Cowering in the Geopolitical Corner
If one were to sum up the public mood for the past seven years, it would go something like this: from September 11, 2001 until January 2008, the public largely overlooked a healthy economy because it was upset with what it considered to be a failed foreign policy. But now, since the beginning of this year, the sustained gains from the military surge have allayed fears about Iraq, and the struggling economy — high energy prices, a federal deficit, collapsing entitlement programs, a housing bubble crisis — has emerged at the forefront of the public’s worries.
During tough economic times, it is human nature for citizens to pull in their financial reins; to spend less, to invest less and to save more. Therefore, psychologically, people expect the same to occur on a national level. Government expands to “save the day.” Trade becomes inward and increasingly protectionist to “protect” American-made goods. Exports go down. And abroad, despots get a strange look in their eye and some very dangerous thoughts in their minds. Our enemies become hungry wolves encircling a wounded rabbit.
President Herbert Hoover was the last chief executive to raise taxes and hamper free trade during a recession. The result was the Great Depression and a decades-long foreign policy ideology of non-interventionism. Republican isolationists saw the war clouds gathering over Europe in the 1930s, and pointed to American involvement in the Great War — then the deadliest human conflict to ever occur — and said “Never again.”
We had lost tens of thousands of “our boys,” all the way “over there,” while spending a hefty chunk of our GDP on maintaining peace and democracy in Europe, they said. “And look where that got us,” they proclaimed, “fifteen years later, those Europeans are at it again.”
That mindset furthered the economic drought and led to the Second World War, a conflict that made the first one seem like child’s play — and one that could have been avoided had the United States intervened in the mid-‘30s rather than the early-‘40s.
But this mindset persisted. After the calamity in Vietnam, our psyche had been wounded. Our economy was crumbling. There were gas lines. Our allies were falling all over the globe. The lack of resolve to finish what we started in Vietnam led to the fall of Saigon, the helicopters off the roof of our embassy, the “boat people,” Pol Pot and the genocide in Cambodia. We saw increased Soviet influence in Latin America and Africa, while Soviet-backed regimes crushed democratic dissent in Eastern Europe. Martial law struck Poland, and the Russians invaded Afghanistan. The Khomeinist revolutionaries overtook Iran, as the nation was gripped by the hostage crisis. We saw wider disparity in Soviet military advantage, and an increase in the US-USSR missile gap — amongst other things.
There’s a lesson to be learned here, and it is this: when the cat’s away, the mice will play.
If history is any indignation, we can be certain of two things: 1) when the United States is economically weak, our enemies exploit that weakness; 2) when we elect new presidents, our enemies challenge their resolve.
It happened to Truman, who lost China to the communists, allowed Stalin to get the bomb and settled with an ugly draw on the Korean peninsula.
It happened to Eisenhower, who lost the space race to Moscow, and Cuba to Castro.
It happened to Kennedy, whose naiveté in meetings with Khrushchev convinced the Soviet Politburo he could be had, starting a missile crisis that nearly destroyed the world.
It happened to Carter, who once mocked his fellow Americans for having an “inordinate fear” of communism, only to see the Russians gobble up Afghanistan and violate the precious arms control agreements he was sure they would honor. His “holy man” Khomeini overtook our embassy, effectively ending Carter’s chances at reelection.
It happened to Reagan with the Marine barracks in Beirut.
It happened to George H.W. Bush with Noriega and Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.
It happened to Clinton with Milosevic, Saddam’s inspection violations and attempts to assassinate George Bush Sr., and al-Qaida’s attacks on our embassies.
And of course, it happened to George W. Bush on September 11, 2001.
Al-Qaida, an organization which has only existed for two U.S. presidential administrations, challenged both President Clinton in the first months of his presidency — the 1993 World Trade Center bombing — and President Bush Jr. in the first months of his first-term with the second World Trade Center attack. Al-Qaida even attacked the USS Cole before Bush’s inauguration.
Sen. Obama’s election would be the first time that these two geopolitical phenomena combined into one. His socialistic and protectionist economic policies would not only further the recession, thus making us more vulnerable than we already are, but his juvenile freshman outlook of the world would cause al-Qaida, Hezbollah, Iran, et. al. to salivate with eager anticipation.
Sure, Hugo Chavez, the Castro brothers, Col. Qaddafi of Libya, and Hamas will openly rejoice his election, as they have said they would. In our post-modern world, we can debate the nuances of each candidate’s foreign policies. But in the jihadists’ pre-modern, caliphate-centric, supernatural-orientated worldview, they see Sen. McCain as the “lifelong warrior” and Sen. Obama as “the more sympathetic pacifist.”
To them, McCain means greater pressure; Obama means a more subdued national security posture, and a more inward-looking American body politic. In other words, an opportunity. Rest assured: President Barack Obama would have his resoluteness tested by Islamists, jihadists and our opponents unlike any other presidential candidate, of either party, that was originally in the race this year.
Vladimir Putin has one eye on Election Day and the other on Ukraine, and he’s licking his chops. Hamas hears Jesse Jackson say Sen. Obama will end “Zionist” control of U.S.-Israeli relations, and finds solace. While it looks like Iraq will survive regardless of who is elected — thanks to the surge McCain championed and Obama opposed — it’s still unclear to good, decent Iraqis what their Persian neighbors have in store for them in a postwar atmosphere. While the insurgency has largely gone away, Iran has not: Ahmadinejad and the mullahs that control him are watching Obama’s poll numbers rise, and are regaining their appetite for Iraq’s southern provinces.
Who knows what will happen? Perhaps Obama will not raise business taxes. Perhaps an Obama-Pelosi-Reid government — the most leftist in our history — might not do what they’re saying they want to do. Perhaps pragmatism might kick in. Perhaps Obama will decide not to deduce the U.S. to a second-rate power with the highest corporate tax rate on the planet. Perhaps he will not “spread the wealth around,” as he said he would, and will allow the free market to prosper unfettered by the government.
Perhaps Obama will stop blaming the financial cost of saving Iraq on our domestic economic troubles. Perhaps he will come to realize Hamas and Hezbollah do not have “legitimate claims.” Perhaps he will come to understand that Putin and the democracies he invades without warning are not equally at fault. Perhaps he will sense he’s being challenged by our adversaries, and take strong counter-measures like Truman or Reagan. Perhaps this will not be Jimmy Carter redux, after all.
Perhaps. Whatever happens, this much is certain: if Sen. Obama is elected to the White House two weeks from now, 2009 will be an interesting year in foreign affairs.
Within the next four years, I fear that one or more foreign events will occur — upheaval in Pakistan, the nuclearization of Iran, a Russian invasion of another European ally, a Chinese attack on Taiwan, more North Korean roguery, another war in Lebanon, the collapse of Iraq, an all-out attempt to liquidate Israel, a catastrophic terrorist attack — that will overshadow, dwarf, and to some degree exasperate, our current anxieties on the home-front. And it will be then, and only then, that we will all collectively realize what we have done as a country, in electing a young, unknown novice — a weak man, to put it bluntly — over the well-known steady-hand and statesmanship of the elder John McCain.
