Here’s David Ignatius’s take on the U. S. role in the Middle East from his most recent Washington Post column:
Fitting together the altered pieces of the puzzle brings many risks, but it does provide new openings. And it’s clear that even in its diminished role, the United States remains the indispensable stabilizing power, like it or not.
As the late Mayor Daley used to say, let’s look at the record.
| Israel | Since 1967 has become Israel’s primary if not only supporter. | ? |
| Kuwait | Kicked Saddam Hussein out after his invasion and occupation of the country. | Stabilizing |
| Saudi Arabia | Stationed troops in Saudi Arabia, setting the stage for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. | Destabilizing |
| Iraq | Left Saddam Hussein in power after ousting him from Kuwait, set up a “no fly” zone in the north, invaded and removed Saddam Hussein, then left the country to degenerate into a downward spiral of sectarian violence, setting up the pins for DAESH. | Destabilizing |
| Iran | Agreement with the mullahs | ? |
| Yemen | After more than a decade of drone war, the never-too-stable country is even less stable than it was before. Presently being attacked by KSA (who is using US-supplied weaponry). | Destabilizing |
| Egypt | Threw Mubarak under the bus, supported the Muslim Brotherhood. | Destabilizing |
| Libya | Overthrew Qaddafi, setting stage for present chaos. | Destabilizing |
| Syria | Supporting Syrian rebels’ campaign to overthrow the internationally-recognized government. | Destabilizing |
U. S. policy with respect to Israel and Iran may ultimately prove to have been stabilizing but right now it’s clearly destabilizing. Consequently, I rate our influence with respect to those countries as mixed.
I don’t see how any honest appraisal of our relationship with the countries of the Middle East can characterize the U. S. as a stabilizing influence. At least not over the period of the last 20 years.
Mr. Ignatius is either living in the past, mistaken, or is using a very eccentric definition of “stabilizing”.
Agree with all except Egypt. I don’t think we had that much to do with Mubarak’s overthrow. He was gone no matter what we did. The military decided he was no longer an asset so they dumped him. They weren’t going to keep him at our bidding. No way they start mass killings of civilians for that. Just dump and replace with another of their own.
Steve
I don’t know how one could fairly score any of these things. You could add any number of items, mostly forgotten, that were stabilizing or at least benign, because nobody talks about them, like the U.S troops stationed in Saudi Arabia in the aftermath of WWII.
Also, numerous counterfactuals arise about whether without U.S. action, the situation would have been more or less stable. Agree w/ steve on Egypt. I think the greatest source of instability in the region was the ’79 Revolution, and a lot of people think Carter threw the Shah under the bus. But we are also talking about one of the largest popular revolts in world history. Mostly it was the Shah’s fault.
I’ve largely limited my list to our activities over the last 20 years. That’s why I concluded my post with the observation that Ignatius seems to be living in the past.
You can make a better argument that we provided stability in the Middle East in 1970 than you can now. I don’t know how you construe overthrowing Saddam Hussein or Moammar Qaddafi as stabilizing. Whether we did the right thing or not in each instance is a different question from whether it was stabilizing. IMO and generally speaking the U. S. has not played a stabilizing role in the Middle East in decades. We tend to lurch from crisis to crisis making decisions based on exigent circumstances rather than having an articulated grand strategy.
On Egypt I can see there’s a difference of opinion. I think that the reason the Egyptian military saw Mubarak as expendable had a lot to do with the lack of U. S. support. Also, that the U. S. provided at least rhetorical support to the MB should be beyond question.
I’m ambivalent on the role of the U. S. in the overthrow of the Shah. I think that Carter did err but his error had to do with his handling of the hostage situation.
“Shah’s fault” is an interesting diction. “Shah’s credit” might be more to the point. He refused to use the degree of force that would have been necessary against his own people.
Iraq should be divided into separate periods. Post-1st Gulf War, leaving Saddam in power and not totally destroying his military was stabilizing. The “no fly” zone was probably a wash. It tamped down violence while in place, but it was not helping in the long run. The initial invasion was stabilizing, but the occupation was not.
The withdrawal was simply releasing the tourniquet. The US could have waited for the limb to rot and fall off, but it was dead. Unless the US was willing to pay for a prosthetic limb, therapeutic rehab, handicap retrofit for the patient’s housing, vehicle, etc., provide the patient with an income, and provide the patient with medical, Iraq was a gimped up country no matter how long the US stayed, but I would be interested to see just how much money “save a buck” Republicans would be willing to spend. My guess is that they would spend as much as they could on every social welfare program as long as it was for Iraqi or Afghani citizens.
What’s missing here are the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns. We have no way of knowing what would have happened had we done nothing. Libya is clearly a mess, but it wasn’t exactly sailing along on a gentle breeze before we showed up. A civil war was already brewing.
As for Yemen, if you have a stable government there is almost no chance that you also have foreign drones firing missiles. Japan has a stable government – you can tell by the lack of drones killing terrorists. Ditto every stable government on earth.
I would agree that we have not managed to bring stability, but I don’t think a clear case can be made that we caused all the instability in these countries.