Educating the President

antiwar.com
November 23, 2012

It is interesting to note that while Americans elect a president based on their perception of what he will do to create jobs and lower taxes, the issues that seem to rise to the surface and demand attention are frequently related to foreign affairs. Witness how in the aftermath of the election there has been considerable focus on what happened in Benghazi nearly three months ago, most recently leading to demands for multiple congressional investigations. The Petraeus/Broadwell scandal also resonates because the general was the proponent of the spectacularly unsuccessful COIN policies in Iraq and Afghanistan who then parlayed his resume into being named Director of the CIA, the principal U.S. instrument for collecting and analyzing foreign intelligence.

And if that weren’t enough, the U.S. appears prepared to provide heavy weapons to the Syrian opposition while the question of whether or not to negotiate with Iran continues to hang in the air, though it will probably be rejected due to the usual domestic political considerations, which means AIPAC. U.S. client Israel is, as always, creating fresh crises obliging Washington to twist like a pretzel to demonstrate its love for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and all his works. Tel Aviv’s latest surprises include initiating a new wave of targeted assassinations and air attacks on Gaza while threatening harsh reprisals including possible “regime change” against the Palestinians if they go ahead to seek observer status at the United Nations at the end of this month. The White House has already put the Palestinians on notice for the U.N. bid while immediately giving a pass to Israel’s bombing of Gaza, describing it as “self-defense.”

So the rest of the world is regularly in your face and it does matter even to those who try to tune it out. For those of us who try to understand the pickle that we are in, the defeat of Mitt Romney has been a victory of sorts as it is always possible for things to get worse. Romney was truly an empty suit on foreign policy and it should be assumed that he would have continued the worst parts of the Obama program while adding some particular enhancements of his own including more money for the Pentagon. His victory would have meant a return of the neocons to the front stage coupled with a more generally aggressive military-based posture overseas which could easily have led to a war with Iran and heightened tension with Russia and China. It would also have resulted in major donors like Sheldon Adelson having a voice in policy formulation relating to the Middle East.

The war on terror (also known as “overseas contingency operations”) is a pious fiction designed to justify intervention and regime change in Muslim majority countries. It has little to do with actual terror, which is a tactic. The White House should instead understand that not all Islamists are radicals and even radical Islamists are not necessarily terrorists who actually threaten the United States. The United States has a duty to respond effectively to those who wish to harm the American people but it also has to learn to live with political Islam, which will unite in hostility against the U.S. unless the basic perception of who the enemy is can be changed.Most of us who seek appropriate foreign and defense policies based on the traditional principles that the government should always serve clearly defined U.S. national interests while avoiding unnecessary interventionism overseas were disappointed at the Obama re-election but can plausibly today, on Thanksgiving day, lift a glass and toast the downfall of Mitt. But we should understand that now the task is to turn up the heat and try to reform Mr. Obama. I would suggest that a seeking-to-be-sane majority attempt to convince the president to alter course in the following ten areas to repair the horrible damage that has been done to the United States through its psychopathic foreign policy over the past eleven years:

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