{"id":6709,"date":"2013-11-06T09:34:40","date_gmt":"2013-11-06T17:34:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=6709"},"modified":"2013-11-06T09:36:47","modified_gmt":"2013-11-06T17:36:47","slug":"the-double-dealing-middle-east-is-double-dealt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-double-dealing-middle-east-is-double-dealt\/","title":{"rendered":"The Double-Dealing Middle East Is Double-Dealt"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0PJ Media<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Boo-hoo, Middle East<\/strong><\/p>\n

About every day or so, a throat-clearing Middle East pundit weighs in to warn us of the Obama\u2019s administration\u2019s dereliction of traditional American engagement. They rightly lament \u201clead from behind\u201d in Libya. After Benghazi, Libya has turned into something like Somalia. Far more are dying there from sectarian chaos than during the latter years of the hated Moammar Gaddafi\u2019s \"Photodictatorship.<\/p>\n

The Sunni reactionary establishment of the Gulf is right to deplore Obama\u2019s incoherent flip-flop-flips in Egypt and Syria. The oil lords logically conclude that a directionless president will do nothing to stop Iran\u2019s race to get a bomb \u2014 and all the subsequent Middle East WMD catch-ups to match it.<\/p>\n

Even Obama\u2019s pet Turkey seems confused that its favorite administration is now nowhere to be seen. The Iraqis were given a fresh start after the surge and hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. aid \u2014 and still claimed that they wanted the U.S. out. Obama gladly called their hand. Now, left to themselves, they are reverting to the pre-surge violence, whining about security and sectarianism \u2014 and back asking us for even more money. Rule One: never bluff an isolationist to yank all his forces from your country.<\/p>\n

After twelve years, it is clear that triple-dealing President Hamid Karzai never made the reforms in Afghanistan that he promised. Now he will soon be on his own too,\u00a0as Kabul comes to resemble<\/a>\u00a0the disaster of Saigon, 1975. He is correct in lamenting U.S. withdrawal, and yet about the most unsympathetic of the many unattractive dependents American has acquired in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Visitors from an alien planet might conclude of the region that Saddams come and go. Arab Springs and Cedar and Green Revolutions rise and fall. Socialists and fascists, Islamists and Baathists all wax and wane. All the while, the Middle East \u2014 statist, authoritarian, anti-democratic, religiously intolerant, tribal, misogynist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, and exploitive \u2014 stays mostly the same and so in a way earns the wide varieties of awful government that it suffers from.<\/p>\n

In response to complaints of American retreat,\u00a0National Security Advisor Susan Rice<\/a>\u00a0doubled down on the Obama neo-isolationism. She shrugged that, other than worries over an Iranian bomb, the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and free commerce in and out of the Persian Gulf, the U.S. can no longer be all that bothered about regional violence, much less think it can push down reluctant throats Western-style consensual government. She at least hit upon one point, in the sense that U.S. abdication was a sort of payback for past ingratitude.<\/p>\n

Such retrenchment may be disastrous. Indeed, the region, in response, is certainly heating up as the U.S. backs off. \u00a0Vladimir Putin seems eager to fill the void. The Shiite-Sunni wars escalate. Al-Qaeda has spread and multiplied. China will come in to protect its own huge oil appetites. Christians will vanish from the region.<\/p>\n

The Obama administration most likely is pulling in its horns for a variety of practical reasons. In general, in the era of sequestration and still massive deficits, it is cutting back on lots of defense and forward deployment. Obama believes that every dollar spent on defense abroad comes at the expense of a lost food stamp or one less disability check at home.<\/p>\n

In addition, Obama himself in the past\u00a0has questioned<\/a>\u00a0the accepted notion of American exceptionalism. In some sense, he thinks that there is not necessarily anything special about American history or its values that would justify its moral right or practical ability to intervene in problems abroad. Indeed, between apologies and bows he has made the point far better than any anti-American tinhorn dictator.<\/p>\n

Again, in response, a tired public shrugs the equivalent of \u201cwhatever.\u201d In theory, it understands that any time the U.S. stays home, others less lawful and stable take up the slack \u2014 and the ensuing chaos comes back to haunt us. But voters are exhausted by Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya \u2014 and the ingratitude that seems to follow from those who were beneficiaries of vast investments in American blood and treasure. \u00a0Americans are collectively sighing that, in relation to whatever we do in the Middle East, Middle Easterners have a grating propensity for scapegoating America for their own self-inflicted miseries.<\/p>\n

We are blamed for putting in the shah of Iran. Or is it that we are faulted for allowing the Khomeinists to take over and wreck Iran? Should we support democratic reformers? We did just that all during the Bush administration with its freedom agenda to the point of ensuring that Iraq oil was transparent and off-limits to American companies, while sacrificing much to foster democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq.<\/p>\n

And the response? Bush, the best friend that reformers in the Middle East ever had, was mostly derided by Middle-East intellectuals, variously written off as a neocon Israeli puppet, a war criminal, a na\u00eff pushing unworkable democratic government among traditional Arab societies, as a callous realist intriguer who propped up pro-American thugs like Hosni Mubarak, or as an unreliable ally who unfairly pressured authoritarians like Hosni Mubarak. In the Middle East, there is a conspiracy theory for every day of the week.<\/p>\n

In sum, the American people think the Middle East is, well, the Middle East: support democracy and we are derided as cultural chauvinists, Western interventionists, and clueless about the nuances of Arab culture. Support the existing status quo, and we care only about oil, not the masses, and geopolitics rather than democratic reform. Stay out entirely and we have abdicated moral responsibility. Intervene and we are \u201cnation-building\u201d in the old colonial fashion.<\/p>\n

It is hard for Americans to keep up with all this, much less take Middle East intellectuals seriously, given their lockstep and boring anti-Americanism. No wonder the American people\u00a0seem to have become tired<\/a>\u00a0of this wink-and-nod con. Their exhaustion has proved a godsend to Obama, who can be naturally both weak and indecisive, and not necessarily in the short-term unpopular at home for such laxity. Again, for a variety of other reasons, he wanted to vacate the region and forget about violence against sympathetic Christians, Iraqi reformers, Afghan women, and anyone else who hoped for something better. Conniving Arab leaders and whiny intellectuals helped to give him his opening.<\/p>\n

Oil is still an important consideration, but now ironically so. For the last half-century, Arabs have damned the West for developing the Middle East oil industry, for supposedly supporting authoritarian oil sheiks who sell petroleum at astronomical prices to the U.S. and Europe, buy Western weapons, live it up on Western junkets in quite anti-Koranic fashion, and then manage to buy off their own publics to table any ideas of social or political liberalization. They have gotten rich off their oil that someone else found and developed; and they have embargoed it, price-gouged it, and used it as blackmail.<\/p>\n

But now the U.S. and North America are nearing self-sufficiency in oil and gas production. The United States soon will not need much Middle East or Mediterranean oil. Perhaps the oil-hungry Chinese and Europeans can deal better with Sunnis, Shiites, Baathists, al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the theocrats in Iran, Bashir Assad, the coup in Egypt, and whoever is rioting, blowing themselves up, or storming an embassy this week.<\/p>\n

In sum, Middle-East teenage strutting, pontification, boutique anti-Americanism, brutal anti-Western terrorism, and general game-playing were always predicated on one common denominator: the parent U.S. felt it just had to put up with the whining of the adolescent Middle East.<\/p>\n

America either needed Middle East oil, or it had humanitarian concerns and wanted greater freedom and prosperity for millions of the oppressed. Or it once worried about Soviet communism, then al-Qaeda fundamentalism, and then Iranian weapons. Or it ensured that the world\u2019s sea lanes in and out of the Persian Gulf and Suez Canal were open and safe. Or it protected Europe\u2019s southern flank when Europe itself would not. Or it worried about vulnerable Israel.<\/p>\n

The American taxpayer always needed coaxing to keep committed to all that.<\/p>\n

Yet with Obama something quite new followed: a true isolationist and neo-neutralist president. A cool Barack Hussein Obama, who referenced his paternal connections to Islam and who was a proud man of the Left. A president who was skeptical of Israel and, with an eye to public support, a critic of past U.S. interventions. He wanted out of the region at all costs. The American people, tired of serial wars abroad, snoozed their agreement.<\/p>\n

And now? The double-dealing Middle East is double-dealt \u2014 and shocked, shocked! \u2014 that anyone would be, well, so double-dealing!<\/p>\n

Obamism<\/a>\u00a0could not have happened to a nicer region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0PJ Media\u00a0 Boo-hoo, Middle East About every day or so, a throat-clearing Middle East pundit weighs in to warn us of the Obama\u2019s administration\u2019s dereliction of traditional American engagement. They rightly lament \u201clead from behind\u201d in Libya. After Benghazi, Libya has turned into something like Somalia. Far more are dying there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[159,127,123,196],"tags":[12,1039,442,1065,213,1016],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1Kd","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2022,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-middle-east-mess-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":6709,"position":0},"title":"The Middle East Mess","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 24, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media Libya, Iraq, Syria, Iran, and the All the Same Old, Same Old Mess Each country in the Middle East poses unique challenges. 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Republicans might seem the most likely to push for an\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Syria"","block_context":{"text":"Syria","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/syria\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7586,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/americas-middle-east-dilemma\/","url_meta":{"origin":6709,"position":2},"title":"America\u2019s Middle East Dilemma","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 19, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Toppling tyrants is ineffective in the long term without years of unpopular occupation. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online Two and a half years ago, the U.S. pulled every soldier out of a mostly quiet Iraq. In the void thus created, formerly al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists calling themselves \u201cThe Islamic\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Middle East"","block_context":{"text":"The Middle East","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"A Tenth Mountain Division soldier in Kirkuk Province, Iraq, 2008. (Photo: Staff Sgt. Samuel Bendet, Via NRO)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/pic_giant_061914_SM_Americas-Middle-East-Dilemma-DVIDS-500x291.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":384,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-bright-and-shining-libyan-lie\/","url_meta":{"origin":6709,"position":3},"title":"A Bright and Shining Libyan Lie","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 25, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Almost everything we have been told about\u00a0Libya\u00a0over the last two years is untrue. A free\u00a0Libya\u00a0was supposed to be proof of President Obama's enlightened reset\u00a0Middle East\u00a0policy. 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Iran is either fueling violence in Syria or racing toward a bomb, or both. Syria is past\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Middle East"","block_context":{"text":"The Middle East","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6709"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6709"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6712,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6709\/revisions\/6712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}