Spot the difference! What be wrong with this picture? Quite apart from the fact that Dubya himself had more important things on his to-do list when he himself was called upon during his errant youth to "take brave action and serve with honor", Number 43 in one feel swoop evidenced complete ignorance of his own country's sorry-a*s history of placing its "trust in tyrants", or for the sake of the occasion he preferred not to mention this. This oversight was all the more notable given the monumental blowback America has accumulated as both a direct and indirect result of that misplaced trust. The body count alone would literally be incalculable!
The Way We Thought we Were
In "The Way We Were", an opinion piece published in Foreign Policy magazine, Stephen Walt laid bare the strategic policy travails presently facing the U.S. Walt looks at what was and what might have been, with a degree of clarity that leads one to ponder how things might have turned out had he, Bacevich and others of a similar mindset [had] been advising the last three or four presidents. Walt wastes no time in acknowledging from the off where things stand and to whom we might award bragging rights for the existential quandary prevailing in U.S. foreign and national security policy:
"Just 20
years ago the United States was a beloved superpower with a solid economy and [which] faced virtually no hostile threats. But that's all gone to hell."
Now leaving aside Walt's assessment America was that "beloved" at this juncture of history (a debate for another time perhaps), he doesn't leave readers hanging. Nor does one get the feeling his is an exercise in rear view mirror gazing. He highlights any number of poor decisions made since the end of the Cold War right up until the present time that provide us all a salutary lesson in the wise (or not so wise) use of American "unipolar power".
He firstly cites Clinton's decision to break faith with post-Soviet Russia over the expansion of NATO, thereby contributing ultimately to the present impasse in Eastern Europe. Along with Clinton's "failure" to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, Walt underscored the significance of his decision to retain the U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf after the Gulf War. This he says, "unequivocally helped inspire" the emergence of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda as declared enemies of the U.S., the consequences of which having been well documented, and which we all continue to feel -- and reel from -- the effects of today.
Beyond Clinton, Walt unabashedly declares George W. Bush's blunders "in a class by themselves", citing obviously his supremely ill-fated, ill-judged decision to invade Iraq in 2003 thereby creating a failed state as the "main reason we now face problems from groups like ISIS". Of course we have noted the failings of the Bush administration earlier (see Part One and Part Two), and there is probably no need to elaborate further.
Yet he says, Obama "has done no better"; he describes his efforts at Middle East peace brokering as "mostly acts of futility". In Walt's view, the much sought after two-state solution is "farther away than ever". (To be fair to Obama here, it is becoming increasingly obvious Israel has little interest in any such ME peace solution, and as such any attempts by American presidents in brokering such border on the quixotic. A discussion for another time perhaps.)
Walt, after noting that '[r]ealists know perpetual peace is an illusion" and that solutions to today's problems "often sow the seeds of future trouble', sums up the state of play this way:
"....the current items in America's foreign policy "inbox" are for the most part not the unintended consequences of past success; they are the entirely predictable results of previous errors. In many ways, what we are seeing today is a direct backlash against the various sins of omission and commission that took place during the post-Cold War "unipolar moment....It is Obama's misfortune to be president when these chickens have come home to roost, but he also bears responsibility for not making them better and in some cases making them worse." [My Emphasis].
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