How many allies does the U.S. have to turn away from before we have none left?
I’m sure you are aware of the dominant narrative about the “Arab Spring” in which popular democracy movements sweep the Mideast free of dictators. It’s a compelling and dramatic narrative that offers hope for the region and finds the U.S. supporting democracy and standing against tyranny. This is an image of America we can be proud of. Here is a handy animated graphic from Slate showing the sweep of the democracy wave as it expands in the region. There’s only one real problem with this popular narrative – we haven’t seen any new democratic government take root in the region.
There are other narratives we can apply to the historic events we have recently witnessed. One, dealing specifically with the U.S. role, could be a narrative about how the U.S. has turned away from allies.
First, with Egypt, we threw long-time ally Hosni Mubarak under the bus. The man could be forgiven for thinking that his American friends would never turn on him like that. After all, he had been our point man in countless peace talks, a trusted mediator and bulwark against fanaticism. We didn’t even have the decency to let him serve out his term of office before our president declared that he had to “step down” from power.
In the interest of full disclosure, I was right there with the rest of the commentariate taken in with the drama of the Tahrir Square, applauding and cheering as an American ally was pushed from power by mob rule. What prompted my change of heart? I was reminded by a friend who has lived in the region that the American mindset represented by the phrase “it’s nothing personal, it’s just business” is foreign to this part of the world. Why? Because in Arab cultures, like many cultures around the world, business is personal. Business relationships, professional relationships, and legal relationships are often based on, and flow from, a personal relationship between the parties. Outward and formalized rituals of courtesy, hospitality, and respect between individuals, families, and clans belie a deeper and internalized calculation of friend vs. foe and ally vs. enemy. The U.S. had spent decades building relationships – personal relationships – in the Middle East and the relationship with Egypt was rock solid. For Hosni Mubarak, a man who had been welcomed to the White House on numerous occasions, had broken bread with American presidents over a span of decades, and had been a trusted ally with a proven track record, the idea that the U.S. would turn on him in a matter of mere weeks would have been unthinkable. After all, it’s not like he collaborated with our enemies and sold us out. He had done nothing to warrant one of the most abrupt falls from grace in recent diplomatic history. He was betrayed and this betrayal has consequences far beyond Egypt.
Political realists will tell you that nations don’t have permanent friends or enemies only permanent interests (paraphrasing Lord Palmerston), but this is a complicated balancing act in the real world. In this light, the U.S. has an alliance with Egypt and Egypt is more than Mubarak. But what about other countries where the division between the leadership and the country is less clear?
The most immediate damage to American interests came in our relationship to Saudi Arabia. They also saw this through the prism of personal relationships and the American betrayal of Mubarak was a shock because it called into question the American alliance with the House of Saud. As with Egypt, the U.S. has worked over decades to develop personal relationship with the leaders of the kingdom and all of that was called into question by the fall of Mubarak. President Obama quickly dispatched Defense Secretary Gates to Saudi Arabia to reassure King Abdullah. I’m not sure sure Gate’s mission was successful. Take a look at this interview in which Prince Saud al-Faisal all but says, “we have learned our lesson from you, and we no longer have permanent relationships, only interests, and those interests may be best served by other countries.”
I’m reading between the lines, of course, but the fact that this attitude so apparent is chilling. We can scarcely be surprised that Saudi Arabia now cultivates closer ties with other great powers like Russia and China.
And now Israel. President Obama gave a speech this week in which he said that Israel should go back to it’s pre-1967 borders. The speech was widely seen as his attempt to seize the initiative offered by the recent capture and killing of Osama bin Laden as well as the “Arab Spring” uprisings to offer his view of the emerging Middle East. Apparently his view of the future is a back-to-the-past trip for an ally that will be left with less land and and less strategic space with which to defend itself. Usually such presidential announcements come after intense negotiations and collaboration with all sides in order to build consensus. What are we to make of an announcement that didn’t have any of that groundwork? When the American president announces a diplomatic initiative that even our closest regional ally would find unacceptable, that’s not leadership, it’s grandstanding.
If we can conclude that Obama cares little for personal relationships with world leaders or the reputation of the U.S. as a reliable ally, we can at least ask whether his cold calculations are advancing American interests. What have we gained and lost in all of this? The “democratic wave” idealism of the Arab Spring is yet unrealized. The army still rules in Egypt and, according to Amnesty International, the human rights situation has not improved. Worse, some have suggested that the social network inspired revolution in Egypt was a plot by the army to prevent a Mubarak family dynasty from being established. If that’s true, not only did the U.S. turn on an ally, we were played. And as this report notes, there are other costs to the Arab Spring, the U.S. is losing operational links in the fight against terrorism:
Egypt, Libya and Tunisia had varying records of cooperation with the West. Under Hosni Mubarak, Egypt was long seen as a key ally for the West. Tunisia, while also a Western ally, kept quiet about many of its internal counterterrorism efforts under President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and was seen as sparing on intelligence sharing. Moammar Gadhafi’s Libya – once a state sponsor of terror – developed cooperative ties with the West only after he renounced his nuclear program. An Aug. 10, 2009, U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks described Libya as a “critical ally in U.S. counterterrorism efforts” and “one of our primary partners in combating the flow of foreign fighters.”
U.S. actions in the Middle East have called into question the reliability of the U.S. as an ally, a development that has far-reaching implications as we seek to maintain the fragile alliance with Pakistan, draw down forces from Afghanistan and Iraq, and counter Iran as a rising regional power. After touring Europe this coming week, President Obama would be well advised to take a little detour and visit Israel and Saudi Arabia and do some damage control. It’s never too late to work on those personal relationships.
