A Failed, “Lead From Behind” Foreign Policy (1)

Iranian and P5+1 Negotiators for Iran Nuclear Deal
Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons/US State Dept.

At times it seems as if the Obama administration would just as soon wall the rest of the world off from the United States with its “lead from behind” foreign policy. At other times one might think Obama’s sympathies are more with our opponents than with the United States, especially when he apologized for the behavior of the United States to foreign audiences. Early in his first term, Obama conducted what the Wall Street Journal called his “international confession tour”. He told the French that toward Europe, America “has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive”. In London, Latin America, and Egypt he expressed similar mea culpas, seeming to project a moral equivalence between the United States and its adversaries. In a secret cable published by Wikileaks, the U.S. Ambassador to Japan told Obama that the Japanese government did not want the President to visit Hiroshima to make an apology for the U.S. having dropped a nuclear bomb on the city to end World War II. As with many on the political Left, President Obama seems to believe that more often than not the U.S. is the villain in international affairs and should withdraw from those affairs as much as possible. That is, we should withdraw except for being a supplicant for forgiveness for some “crime” or other and offering reparations.  

In keeping with their ideological views of the U.S. in international affairs, the Obama administration arranged for the withdrawal of the U.S. forces from Iraq as rapidly as they could. James Franklin Jeffrey, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq in the period 2010-2012 wove an interesting tale about this withdrawal in a November 2014 issue of the  Wall Street Journal. In 2008 the Bush administration and Iraq government agreed on a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), which as with all SOFAs gave legal immunity for U.S. soldiers accused of crimes with the understanding they would tried under the Uniform code of Military Justice. However, the SOFA would only last until U.S. forces were withdrawn in 2011. By 2010 many American officials and Iraqis believed that a significant U.S. force should remain after 2011 for a number of reasons: training of Iraqis, security against a possible resurgence of al-Qaeda in Iraq or Shiite militia, and reassurance of neighboring countries. While this was being planned by the Pentagon, an eight-month delay in forming a new government after March 2010 elections in Iraq threw a monkey-wrench into the works.

After Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki finally formed a government, Obama agreed with his advisors to leave a stay-behind U.S. force, but he also decided to keep this decision secret both from Maliki and the American people. Time dragged on with disagreement between the pentagon and the white house over how many troops to leave behind (Obama decided finally on 5,000), and on a dispute with Iraq on a follow-on SOFA. Obama was willing to accept an extension of the old SOFA, as were all Iraqi factions with the exception of the Sadrists. The Sadrist faction was led by the anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and held 40 out of Iraq’s 325 parliamentary seats. Time ran out, and for the lack of a SOFA, American forces totally withdrew in December 2011.

Jeffrey was of the opinion that history would not have been much different with the metamorphosis of al-Qaeda in Iraq into ISIS, even if a U.S. force had remained. This is a conclusion that is very hard to believe. If U.S. forces had remained, they would have had much timelier, better intelligence of the resurgence of ISIS from their local ties to the Sunni tribes of Anbar province. With both air and artillery assets and prompt reinforcement and resupply, the Americans would have been a more deadly opponent of ISIS than the sect-riven Iraqi Army. To be sure, to prove all of this would have led to a  different result is actually impossible, as it would be the equivalent of proving a negative. To prove the conflict in Anbar province would not have resulted in ISIS victory if the Americans had not left Iraq is proving with different initial conditions the negative of what had actually happened.

Certainly, to have actually worked for that SOFA (which Obama and his administration did not) would have been to run counter to the zeitgeist of the American people at the time, which would have required real Presidential leadership. The American people wanted release from a long, hard, sorrowful war that seemed to create little but anguish and tears. But Obama shared that zeitgeist and had no inclination to lead the American people in a different direction. His ideological predisposition was to view the U.S. as the fundamental aggressor; if the United States had never invaded Iraq, ISIS would never have arisen because that brutal dictator Saddam Hussein would have killed them before they could get started. Of course, if the United States had never invaded Iraq that would have left Iraq as one of the largest state sponsors of islamic terrorism at the time.

One ubiquitous objection to fighting against terrorist organizations such as Hussein’s Iraq or today’s ISIS is that the U.S. should not be the world’s policeman. Let the islamic nations most threatened by jihadists do the fighting! There are two statements that together form a powerful rebuttal to that argument. The first is that the nations threatened by jihadists such as ISIS usually do not have either the will or the means, or both, to do the job. If the fight devolves to them, they will almost certainly be conquered, and ISIS will become an even more fearsome enemy. The second statement is that we really have no choice but to fight ISIS and similar jihadists. As we learned to our cost on September 11, 2001, if we do not fight them over in the Middle East, we shall most certainly have to fight them here within the United States. I personally would rather kill them over there where they can not reach our civilians.

I will continue this discussion in the next post.

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