Sunday, April 3, 2011

Tread Carefully in Libya

The unrest in the Middle East could have gone bad for the U.S. It still could, but at the moment it seems as if the flow of things is in the direction of democracy -- or whatever passes for democracy in that part of the world. Under Bush, no doubt we'd be picking sides and futzing with it to ensure we gain something out of it, but Obama has wisely taken a cautious tack. It's a dangerous part of the world for us. Remember, this is the part of the world that provoked the confrontation between Rudolph Giuliani and Ron Paul in the 2008 presidential debates, where an incredulous Giuliani erupted at Paul's suggestion that we somehow did something to bring 9/11 down upon us. Paul had a good point, though an unpopular one: Our continual poking and prodding of the Middle East, in the name of "national security", has made us few friends there.

Just as during the Cold War, which provoked much hostility towards the U.S., we were supporting dictatorial leaders in the name of our own War on Terror, and turning a blind eye towards those leaders' abuses and excesses. Mubarak in Egypt, Saleh in Yemen, Ben Ali in Tunisia, and Al Khalifa in Bahrain are all leaders who have, on one level or another, seriously provoked the majority of their citizenry. With the wave of revolts now leading to Libya and Syria, we begin to see situations where supporting the rebels is advantageous, but don't think for a moment that Bush would not have jumped in to defend Mubarak et al. because it was convenient to do so.

Leaving well enough alone is a new and welcome change in American foreign policy. It has left the possibility that Egypt and Tunisia could end up with new governments that are still friendly to the U.S. It turned out that Mubarak and Ben Ali didn't have the stomach to kill their own people. Yemen faces an uncertain outcome, as the country's government was weak to begin with, surviving only by Saleh's near-magical ability to compromise with his enemies yet still best them. We already had concerns about Yemen's ability to keep al-Qaida at bay. Bahrain's situation is different. Al Khalifa has used the spectre of Iranian interference to keep the country's Shi'ite majority repressed. We have a large presence in Bahrain, since they host the majority of our military in the Middle East. If their rebels get the upper hand, we'd best allow them to do so and hope another new government doesn't hate us.

It is fiercely tempting to get into the conflict in Libya. Qaddafi has been a bogeyman for a long time in American minds, and we wouldn't mind one bit to see him get thrown out Mubarak-style, or even torn down and executed Ceaușescu-style. Unlike other leaders who have fled revolts, though, Qaddafi has a big enough ego that he had no problems killing anyone who had the gall to rise against him, and he controls more of his military than the other countries' leaders. It now appears that Libya will reach a stalemate, with the rebels holding the east with their capitol in Benghazi, and Qaddafi digging in around Tripoli. Unless more of his army revolts, this is going to take awhile. Fortunately, there's no support whatsoever to send troops to Libya, though there is much discussion about arming the rebels. If they would like to use some of their oil to buy arms for their rebellion for democracy, so be it. At least they'd be paying for it. I'm not so fond of using our aircraft to patrol Libyan skies. Let France and Italy do it, they're willing and have much greater interest in this than we do. What we don't want is a protracted involvement such as we've gotten into in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Conservatives and Liberals have two minds about military interventionism. Conservatives seem to think that we have the right to intervene anywhere we have significant national interests, like Iraq. Liberals, on the other hand, seem to think that we may only invade a country if we have no interest whatsoever, such as in Bosnia. We may only intervene for altruistic reasons. Which is noble, but also silly, because it is no less interfering with the world as Bush's unilateral incursions. Not so long ago, some Liberals were calling for us to send troops to Sudan. Just as with Federal authority over ourselves, it appears that the only difference between Conservatives and Liberals is who to use force against. If we aren't the world's policeman, that needs to be the case *all the time*, not just when it is advantageous or soul-soothing to do so.

If we spent less time supporting unpopular dictators for selfish reasons, we probably would not have so many reasons for people over there to distrust and dislike us. Ron Paul's assertion that 9/11 was the end result of Cold War policies that had us propping up dictators is not without merit. Just looking at what happened in Iran should be lesson enough. Bin Laden's own admitted motivation for going rogue was our presence in Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War. Sure, there were tough choices to make regarding Israel and the invasion of Kuwait. Maybe those were wise choices and maybe not. But remember that we supported Hussein in Iraq much longer than we opposed him, and things would have been easier for us had we not done that in the first place. It's hard to know how messing with another country's affairs will affect us down the road.

When other countries attempt to meddle in our own affairs, we get all indignant, as if the natural way of things was being violated. And yet we never consider our own foreign actions beyond our own selfish motivations. Conservatives toss the word "isolationism" around every time someone suggests that we, in fact, should not screw with the rest of the world. They, of course, say it as if that was a bad thing. It's not. We can support countries and movements that agree with our values without doing so militarily. The Federal debt has come as much from past military spending (especially under Reagan) as it has from domestic welfare spending. As much as our own interests play a part in our foreign policy, the morals and integrity of the foreign governments we support should play as great a part or even more. If we had done more of that in the past, the world might be a safer place now.

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