In 1645, after failing
in his efforts to locate Malta, the Kapudan Pasha, who commanded the
Turkish armada that was about to annihilate the Knights Hospitaller
group that ruled the island, reported back to his boss, the Ottoman
Sultan Ibrahim the Mad. "Malta yok," he said. Translated from the
Turkish, it means Malta is no longer in existence.
Despite the fact that
the American superpower enjoys limitless advantages in technological
capabilities that were simply unavailable to the Turkish fleet in the
17th century, one gets the impression that the Obama administration is
still having trouble identifying clear and present challenges in the
international arena.
The most glaring
example of such repeated failings was on display this week, when word
came that the U.S. was shuttering its embassies throughout the Middle
East and North Africa following an intelligence tip indicating that
al-Qaida was preparing attacks in the region.
The wholesale closure
and immediate evacuations, which were carried out quite dramatically and
with great media fanfare, particularly of American nationals in Yemen,
resurrected the issue of the global war on terrorism which President
George W. Bush made a top priority following the attacks of Sept. 11.
Bush's successor in the
White House, Barack Obama, sought to disentangle himself from this
agenda to the greatest extent possible. The liberal Obama, who made it a
priority to forge a rapprochement with the Islamic world that would
serve as a key pivot point in his foreign policy, preferred to minimize
and downplay the threat posed by radical Islamist extremists that were
liable to thwart and frustrate his conciliatory vision.
In light of these hopes
and expectations, which were enunciated quite eloquently in his Cairo
speech of June 4, 2009, it was hardly astonishing to learn that Obama's
first decision as commander-in-chief was to shut down the detention camp
at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The threat of terrorism was pushed to the
margins, and Obama naturally deported a number of terror suspects to
various U.S. allies.
The fact that Obama was
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize during the first year of his presidency
further steeled his determination to justify the credit that was
extended to him. He sought to put American foreign policy on a path of
reconciliation, characterized by a willingness to extend an outstretched
hand even to those who provoke and threaten (like Iran).
This deeply ingrained
tendency of seeking the widest possible common denominator with Islam
out of a willingness to ignore its very foundations and radically
violent underpinnings gained further momentum after May 2, 2011, the day
on which Osama bin Laden was assassinated.
The death of the man
who symbolized unbridled hatred for the West, its culture and
traditions, should have spelled the end of any possibility that al-Qaida
would undergo a metamorphosis and relocate its center of gravity from
Pakistan and Afghanistan to the deserts of Yemen, the Horn of Africa,
and the Maghreb. As such, it boosted the president's confidence that
"al-Qaida yok," and that he finally had license to turn his back
completely on the Bush years, the era in which the American people
became "a democracy on the defensive," namely a country that was willing
to infringe on individual rights in order to ensure the safety and
security of many.
This state of affairs
closely reflected Obama's fundamental worldview, yet it was also
sustained in large part by the president's acute sensitivity to
political correctness. As such, federal authorities no longer had carte
blanche to dig into the personal matters of an American citizen and to
turn him or her into a target for interrogation based solely on ethnic
background or religious affiliation.
As a direct result, the
FBI put off investigating Nidal Malik Hasan, the son of Palestinian
immigrants from El-Bira who, on Nov. 5, 2009, went on a shooting rampage
that killed 14 soldiers on an army base in Fort Hood, Texas (Hasan's
trial is ongoing). The authorities ignored Hasan despite the evident
radicalization in his religious views as well as the supposedly
incriminating correspondence that he began to maintain with the radical
Yemen-based imam Anwar al-Awlaki. In their exchanges, Hasan requested
that his spiritual teacher give him a "green light" to commit his act of
murder (al-Awlaki, whose fanatic sermons provided inspiration to three
of the Sept. 11 hijackers, was killed in Yemen on Sept. 30, 2011).
A chain of near-attacks
Another manifestation
of the Obama administration's strict adherence to the view that
al-Qaida-manufactured terrorism was a threat that had vanished for good
could be found in the manner in which the president interpreted the
bloody events that unfolded in Benghazi, Libya on Sept. 11, 2012. The
White House's desire (which was partially motivated by electoral
considerations) to see reality as dovetailing with its preconceived
notions led to a situation in which Obama initially characterized the
events as a spontaneous outburst by an incited mob still smarting over
the screening of a provocative anti-Islam Internet video.
It was only after an
exhaustive congressional investigation that it became clear that this
was a well-planned and executed attack carried out by a local al-Qaida
cell.
Despite the Libya
attack (which claimed the lives of four American diplomats, among them
the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens), the gap between the
utopian dreams harbored by the man occupying the Oval Office and the
harsh, cold and hard reality has yet to be closed. Even the chain of
near-attacks that was thwarted at the last minute did not prompt any
change in thinking on Obama's part, particularly when it came to his
initial belief that he could just do a complete U-turn on American
strategy.
Despite Obama's
ideological bent, some of the American intelligence community
(particularly the National Security Agency) began to gather information
on attacks-in-the-making. The revelations exposed by leaker Edward
Snowden shed light on the vast system of information monitoring and
gathering. Nonetheless, even with the latest intelligence tip indicating
that the order had been handed down for a mega-attack by bin Laden's
deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, to the Yemenite commander of al-Qaida (and
which was intercepted by American intelligence), there is still a gap
between wishes and reality in the mind and conduct of President Obama.
The NSA continues with
its invasive, extensive activities that are designed to frustrate
terrorist activities (NSA officials say that 50 such attacks have been
thwarted), yet this operational vigilance has yet to seep down to the
White House. Even if we can understand the reasons for the decision to
close the embassies (indeed, recognizing the severity of terrorism was
liable to bring Obama closer ideologically to his predecessor), this
cannot justify it. Alongside the White House's wish to steer America on a
course of reconciliation and peace, in spirit with the doctrine
championed by President Jimmy Carter, the challenges and dangers
continues to bubble in the American strategic environment.
Blind support for Morsi
It is still premature
to determine whether the recent spate of embassy closures will serve as a
wake-up call that will bring Obama back to reality and sober him up.
Nonetheless, a glance at Washington's Egypt policy highlights the
challenge in implementing a realist approach.
When it comes to the
Egyptian front, we can see that the administration remains tethered to
the democratic vision that it sought to see applied in the Land of the
Nile. Not only did Obama swiftly abandon his long-time ally, President
Hosni Mubarak, after he was convinced that the "Egyptian Spring" would
usher in an era of a free civic society and a pluralistic approach in
lockstep with Western democracy, but he also continued to provide
support and backing to the autocratic, oppressive regime led by Mohammed
Morsi, all the way up to the waning minutes of his rule. Obama did so
despite Morsi's religious roots, which were planted by the Muslim
Brotherhood and which are inherently hostile to Western values as well
as the political, cultural, and liberal traditions espoused by Obama
himself.
The fact that Morsi was
elected in a free vote (procedural democracy) is what tipped the scales
in his favor in Washington's eyes. His sharp deviations from the most
fundamental principles of democracy, which were laid bare during his
lone year in power, prompted "all of the president's men" to reevaluate
policy toward Cairo. Even after the military coup was carried out and
the Morsi-Muslim Brotherhood era was brought to its premature end, the
administration continued to contemplate its next move for a full month
before finally expressing its support for the newly installed regime.
All of these
difficulties and contradictions appeared despite the fact that it was
clear from the outset that General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and his partners
in the Egyptian transitional government were committed to a
demonstrably pro-Western regime that will yield numerous strategic
benefits for the American hegemon in the Middle East.
Similar to its
desperate attempt to suppress the threat of terrorism and deny its
acuteness, on the Egyptian front the American approach remains on
neutral, frozen as a result of its adherence to formal and legal
technicalities.
In keeping in line with
his approach, the legitimacy granted to Morsi following his election
was a sort of indefinite green light that kept flashing even as the
Egyptian leader was initiating oppressive and aggressive policies
against his rivals. Obama was too loyal to this approach, even after it
was proven bankrupt and that Morsi's style of rule was light-years away
from any kind of democratic model.
This adherence led
Obama to initiate a "cold-shoulder" policy toward Cairo at the exact,
critical time that the new el-Sissi-led government was making its first
steps and desperately needed international support. First, there was
criticism over the fact that el-Sissi used violence against the
demonstrators and that he did not work toward the desired goal of
"national reconciliation" and the formulation of a road map that would
eventually lead to democratic elections. Then came more punishment when
Obama ordered the suspension of F-16 fighter jet shipments to Egypt as a
sign of Washington's dissatisfaction with the violence in the public
squares.
It is worth noting that
Obama refrained from burning all his bridges with the Egyptian military
regime by purposely doing all he can to avoid calling the Egyptian
military's overthrow of Morsi a "coup." Labeling it such would have
legally obligated the president to immediately halt all U.S. aid to
Egypt (which annually comes to total $1.5 billion).
Delayed legitimacy
The cool chill that
emanated from Washington this past July stood in stark contrast to
American core interests not just in Egypt but in the entire region.
These interests required Washington to embrace the new leadership in
Egypt, even if it wasn't brought to power in entirely free elections.
Indeed, when el-Sissi
takes a determined stand against religious fundamentalist radicals in
Egypt, and when the U.S. is suddenly presented with a window of
opportunity to once again turn Egypt into a central cog in the Sunni
regional alignment in a part of the world with so many serious
challenges and threats, this is where he could have demonstrated good
will rather than sternness that came with sanctions.
One can only hope that
the legitimacy granted to the el-Sissi regime this past weekend by U.S.
Secretary of State John Kerry will mark a turning point toward a more
realistic approach. This step will also benefit Egypt's neighbor,
Israel.
The process of getting
up to speed with the latest developments requires Obama to face facts,
one of them being that democracy is not a concept that can be applied
universally and immediately in countries that have yet to develop the
institutional, moral, and social infrastructure that are so necessary
for it to work. This is how a new dilemma came to spring up before the
president's eyes, a dilemma that is derived from a delusion that has
crashed down to reality.
What is clear now is
that the parade of presidential delusions from which Obama suffers as it
relates to the Middle East has yet to conclude. Despite the fact that
his Egyptian adventure was finally stopped in its tracks, Obama
continues to pursue the diplomatic track as it relates to Iran and the
nuclear program. He does so in the hope that dialogue with newly elected
president Hasan Rouhani -- who announced that he was open to
negotiations with the West -- would yield the desired breakthrough.
One can only hope that
awakening from these American delusions does not come too late, after a
new page -- one more dangerous and risky -- is opened in the Middle
East.
This
is not so unusual. General de Gaulle in France stabilized the mad
gyrations of French civilian governments in the 1960s. Chile's
much-abused General Pinochet, for all his sins, also instituted the most
successful free-market reforms in Latin America, turning Chile into a
model of economic progress that Obama would do well to emulate. South
Korea has a similar history, as do the Phillipines, Spain, and
Indonesia. Armies encourage national identity, not local, family,
tribal, and religious sectarianism.