The American Spectator

Print Email

Text Size

Feature

This fall, as Barack Obama reveled at the UN in the adulation of governments, such as Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and Syria, to which his administration has made so many concessions and in which it has invested so many hopes, and as these very governments stepped up their anti-American efforts, it became all too clear that his administration's approach to international affairs is based equally on the Democratic Party's now dominant ideology and on an unrealistic assessment of the world. But every one of Obama's violations of statecraft's canons -- trying to propitiate enemies at the expense of friends, pursuing negotiations as ends in themselves while adversaries strengthen their positions, believing in the power of one's own words, denaturing our armed forces (especially missile defense), and mistaking the chimera of nation-building for war -- is but a more extreme version of what has long passed for wisdom in Washington. Hence as we look at the ways in which the Obama administration has merited the world's contempt and contemplate the wages of which Americans will have to pay, it will not do to think, "If only we had Republicans in office!" Rather, we should take each blunder as an occasion to remind ourselves of standards of statecraft that have long lacked among Republicans as well as Democrats.

Not even Obama's most characteristic and most dysfunctional acts on the international scene -- apologizing for his country, or rather for Americans who differ from him and his friends -- is new. Jimmy Carter just as famously began his presidency in 1977 by rejoicing that America's defeat in Vietnam had brought it back to its best values, namely his party's rule. But at least Carter spoke at Notre Dame, to a domestic audience. Bill Clinton also used the "apology bomb" in his domestic wars. But when Obama apologized to Europeans for his predecessors' failure to listen to them and learn from them, when he disclaimed a "war on Islam" that none of his countrymen had declared, when he asserted a special American responsibility for nuclear disarmament because his country used nuclear weapons to win a war before he was born, he resembled nothing so much as the Pharisee who thanked God that he was better than his fellow men.

While confessing the sins of domestic opponents passes for cleverness in Obama's circles, it is dysfunctional because it leaves no doubt in foreigners' minds that he represents only one part of his country, and advertises that he is playing a partisan hand domestic support for which can only weaken. Because professionals in international affairs note that Obama's chief interest lies in marshaling foreign support in domestic quarrels, they discount whatever pressures he pretends to bring to bear on foreigners. In short, Obama diminishes America and himself.

Enemies Over Friends

Nor is there much new about Obama's attempt to propitiate America's enemies at its friends' expense -- as Henry Kissinger used to quip, while being America's enemy may be inconvenient, being America's ally is often fatal. Kissinger knew, having traded thousands of Kurdish lives to Iran, and millions of Southeast Asian lives to North Vietnam. George H. W. Bush sold Lebanon to Syria, Jimmy Carter threw Iran's shah under Ayatollah Khomeini's bus hoping to gain favor with him thereby, and most U.S. administrations' Mideast policy has consisted of pressuring Israel to give in to Arab demands ("taking chances for peace") in exchange for a lessening of Arab terrorism against Americans. This incompetent Machiavellism has gained us nothing and ended up costing American lives.

Obama's attempt to "reset" relations with Russia has consisted of seconding Vladimir Putin's paramount goal: to reconquer the Soviet empire by isolating and constraining the former parts of it. Obama has quietly withdrawn support for Georgia's claim to two of its regions that Russia occupied. As Ukraine deals with Russia's daily attempts to destabilize its central government and to exercise sovereignty over the Crimea, it can no longer rely on U.S. support. Worse, by giving in to Russian demands that the U.S. not station anti-missile equipment in Poland and the Czech Republic, Obama made it clear to all of Eastern Europe that he will not let its deepest concerns stand in the way of appeasing Russia.

Make no mistake. The Poles and Czechs were eager for U.S. bases on their soil for the same reason that they have supported the U.S. with soldiers and diplomacy ever since regaining their independence: to cement America's support for that independence against Russia's constant attempts to pull them into its sphere of influence. Conversely, Russia's objection to U.S. missile defenses in these countries had nothing to do with these devices' very limited capabilities (more on this below) and everything to do with expanding its sphere of influence. Few Europeans can doubt that Obama now has effectively recognized the primacy of Russia's influence in Eastern Europe. Because Europeans now know that Obama will sacrifice their interests to the hope of Vladimir Putin's cooperation, Europe's character will change as governments and factions vie to make their deals with Moscow at our expense.

The countries formerly subject to the Soviet empire now divide into three categories: The Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, and Balts are fully part of the democratic West. Belarus and the Central Asian states have already slid into Moscow's orbit. Quite a few more -- Ukraine, Georgia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Moldova, as well as the Balkan states -- are balancing undemocratic, pro-Russian elements with Western ones. Obama's missile decision will push the undecideds toward the Russian camp and put in play the Westernized countries' orientation and character.

The administration's claim that "broader geo-political considerations about kick-starting arms reduction talks or gaining cooperation on Iranian aggression had played no part" in their decision to cancel the U.S. project in these countries is trans-parently insincere. But its approach to Russia has proved as vain as it is disingenuous. Russia left no doubt that it will counter any U.S. economic or diplomatic attempt to stop Iran from gaining nuclear weapons. Why? Because Iran is Russia's ally for the purpose of excluding America from the Old World. Yet Russia works to reduce America's role in the New World. It is selling high-tech military equipment to Venezuela's anti-American dictator Hugo Chavez and is promising Soviet-style aid to anti-American regimes that Chavez is working to establish in our hemisphere. Not only does Obama not try to counter any of this: he has imposed sanctions on Honduras for resisting a Chavez-backed attempt to establish a Chavista regime in that country.

Obama's Middle East policy consists of single-minded pressure on Israel to stop building houses in the West Bank in the hope that Saudi Arabia will lead other Arab states to engage in "land for peace" negotiations. Saudi spokesman Prince Turki bin Faisal's response in the New York Times was more stark than usual: first make Israel give us land; once we have it, we'll talk about peace. As well, Obama removed any opposition to Syria's resumption of control over Lebanon through Hezbollah, and redoubled pressure on Israel to surrender the Golan Heights in the hope that Syria might substitute U.S. patronage for Iran's. But Syrian-Iranian ties have only grown. Why should any country value Iran's patronage less, since Obama is doing nothing that stands in the way of Iran's imminent acquisition of nuclear weapons? Indeed Obama made his desire to accommodate Iran's regime all too clear even as the Iranian people were rising up against it.

Minimizing Missile Defense

Whether or not Israel ends up bombing Iran's nuclear program, Obama's decision to cancel a system directed against Iranian missiles, leaving Poles and Czechs in the lurch, pushes the Israelis to protect themselves by striking Iran's nukes -- alas starting a war that no one has thought how to finish. In short, and contrary to the view now dominant in Washington, America's neglect of missile defense is a factor for instability and war, not peace and harmony.

But while the sentiment that Obama is diminishing and endangering us is widespread, there is precious little public understanding of why and how our government leaves Americans as well as Europeans undefended against missiles by misusing the abundant technology we have. Obama eliminated missile defense in Europe not just to please Moscow but also because opposition to defending America or anyone associated with us against missiles is part of the American left wing's DNA. How it became so, and how Republican leaders have benefited politically from loud support for missile defense while being complicit in steering U.S. missile defense programs into unproductive activities, is beyond our scope. (See Prof. Joseph Constance's Ballistic Missile Defense in American Politics.) If Obama were the problem rather than just a more visible manifestation thereof, America would be better off. Here we look at this bipartisan problem's practical results.

The East European system that Obama scrapped was not terribly valuable militarily because its components, high-tech ground-based radars, computers, and optically guided interceptors, had been crippled congenitally to provide strictly marginal protection against just a few medium-range Iranian missiles. Had the radar not had its field of view restricted, and had the system used the long-range interceptors now deployed in Alaska, in meaningful numbers instead of a token 10 newly developed shorter-range ones, it would have been able to defend America as well as Europe against missiles from anywhere in Eurasia, including Iran. But because using the technology to its proper effect would have defended against Russia as well, the Bush administration crippled it at conception and Obama aborted it.

For the same reason, the system that Obama proposed substituting, based on the Navy's excellent AEGIS computers and interceptors, is similarly crippled. It has always been clear that were the AEGIS interceptors programmed and launched on the basis of information from satellites, they could easily defend against warheads in late midcourse coming from anywhere. But, to make sure AEGIS cannot possibly defend America against Russia, administration after administration has restricted AEGIS interceptors to information (except for terminal homing) provided by the ship's radar. Since small surface-based radars cannot see terribly far and AEGIS interceptors are launched only after the radar sees the target, the system is limited to tail-chasing warheads in early midcourse -- provided its ship can get close to the launch site, which it cannot do in most cases. And so, AEGIS ships deployed in the Persian Gulf may do a little to protect against Iran, depending on whence Iran launches its missiles and on their trajectory. But surely they cannot defend against, and thus will not offend, Russia.