A Foreign Policy 'Directed By Fools'

A foreign policy team?

Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute is always refreshing to read. Not that I always agree with him, mind you. He recently wrote a devastating attack on the absolute foolishness of Obama’s foreign policy as it relates to the Middle East. The Obama Administration has had more positions on the Arab Spring than I ever thought humanly possible. The end result? America is completely impotent. No one is even paying attention to what is said in Washington. Bandow spells it out in The National Interest. A few choice excerpts:

Washington’s policy pirouettes during the Arab Spring have been breathtaking. As protests rose in Egypt, vice president Joe Biden cited Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak’s value as an ally. As the regime tottered the administration endorsed a phased transition. As Mubarak’s end neared, U.S. officials endorsed his ouster. None of these pious pronouncements had the slightest effect in Cairo. Popular demonstrations reached a roaring crescendo because most people had tired of dictatorship, not because Washington reluctantly warmed to democracy. Rather, the administration looked pathetic, desperately trying to get ahead of the latest crowd.

The administration continues to play much the same game in Yemen. When protests first sprouted in Yemen, the White House was backing president Ali Abdullah Saleh. He was a standard issue Third-World thug, but he won favor in Washington for being willing to battle jihadists, including the local al-Qaeda organization.

As opposition expanded, blood flowed in the streets and Saleh’s hold on power loosened, the Obama administration had a change of heart. Earlier this month Washington sent foreign-policy aide John Brennan to meet with Saleh in Saudi Arabia, where he is receiving medical treatment. Brennan announced: “The United States believes that a transition in Yemen should begin immediately so that the Yemeni people can realize their aspirations.”

Brennan’s message to Saleh? Resign. However, the Yemeni leader paid Brennan no mind. Brennan continued on to Yemen, where he attempted to arrange a “swift transition” by convincing vice president Abed Rabo Mansour Hadi to seize power–but only in the name of democracy, of course. Hadi said no.

…

A similar soap opera is occurring in America’s relations with Syria. As protests began against the long-lived Assad family dictatorship, secretary of state Hillary Clinton called Syrian president Bashar al-Assad a “reformer.” She apparently lives in a time warp. When Assad succeeded his father a decade ago, some observers hoped that the English-trained ophthalmologist would, in fact, modernize and liberalize. But those dreams proved stillborn. The best one can say about Assad is that so far he has killed fewer people than did his father. Nevertheless, as the Syrian people rose in revolt the Obama administration was cautious, encouraging the Assad dictatorship to respond with dialogue instead of force. Washington refused to even suggest that Assad step down.

One anonymous American official told the Washington Post that Secretary Clinton “thought at first that if we gave him some space, he would do the right thing. Instead, we see him using increasing brutality against his own people.”

Duh. Brutal dictator who continued the ruthless rule of his father refuses to reform even now. This surprised the Obama administration?

One is tempted to suggest that American foreign policy is being directed by fools.

The full story is available here.