productive stability. I’m sure there are those who know much more than I about the subject who will disagree vehemently with that last sentence and it’s a subject on which I believe that reasonable people can differ.
I further believe that our policy in the Middle East has become far too militarized, we should scale back our military engagement with the region somewhat, restrain our social and political missionaries, and re-emphasize economic liberalization in the region.
But by all means read the entire article at RCP. It’s well worth the five minutes it’ll take.
Update
Daniel Larison, writing at The Daily Dish, observes:
It isn’t clear what the point of Scoblete’s exercise in advising Obama is except to remind antiwar voters that Obama does not generally hold non-interventionist views and instead has always argued “within the status quo” and framed his positions as the best way to advance American “leadership” in the Near East and throughot the world. Even so, Scoblete’s recommendations are interesting insofar as they remind all of us how little actually separates McCain and Obama when it comes to foreign policy when compared to truly transformative alternative policy views.
All very true and, as I’ve commented here from time to time, American foreign policy has been remarkably consistent over time and, regardless of whom is elected president, is likely to remain so. Sometimes I wonder if Sen. Obama is hoping that nobody notices.
