Fought Out
Daniel Berman explains how the United States has turned inward over Libya.
23 Aug 2011, 16:00
Did the US pull their weight in Libya?
Some of these trends, were reinforced in the case of Libya by the off-handed way in which the war was launched and fought. After nearly two weeks of resisting European pleas for intervention, President Obama, evidently under pressure from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, reversed course and agreed to US military participation. Participation being the key word. No war was declared, and the Administration insisted that the American participation in the conflict was purely supportive of a primarily NATO mission. Feeling that this position lacked clarity, Obama addressed the nation twice over the subsequent two weeks in order to make the case for intervention while simultaneously insisting that the US was not in fact a party to conflict, thereby further confusing the issue.
It's perhaps not a surprise then that the real issue became Obama’s decision not to request authorization for Congress, which was a gift horse for the deeply divided Republicans. Split between a DC-based interventionist wing which had castigated Obama for his slow response to the conflict and a more grassroots isolationist wing that quickly convinced itself that the Libyan opposition was dominated by Al Queda, the GOP was pleased with the opportunity thereby provided for both wings to come together in condemnation for Obama’s violation of the War Powers Act. Forgotten was the legal position of every Republican(and Democratic) President since the Acts passage that the law was unconstitutional on its face.
In the end, Libya faded from view in favor of more interesting fights over the debt ceiling and the economy, and its in this context that the Libyan conflict has come to a close. While the rebel victory will likely elicit substantial coverage for a period of a few days, the most striking aspect of the whole affairs has been the absence of the United States.
America has a long isolationist tradition, one that was not fully erased by the Cold War. It can easily be argued that the 1990s, especially under President Bill Clinton represented a largely “isolationist phase” a “holiday from history”. But the Clinton Administration featured a substantial public debate about Bosnia that reached in elementary school classrooms, and the war over Kosovo, despite coming in the midst of the President’s impeachment, was widely discussed.
Not so Libya. Despite the best efforts of the nation’s leading newspaper to provide detailed coverage, albeit often on page A13, Misrata, Sirt, and Bengazi never became household names, and people’s memories of Qaddaffi never reached the level one would expect from a country that bombed him in 1986. A Rasmussen poll on August 17th found that only 20% of Americans supported military action in Libya compared to 52% who were opposed, despite the fact that 54% expected the conflict to end with Qaddaffi’s overthrow. That the overthrow of Qaddaffi failed to become a cause célèbre to such an extent that most Americans opposed the war despite believing it would end in his overthrow is a testament to the extent of indifference Obama’s bizarre salesmanship helped to produce. A cause that was America’s under George Bush was none of our concern under his successor.
This indifference was not solely Obama’s fault and did not simply extend to Libya. Events in the Arab World which would have sent shockwaves through US opinion six or seven years ago when Iraq was in the news daily have had little impact, and Tim Pawlenty, the candidate most associated with a full-throated Neo-Con Foreign Policy recently dropped out of the Presidential race. He had said all the right words and phrases about America’s role in the world, but no one was particularly interested in hearing them, not least because after eight years of hearing how every conflict was vital to our national security, the electorate is skeptical as to whether any are. That same Rasmussen poll found that 75% of Americans agreed that “the United States should not commit its forces to military action overseas unless the cause is vital to our national interest.”
The comedian Jon Stewart recently asked why Ron Paul has received so little attention from the media when his views on Foreign Policy are far more accepted in Republican circles than they were four years ago, but the reality is that Ron Paul is irrelevant precisely because the vast majority of candidates have cautiously adopted isolationist notes to the extent they have adopted any at all. Overseas wars, which the Left once denounced as a product of Bush’s neo-con fixation on Empire are now equally denounced on the Right as expensive boondoggles in pursuit of the neo-Liberal theories of Obama advisers like Susan Rice and Samantha Power. Words like “Responsibility to Protect” are seen as attempts to waste taxpayer money on behalf of people who will be as anti-American and anti-Israel as those we are fighting to protect them from. An American withdrawal from Afghanistan, without the open defeat of the Taliban is an accepted inevitability among most Americans.
Therefore rather than a return to the Bush era, the defeat of Obama next year will more likely spell the end of the recent internationalist phase in US policy, and perhaps of the fixation on foreign affairs since the Second World War. While a Republican Administration would likely be more assertive in areas where Obama has preferred to cede American rights, custody disputes, trade agreements, and the treatment of Americans abroad in terms of visa rules, it would likely be far less assertive in Africa and Asia.
What would this entail? In the Middle East the US alliance with Israel would endure, but it would endure in the form of neglect. US weapons sales and aid would continue, but little interest would be shown in the peace process. Pushing Israel is hazardous for American governments benefiting from an engaged electorate; to try to do so with an overwhelmingly indifferent one would be to court domestic disaster. In Africa, the US would be more likely to attempt to reach a modus vi-vendi with Chinese influence rather than contest it openly, especially given the decline in European influence. The same policy might well be adopted in East Asia, though less openly. US governments have always been more Pro-Beijing than American opinion, and a nominal commitment would have to maintained to Taiwan, though likely along the lines of preservation of the status quo. The US would have even more to fear from Taiwanese moves towards independence than Beijing.
In regards to Latin America, there would be the one instance of a reassertion of American power. Latin America is the one area where Washington can count both on an American public overwhelmingly willing to back assertive policies, especially against regimes viewed as being hostile, as well as the unwillingness of any other power to seriously intervene. For Americans Qaddaffi is a bit of a joke; Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega are far more terrifying, not least because their hostility is more clearly directed at America. Furthermore, wheras China’s silent advance in Africa represents its real interests, its loud courtship of Chavez and his fellow anti-American leaders in Latin America represents a misdirection, a bargaining chip to be traded for future American acquiescence in Chinese interests else-ware. Neither China or Russia, much less Iran could do much to help Chavez other than sell him out as expensively as possible to a future American Administration willing to pay for foreign policy victory they can have for free. What will be a boon for Iran will therefore likely be a disaster for its ally in Latin American. Even if he survives cancer, Chavez would struggle to survive a Romney or Perry Administration. Daniel Ortega would likely find his efforts to rig future elections in Nicaragua that much harder.
As for Europe, American participation in future Eurozone bailouts would be questionable and come with a high price tag if it came at all. To the extent Americans view the Eurozone at all, they feel that they are being asked to tighten their belts and do not understand why the Greeks, Italians, and Spaniards should not do so as well. After all, how is it fair for school budgets in America to be cut in order to subsidize pensions for Greek teachers? A future Administration, rather than simply seeking it, would almost be forced by public opinion to extract its pound of flesh for future aid, and likely would push for punitive action against the countries viewed as responsible. The US needs the EU but not with its current membership.
Decades from now the Libyan conflict may well be looked upon as a turning point, not just in terms of European Unity and military action, but also in terms of how Americans view their place in the world. And this week’s military victory from the Rebels is unlikely to change impressions that have largely already hardened.
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