“Patient Deliberation, Not Imperialism”: On Syria, President Obama Is More Like Woodrow Wilson Than George W. Bush
As President Obama moves toward launching military strikes against the Syrian regime, some have been quick to charge him with hypocritically following in the footsteps of the president he long sought to repudiate: George W. Bush.
Ron Paul kicked things off two months ago with a baseless charge of “fixing the intelligence and facts around the already determined policy.” More recently, a leading Russian legislator claimed Obama would be “Bush’s clone” because “just like in Iraq, this war won’t be legit.” Fox News columnist and strident U.N. critic Anne Bayefsky declared that Obama will be seen as a “hypocrite or a fraud” for not pursuing a U.N. Security Council resolution after “bashing” Bush on similar grounds.
The Bush swipe is a cheap shot. It also misses the far more relevant historical parallel. Obama is not walking in Bush’s footsteps, but Woodrow Wilson’s.
As World War I raged in Europe and civil war erupted in Mexico, Woodrow Wilson won re-election in 1916 on the slogan “He Kept Us Out Of War.” But Wilson’s slogan proved ephemeral, and his strategy of “armed neutrality” finally gave way in the face of German aggression.
Similarly, Obama won the presidency in no small part because of anti-Iraq War sentiment, and was re-elected at least in part for following through on withdrawal. Now Obama faces his own second-term Wilson moment, as Syria’s genocidal tactics severely test President Obama’s foreign policy goals of facilitating democracy, strengthening international institutions, and avoiding “dumb wars” that sap American lives, resources, and global influence.
The similarities do not end there. Both Wilson and Obama sought to turn away from the imperialism of their predecessors while embracing the use of American influence to spread the right of self-determination abroad. Both expressed restraint regarding the use of military force, yet both pushed back on pacifist constituencies in their political bases and kept their options open. Both were charged with vacillation, and both suffered the occasional rhetorical misstep, as they walked those fine lines in the run-up to military action.
Obama was knocked for drawing a “red line” against the use of chemical weapons without being prepared to follow through, arguably giving Syria license to go farther. Wilson quickly regretted saying America was “too proud to fight” in May 1915, three days after Germany sunk the Lusitania and killed 1,198 people, including 128 Americans. Seven months later, Wilson recalibrated. During a speaking tour promoting a new policy of military preparedness, Wilson made a clear break with his party’s pacifist wing: “There is a price which is too great to pay for peace, and that price can be put in one word. One cannot pay the price of self-respect.”
Still, Wilson’s restraint continued through the 1916 re-election campaign. Then less than three months after Election Day, Germany secretly cabled Mexico, proposing an alliance and offering three American states upon victory. Britain intercepted the code and fed it to Wilson, who publicized it and then took another two months before concluding it was time to enter the war.
Wilson risked being portrayed as a hypocrite, or even an outright liar, considering his campaign slogan. But as it turned out, his patient deliberation and clear reluctance for war buttressed his credibility when the moment for intervention came, helping to bring along a reluctant public.
Most importantly, Wilson did not betray his core principles. He did not flip from isolationism to imperialism. He had been seeking to play the role of peace broker, and end the war in a fashion that would move the world away from colonization and toward self-determination.
Shortly before he knew of Germany’s Mexican machinations, he laid out his vision in his “Peace Without Victory” address. Instead of a harsh peace in which the victor punishes the defeated, claims new territory, and sows the seeds of future conflict, Wilson saw a compromise settlement between belligerents, moving the world towards democratic governance and establishing a new “League of Nations” international body to prevent future world wars.
Wilson stuck by this vision even after he picked a side in the war, rejecting calls from both allies abroad and Republicans at home for an “unconditional surrender.”
Here too does Obama overlap with Wilson. Military action in Syria is not a betrayal of Obama’s foreign policy principles.
This is not a repeat of Bush-style neo-conservatism. There is nothing from the Obama White House that suggests a desire to handpick Syria’s leaders, establish permanent military bases, or claim natural resources. While Obama may not seek a U.N. Security Council resolution as he did to oust Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi, he is also not suddenly snubbing international law, as he reportedly sees justification in existing treaties such as the Geneva Conventions and the Chemical Weapons Conventions.
The administration’s emphasis on limited strikes makes clear that President Obama still wants to do all he can to avoid ending his presidency with a “dumb war” that would mire the United States in a hopeless quagmire.
The White House has even stated that the military strikes will not be designed to spark “regime change,” instead stressing that “resolution of this conflict has to come through political negotiation and settlement.” In other words, it anticipates some sort of power-sharing agreement between Syrian factions, leading to a government that is fully representative of all Syrian people. This policy objective harkens back to Wilson’s “Peace Without Victory.”
Of course, none of the above guarantees that Obama’s vision will triumph. Wilson learned that the hard way.
Wilson did succeed in accelerating the end of the war and jump-starting a negotiated settlement. But after long multi-party negotiations that he personally undertook, Wilson reluctantly accepted harsher terms for Germany’s surrender than he deemed fair. And a debilitating stroke in 1919 muddled his thinking and warped his ability to compromise with the Republican-led Senate, dooming ratification of the treaty and America’s entry into the League of Nations.
But Wilson’s inability to close the deal doesn’t mean he was foolish to try. He came pretty close, and a healthier Wilson with a stronger foreign policy team could well have pulled it off. In fact, President Franklin Roosevelt’s team did just that, proving Wilson’s wisdom correct with the founding of the U.N. after World War II. We have not suffered world wars since.
Obama may be taking a mighty gamble, but it is in pursuit of self-determination and an international order intolerant of genocide, not an ignoble quest for empire.
By: Bill Scher, The Week, August 29, 2013
“Guess Why”: Republicans Supported Attacking Syria, Now They Don’t
For decades, Republicans have been more supportive than Democrats of an interventionist foreign policy. Surveys conducted earlier this year showed that Republicans were consistently more likely than Democrats to support striking Syria if Assad used chemical weapons. But partisanship is powerful in the age of President Obama, powerful enough to overcome longstanding partisan preferences on international affairs. A new poll shows that the president can’t count on the traditional coalition for the use of force abroad.
This morning, NBC News released a survey showing that only 42 percent supported striking Syria, with 50 percent opposed. Those numbers flip when the question specified that the US would rely on airstrikes and stand-off range weapons, like cruise missiles. Then, 50 percent were on board. That probably means the president doesn’t have to worry too much about public support in determining whether and how to strike Syria.
But even narrow support for strikes is underwhelming compared to earlier surveys from Quinnipiac, CNN, Pew, and The Washington Post, which asked voters hypotheticals about how they would react to a Syrian chemical weapons attack. Those polls suggested that a majority or plurality of voters would support strikes.
So what’s the difference between those earlier survey’s and today’s NBC poll? Republicans. In every previous survey, Republicans were most likely to support attacking Syria. Each poll showed more than 50 percent of Republicans willing to strike Assad if he used chemical weapons. Today’s NBC News poll shows far less Republican support, with just 41 percent in support and 49 percent opposed. That’s 15 points less than April’s Pew Research survey, which found that 56 percent of Republicans would support strikes. In comparison, Democratic support hasn’t declined—46 percent support strikes, just like in April. And so for the first time, more Democrats support intervention than Republicans.
The easiest explanation is partisanship. The president has clearly signaled his intention to strike Syria, Republican leaders have sent mixed signals, and the party rank-and-file has taken the cue. That’s not overly surprising and largely consistent with research by political scientists, although perhaps the extent of the drop should be a bit surprising, given the party’s relatively recent willingness to bomb every country between the Mediterranean and the Karakoram, at one point or another.
The most important question is whether this represents or presages a lasting Republican shift on foreign policy. I’m doubtful, but who knows. It does seem, however, that if the president’s foreign policy gets more ambitious, Republicans might reflexively, if temporarily, embrace a more restrained approach. That would make it easier for a candidate like Rand Paul to run on a reserved foreign policy in the 2016 Republican primaries.
By: Nate Cohn, The New Republic, August 30, 2013
“A National Embarrassment”: As A Member Of Congress, If Louie Gohmert Say’s It, There Must Be Something To It
About a year ago, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was wrapping up an important diplomatic mission in Cairo when her motorcade was confronted with angry protesters, many of whom threw shoes and tomatoes, while using Monica Lewinsky taunts. And why were these Egyptians so upset? Because they’d heard from right-wing extremists in the U.S. that the Obama administration “harbors a secret, pro-Islamist agenda” and backs the Muslim Brotherhood.
None of the claims were true, but there was a problem — the protesters in the streets of Cairo were relying on comments made by U.S. clowns like Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.). You know she’s ridiculous and not to be taken seriously, and I know she’s ridiculous and not to be taken seriously, but all Egyptians heard was that an elected member of Congress’ majority party had made provocative claims about U.S. policy in Egypt that many found credible.
A year later, as Sahil Kapur reports this morning, the problem persists as Rep. Louie Gohmert’s (R-Texas) nonsense about the White House and the Muslim Brotherhood, which Americans know to ignore, is “complicating U.S. foreign policy in the region.”
Anti-American conspiracy theories are rampant [in Egypt], for a variety of reasons related and unrelated to U.S. foreign policy, and hearing it from a United States congressman lends credibility to the theory that the U.S. is teaming up with the Muslim Brotherhood — and even Al-Qaeda — to destroy Egypt.
“I guarantee you nobody in Egypt really knows who Louie Gohmert is or what he’s about. So they could very well point to this and say ‘Look! He’s a member of Congress. This must be serious. There must be something to it,'” said Steven A. Cook, senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. “It doesn’t help in a political environment where everyone is already angry at us to be fueling conspiracy theories against us. In that way it enables an overall level of hostility toward the U.S.”
Shadi Hamid, a Middle East expert at the Brookings Institution, told TPM, “[L]ook, this does provide real ammunition to the conspiracy theorists when you have American sources seemingly verifying what they are saying…. It lends these bizarre theories a new code of legitimacy and amplifies them. When Egyptians see this, they don’t realize that just because a U.S. congressman is saying this that it can be wrong or that he can be lying publicly.”
Congratulations, far-right activists, your nonsense now has a global reach and is actually influencing international events among those who can’t tell the difference between serious policymakers and circus clowns from thousands of miles away.
The TPM report added:
The New York Times reported Monday that the U.S.-Brotherhood conspiracy theory has become “widespread” in Egypt, even to the point of being seen by some as common knowledge. Billboards and posters in Egypt tie President Obama to the Brotherhood and accuse him of supporting terrorism against Egypt. And segments of the pro-military Egyptian media have been playing a YouTube clip of Gohmert speaking on the House floor, spliced with ominous background music, likening the Obama administration’s aid to Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi’s government with assisting terrorists.
Gohmert defended his remarks in a statement to TPM, saying he was merely opposing President Obama’s policies and that Egyptians “are able to” make that distinction.
But they’re not able to. Most fair-minded political observers recognize Gohmert as a national embarrassment more in need of counseling than political power, but it’s not realistic to think Egyptians will have a sophisticated understanding of American politics. When they see YouTube clips of elected officials on the floor of our legislative body in Washington, and they hear outrageous conspiracy theories involving Egypt, they haven’t the foggiest idea that Gohmert is a few fries short of a happy meal.
Yes, in fairness, it’s important to note that many who are inclined to believe absurd conspiracy theories don’t really need proof — that, of course, applies to any country — and many Egyptians who want to believe in imaginary U.S. support for the Muslim Brotherhood are going to embrace the non-existent ties whether Gohmert talks them up or not.
But the point is, the right-wing Texas congressman, by recklessly spouting garbage, is making it easier for Egyptian conspiracy theorists to persuade others. Gohmert is obviously free to be as foolish as he wants to be, but one can only hope real-world events in Egypt will push him and his cohorts to be a little more responsible.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, August 27, 2013
“The Few, The Proud, The Frightened”: Only The Fringe Standing With Rand Paul On Aid To Egypt
Yesterday wasn’t the best day for Rand Paul’s efforts to transform himself from a less cranky version of his old man into a power broker and potential presidential candidate in the Republican Party. Aside from Chris Christie’s contemptuous rejection of Paul’s suggestion that they sit down over a tall cool one and resolve their war of words over foreign policy, Paul failed to make much headway in the Senate in his long-standing attempt to cut off military aid to Egypt, despite having an almost ideal set of circumstances. While Democrats united behind the administration’s position that an aid cutoff could de-stabilize Egypt, most of the floor action involved the pummeling of Paul by his Republican colleagues, prior to a 86-13 vote against his amendment to the THUD appropriations bill.
WaPo’s Dana Milbank captured the flavor of the debate:
More than a dozen senators sat or stood at their desks in the usually empty chamber, engaging Paul, who tried to rebut their points. So many wished to join the fray that Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) extended the debate.
The result reinforced the proud tradition of internationalism in the body, and in the GOP. For all the talk of a Republican civil war over foreign policy, Wednesday’s vote showed that the internationalists still dominate. McCain portrayed Paul as the heir to the America Firsters. But there has been no growth in the isolationist sentiment since March, when an amendment to restrict aid to Egypt failed, 74-25, or since September 2012, when a Paul bill to cut off aid to Egypt, Pakistan and Libya went down, 81-10.
The coup de grace probably occurred when Lindsay Graham read aloud a letter from AIPAC opposing the aid cutoff.
McCain needled Paul. “The question here is whether the senator from Kentucky knows what’s better for Israel, or Israel.”
Paul shook his head, reclaimed the floor and challenged the “so-called leadership” of AIPAC.
When the clerk called the roll, McCain whipped his colleagues aggressively: arguing with Dean Heller (R-Nev.) after the new senator took Paul’s side, applauding when John Hoeven (R-N.D.) voted against Paul and working over Tim Scott (R-S.C.) until the senator cried uncle. “I’m with you,” Scott said.
For the Republican internationalists, this wasn’t about winning but dominating.
Well, maybe. 13 Republicans decided to Stand with Rand on aid to Egypt. That’s just one short of the number of Republican senators who stood with McCain and Graham on immigration reform, which was supposedly a triumph of party “pragmatism” against the craziness of the House GOP. You also see some significant names supporting Paul’s amendment: Mike Lee, the majordomo of the Senate’s “constitutional conservatives,” and his boon companion Ted Cruz, a potential rival of Paul’s in 2016. There’s Mike Enzi of Wyoming, who may be counting on help from Paul in rebuffing a primary challenge from Lynn Cheney that bids fair to become a national Neocon crusade. And then there was Mitch McConnell, who has clearly decided that snuggling up to Paul is his best insurance against his own primary challenge next year.
For dedicated Paulites, this was just another vote in a long struggle against foreign policy internationalists in both parties. For the GOP as a whole, it’s unclear whether the vote pitted the dominant faction against the fringe, or the party’s past against its future.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, August 1, 2013
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