Entangled US Foreign Policy

"US foreign policy still adheres much to the tenet, 'the
enemy of my enemy is my friend' in order to achieve its
objectives."

In laying out the new post-9/11 foreign policy, President Bush, during a press conference with French President Jacques Chirac on November 2001, declared to the world that “You're either with us or against us in the fight against terror.”[i]

As critics have pointed out, this policy, which would become known as the Bush Doctrine, does not reflect the realities of current international affairs. The political dynamics of world regimes today have changed dramatically since 9/11. The Cold War presupposition, which claims that a strong sovereign government possesses legitimacy to control its people, is not necessarily the case today. Globalization and technology have allowed for the emergence of disparate and independent groups that work domestically or internationally, apart from the rule or subject of the state. Two examples include the Lebanese national government’s inability to control Hezbollah against its hostilities towards neighboring Israel and Pakistan’s President Musharaff’s inability to control the Pakistani intelligence force, the ISI, while claiming otherwise on CNN. The inherent weaknesses of these governments to control internal affairs within their own states have not only distorted current US foreign policy in the Middle East, which has blurred the distinction between our allies and enemies, but has also created entanglements that has undermined the perception of US foreign policy in the eyes of the world.

While some experts argue that our foreign policy has changed dramatically since 9/11, i.e. legitimizing the policy of preemption, this author believes that in reality, the implementation of US foreign policy has changed little since the Cold War. US foreign policy still adheres much to the tenet, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” in order to achieve its objectives. Events shortly following 9/11 illustrate this point with more clarity. Recent reports on President Musharraf’s new book claims that former Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage strong armed Pakistan into joining the US coalition against terrorism, lest they be bombed “back to the stone age.”[ii] Mr. Armitage neither accepted nor denied this claim on NPR.[iii] Regardless of who said what, the reality was that Pakistan, a country that had sour relations with the US prior to 9/11, became an important ally on the War on Terror primarily because of its geographic advantage to hunt down the greater enemy in UBL and al Qaeda. Around the same time, the Taliban, who had been supported by US intelligence during Afghanistan’s war against Soviet occupation in the 1980s, became the enemy in late 2001. This resulted in US intelligence supporting the Taliban’s enemy, the Northern Alliance, to help US forces oust the Taliban from Afghanistan.

Today, pursuing the current administration’s policy in supporting our “friends” and catering as well to the “enemies of our enemies” has created alliances and ties of conflicting interests. For example in Iraq, we are supporting the predominately Shia/Kurd majority government while its president visits Iran, a nation the US does not currently have favorable relations with, to establish better relations with Tehran and its eccentric President Ahmadinejad who wishes to possess nuclear capabilities and calls for the destruction of Israel. Another obvious example of conflicted interests occurred during the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict where the administration thought it prudent to step aside for two weeks while Israeli forces bombarded southern Lebanon and its capital to root out Hezbollah. Honoring our alliance with Israel, the administration allowed President Olmert to take action against Hezbollah while the world judged US inaction critically, waiting anxiously for the world’s most powerful nation to intervene.

While these entanglements inherent in US foreign policy have revealed conflicting interests, it has also delegitimized US standing with the world today. How can the US support Iraq’s Shia dominated government while also supporting Israel to destroy Lebanon’s Shia faction in Hezbollah? How can the US support Shia dominated Iraq while simultaneously take a heavy handed approach to Iran, a Shia state? How can the US support President Musharraf and Pakistan in the War on Terror while the ISI makes pacts with the Taliban, supporters al Qaeda, who is regaining power and is causing a resurgence of violence in Afghanistan? These issues are of major concerns to the US intelligence community. It must be remembered that the world is not a vacuum, and that people in the Middle East via the media, like al Jazeera, are able to identify the inconstancies embedded in US foreign policy. People of the Middle East tend to identify themselves more by faith in Islam or tribalism than with their nationalities. Al Qaeda has proven this by recruiting radicals from Egypt to Afghanistan. Therefore, it is important for US foreign policymakers to be wary when it considers how it regards different nations or groups in the Middle East. To use a trite but relevant cliché, what goes around, oftentimes, comes around.

President Bush declared that it is our mission to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people in order to build an effective democracy and spread freedom in that nation and the region. The president has also made his intentions known, speaking directly to the Iranian people while addressing the UN General Assembly, for their desire to be free from their radical government. The success on winning the hearts and minds of these people depends on their positive perception of the United States. Unfortunately, US foreign policy entanglements and self interests have made the current administration along with the rest of the country look like hypocrites.

[i] Statement made by US President George W. Bush from a November 2001 press conference with Jacques Chirac.
[ii] Sanger, David E. “Musharraf Defends Deal With Tribal Leaders” New York Times, 22 September 2006: Google News.
[iii] Block, Melissa. “Armitage Denies Making “Stone Age” Threat” All things Considered, NPR, September 2006 <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6126088>.

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