With al-Qaeda affiliates wreaking havoc in Iraq, Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham seem to lament that no U.S. troops are on the scene to get in on the action.
\n\u201cThe Administration must recognize the failure of its policies in the Middle East and change course,\u201d McCain and Graham said.
\nChange course? Do they want to send troops back to Iraq, so they can do more dying and killing?
\nMcCain and Graham, who never saw an opportunity for U.S. military intervention they didn\u2019t like, continue to operate under the absurd illusion that American politicians and bureaucrats can micromanage something as complex as a foreign society. Their hubris knows no bounds, but, then, they never pay the price for their foolishness. Who pays? The Americans they cheer off to war, but even more so, the people in foreign lands who are on the receiving end of American intervention.
\nHow do those scoundrels in Washington sleep?
\nIf you haven\u2019t noticed, American foreign policy is a shambles. Iraq and Afghanistan are engulfed in violence, and their corrupt, authoritarian governments are objects of suspicion and hatred. The suggestion that U.S. forces could make things better only shows how out of touch people in Washington can be.
\nAnyone who was thinking clearly in 2001\u20132003 knew it would come to this. Afghanistan has a history of driving out invaders. Only someone blinded by the allure of empire could fool himself into thinking the U.S. government could arrange affairs such that they wouldn\u2019t unravel the moment U.S. personnel prepared to leave the country.
\nThe 2003 Iraq invasion raised even more questions about the ability of policymakers to engage in clear thinking. Under Saddam Hussein, the minority Sunni Muslims ruled the Shi\u2019ite majority, many of whom were sympathetic to Shi\u2019ite Iran, America\u2019s supposed b\u00eate noir. Take out Saddam, and Iran\u2019s friends would rule. Indeed, the man who became Iraq\u2019s prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, was handpicked by Iranian authorities. (Ironically, the Shi\u2019ite leader that the Bush administration chose to fight, Muqtada al-Sadr, was the most nationalist of Iraqi Shi\u2019ites and least sympathetic to Iran.)
\nWith Shi\u2019ites in control, Iraqi Sunnis resisted. And then came the al-Qaeda fighters, who saw a chance to kill both Shi\u2019ites and Americans. Hence the continued violence in Iraq, even though U.S. forces left at the end of 2011 \u2014 despite the Obama administration\u2019s best effort to keep some there.
\nIraq and Afghanistan are not the only places where U.S. foreign policy is in disarray. Take Egypt. The Obama administration \u2014 including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton \u2014 stuck with hated military dictator and ally Hosni Mubarak until the bitter end and even then tried to have his second-in-command and torturer in chief, Omar Suleiman, take over when Mubarak was finished. That didn\u2019t work, of course, and a fledgling democracy (whatever its imperfections) began to sprout wings.
\nThe Obama administration praised Egyptian democratic aspirations, but when the military deposed President Muhammad Morsi last year, the administration sided with the coup makers \u2014 although it could not use the word coup, for that would require stopping the annual $1.5 billion payment to the Egyptian military. The U.S. government has no desire to end that appropriation, because it keeps Egypt in the American camp and blunts its support for the Palestinians, who are under occupation by U.S. partner Israel. With Egypt\u2019s military government cracking down on the civil liberties of the members of Morsi\u2019s Muslim Brotherhood, U.S. policy looks more monstrous every day.
\nSpeaking of Israel, Secretary of State John Kerry seems to be going all out for a peace agreement between the government of Benjamin Netanyahu and the Palestinians, but Kerry\u2019s effort has a fatal flaw at its core. Netanyahu & Co. don\u2019t want the Palestinians to have a viable, autonomous state free of Israeli domination. We know this because the prime minister keeps announcing plans for more illegal Jewish-only residences on Palestinian land acquired through war. Kerry won\u2019t condemn this flagrant undermining of \u201cpeace\u201d talks because he, like so many American politicians, is beholden to Israel\u2019s powerful American lobby.
\nThen there\u2019s Libya and Syria \u2014 but you get the idea. U.S. foreign intervention aggravates conflicts and puts America on the side of oppressors. No wonder it\u2019s falling to pieces.
\nSheldon Richman is vice president and editor at The Future of Freedom Foundation in Fairfax, Va. (www.fff.org).<\/p>\n
Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With al-Qaeda affiliates wreaking havoc in Iraq, Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham seem to lament that no U.S. troops are on the scene to get in on the action. \u201cThe Administration must recognize the failure of its policies in … Continue reading