Evidence That Demands A Change In US Foreign Policy

If you want to know how bad the present situation in Egypt is, then read the following article from Forbes (click here). According to this article, regarding freedom and human rights,  today's situation  is worse than it was under Mubarak. But contrary to the author's opinion, what is happening in Egypt just might be a successful example of the America's foreign policy, not a failure. Why? It is because our foreign policies from the past have not revolved around freedom and human rights as much as they have around pleasing customers and retaining a measure of regional control. The question becomes what will our future policies focus on. 

Just to review our history in the region, we helped the British replace a democratically elected Mosaddegh in Iran in 1953.  Did we shed a tear or hear any screams when the Shah's secret police arrested and tortured dissidents or was all made obscure by the flow of cheap Iranian oil and the sale of Western goods and weapons to Iran?

And we supported Saddam Hussein throughout the 1980s.  This was true even when he used WMDs on the Iranians and on his own people and we continued to sell him materials for those weapons. It wasn't it until he invaded Bush's rich friends in Kuwait that we called him a Hitler. Yes, Hussein was always a monster; but he was a monster in moderate's clothing, according to both Reagan and Bush. It wasn't until he seized Kuwait that he shed his clothing.

And even if we don't count Israel's brutal occupation of the Occupied Territories, haven't we always supported the dictators in Saudi Arabia? Have we ever shown any significant disapproval of the reign of the Saudi Arabia's royal family? Where was our outrage when Saudi Arabia helped in violently putting down the protests in Bahrain? 

It is in the Middle East's well-oiled dictatorships where America's foreign policy priorities are best displayed. As long as these dictators buy our products, help us with the flow of oil, and don't wander outside of the parameters we have set for them, then all is quiet on the Mid-East front. But as Mosadegh, Morsi, and Saddam, people of vastly different moral characters, have shown is that once one ventures outside of those parameters, there can be a heavy price to pay. 

On the one hand, part of what has been written above must be moderated by the recent restriction in military aid to Egypt. Concerns over the mass death sentences given to those in the Muslim Brotherhood and the suppression of rights of dissidents are the reasons aid has been restricted. Almost one-third of military aid has been restored though. Part of the resumption of that aid was in order to maintain some military privileges as well as for the sake of our military contractors (click here). But we should also note Obama's welcoming phone call to President Isis of Egypt. Certainly he mouthed concerns about rights (click here). Here, the real leverage point in motivating Egyptian dictators is found in controlling the flow of military aid. 

So the above cited article in Forbes tells it like it is about Egypt, that is for the most part. Where the author possibly erred was to presume that American foreign policy in the region, under the leadership of either major political party, has had any concern for freedom and rights. In the past, it hasn't. There seems to be some current concern for rights in Egypt, though that caring about rights has not spread to many other countries (see previous Newsweek link). That is because for the most part, the main goal of American foreign policy in the Middle East, as well as any other part of the world is to secure customers and establish and/or maintain control.

Finally, what can all of this tell us about Iraq? Currently, Northern Iraq is under attack by the Islamic State Of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). This is a Sunni Muslim group that grew out of Al-Qaeda and who seeks to establish a Caliphate in Iraq and Syria based on a radical approach to Islamic law. Its tactics are described as brutal. And it opposes both Syria's President Assad as well as the Shi'ite based government in Iraq  (click here). We should note that according to the Time magazine just linked to, Iraq has brought some of this conflict on themselves for their treatment of Sunni Muslims. Chelsea Manning includes in this mix Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki's killing or torturing legitimate political dissidents all of which was protected by our military (click here). So our choice in Iraq is between 2 brutal leaders with one being far more cold-hearted than the other.

With the conflicts emerging between dueling tyrants, we see American policy's chickens coming home to roost. In fact, an analogy between the moral debt we owe for past support of dictators can be compared to mankind's survivability based on the pollutants we've released into the environment. Have we already passed the tipping point? Possibly. But it does no harm to reverse course and give ourselves a fighting chance to make it. So the days of supporting obedient tyrants must be over. And whether they are over will be demonstrated not just by how we conditionally withhold or restore aid to Egypt, it will be seen by how we interact with all of the other tyrants in the Middle East and the world. Will we continue to support tyrants to make them customers or to gain a measure of control over them, or will we work for justice by opposing all tyrants regardless of what they have to offer us?

The Answer Is 3

According to The Three Dog Night, One Is The Loneliest Number. And according to tradition, "it takes two to tango." In addition, we should note that it also takes two to be bipolar which means that our democracy depends on a bipolar party system. But in the end, as I use to pre-emptively respond to each of my students who said they had a question, the answer is three.

 The above answer is versatile. It can slay two sacred cows in a single bound. This answer can be used to answer multiple questions but these questions are clones of a single question. That question is, when there is a war or conflict, whose side are you on?

How is three the answer? Let's look at Havaar, an Iranian activist group, and its response to the threat of war and use of sanctions by the West, including Israel. In their Statement of Principles, this organization stated:

We call on others to join our efforts to prevent a disastrous war, lift the heavy burden of sanctions from the backs of ordinary Iranians, and stand in solidarity with the Iranian people as they struggle against domestic repression and foreign intervention.

Havaar's response to the use of sanctions is to oppose them for the sake of the Iranian people. However, Havaar's opposition to the West cannot be confused with support for the current Iranian regime. In other words, when asked which side are you one, Havaar's answer was for the people rather than for any government. Havaar took door #3 when only two doors were being offered. Havaar knew that the answer was three.

But there are those who are either in power or who ride in on coattails of power who want us to be bipolar. They want Havaar to be forced to choose between the current Iranian regime or the West. They want us to side with either the Israeli government or Palestinian terrorists. They want all of that just as they wanted us to choose between invading Iraq or supporting Saddam Hussein. 

In addition, highly flawed and deeply immoral foreign policies have been constructed and defended using the same bipolar logic. Question why the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein and the Osama Bin Laden during the 1980s and you will get the same bipolar response. We are told that we had to support Hussein to counter the "threat" posed by Iran and the Ayatollah Khomeini or by supporting Bin Laden, we caused the collapse of the "evil empire" of the Soviet Union. However, this bipolar logic wants us to stop  considering the consequences of supporting these monsters after the immediate effect is over. That we were creating monsters who would slaughter our fellow Americans and against whom we would have send our troops die to in battle IS of little concern when the decisions were made. In addition, supporting such monsters is considered to be a fixed cost of keeping our position in the world. 

If we were to be honest with ourselves, we would admit that, by choosing from only two options, our leaders constantly send in our troops to die in turf battles for resources and control. That is we have been, and still are, engaged in a never ending series of gang wars. And these gang wars suck us into a moral relativity where right and wrong is determined by who does what to whom. So each time there is a conflict, we are being told to take sides as if we were rooting for a favorite sports team. And when we follow these orders, there is no right or wrong, there is only victory or defeat.

Of course, three is not the answer to all conflicts. Sometimes, there is a right and wrong. When the Egyptians rose up against Mubarak, for example, there was the side that used violence, those in power, and the side the tried to restrain itself, the people. And the people won a temporary victory with the displacement of Mubarak but suffered a setback with the "election" of the Muslim Brotherhood.  And we should note here that the only group that has prospered under the last two regimes is America's military industrial complex. 

So now we are being asked to choose sides again between the Syrian government, led by Bashar al-Assad, and the Syrian revolution. Here, this much is known, no person of conscience could want Assad to win. In addition, we prohibit Syria from doing what we have allowed, and even enabled, others to do.  We should only note that we use to allow Saddam Hussein to use WMDs on his own people. We also should note that we currently permit Bahrain to violently repress its own people. We should also note that we are scolding Russia for doing something we constantly do. Just as Russia continues to provide weapons for Syria, we continue to provide weapons for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, for Saudi Arabia, and for the Bahraini government and all of those weapons are being used to crush those yearning for democracy.

If three is the answer here, then opposing Assad does not imply that we must support the revolution. We first have to understand that the revolutionaries are not a monolith. According to journalist and resident of Lebanon, Robert Fisk, some revolutionaries are military defectors while others have links to Al-Qaeda. In addition,  according to Fisk, atrocities have been committed by all sides. And finally, the war is not as much about Syria as it is about Iran. That, for the West, this civil war is about destroying Iran's sole ally in the region. So now we have to ask the question of is this just another turf war being fought by competing gangs (see interview with Robert Fisk here)?

To exercise the freedom to choose door # 3 when given only two choices allows us to choose principles and morals over partisanship and coldhearted pragmatism. Choosing door #3 means that we cannot be corralled and forced into chutes that lead us closing our eyes to evil and supporting monsters. Choosing door #3 can result in being able to preach repentance to both sides while escaping the idolatry that forces people to take sides and be willing to kill and destroy. Finally, choosing door #3 means that we have a better chance to convince others and that could eventually lead our government away from being or supporting the lesser of two evils that will eventually target us.

Of course, there are costs to picking 3 as the answer. First, it might mean having to break the bipolar habit that Americans have been indoctrinated into following. Second, it means swimming against the tide and possibly losing friends and family and feeling alienated. And third, it means caring enough to be involved in the first place. And caring about important issues and events carries its own personal price.

If the answer is three, we realize, as was stated in the old Buffalo Springfield song, For What It's Worth,  that being forced to choose between two sides hurts because "nobody's right if everybody's wrong." And the question for us is, will we remain content with the endless barrage of false dichotomous choices offered to us by those with wealth and power or are we willing to suffer through the tradeoffs of choosing three as the correct answer?