The Failed Visions of Bush and Obama

It has been many a year since we had a president who was not a bitterly divisive figure. We had eight years of Bill Clinton.  Then eight more of George W. Bush.  And now six of Barack Obama.  What these presidents have in common is the inability to do a single thing to meet with the approval of their opponents.

We can all recount the many failures of Barack Obama.  But there comes a time to put aside blind animosity for this president, and that time is now, when it comes to his middle east policy in general and his war (or counter-terrorism effort) against ISIS in particular.

Let’s take a step back for a moment and consider the last decade of history.  When President George W. Bush engaged the country in the war in Iraq, it seemed wise to be neither friend nor foe of the decision, but rather to conditionally support the war effort with eyes wide open.  It seemed to me a bold gamble – an honest experiment in building an island of democracy in a sea of tyranny, even if the stated basis for the war, a  supposed cache of weapons of mass destruction, turned out to be false (despite the concurrence of all of our allies in the assessment).

But at some point, every experiment must be evaluated.  And it has long been clear that things are considerably worse in the middle east than before our invasion of Iraq.  Bush’s idealistic vision failed.

This again begs the question of just how many times will we repeat the mistake of supporting efforts to take down a bad guy, only to see him replaced by something worse – witness Somoza-Ortega in Nicaragua,Batista-Castro in Cuba, Shah-Ayatollah in Iran, and most recently, Mubarak in Egypt and Gaddafi in Libya.  We now realize, too late, that Saddam Hussein and his Ba’ath party were far less damaging to American interests and geopolitical stability than ISIS, which never would have gained a foothold in Hussein’s Iraq.

In 2011, Obama pulled our ground forces out of Iraq three years after the surge of Bush’s later years, amid cries from the right that it was a big mistake.

Indeed, we could have continued our military presence in Iraq and undoubtedly kept the nation more stable, but we also knew from past experience that it was only by holding the hands of the Iraqi army that indigenous military forces could prevail.  Consistent testimony from members of the American military engaged in Iraq points to breakdowns in order and discipline almost immediately upon Iraqis being charged with full responsibility for the fight.

So the question was and is: Should not Iraqis at some point be responsible for their own political fate?  If Iraqis do not care as much about democracy in their country as we do, why should we continue to invest our talent and treasure on their behalf?  We spent a trillion dollars on a war in Iraq that resulted in the deaths of the hundreds of thousands.  How much is enough?

But President Obama is now facing his own existential challenge. His world view has long revolved around his belief the US has often – perhaps mostly – been on the wrong side of history, and that if we just treat our perceived enemies more nicely, we will be able to, if not win them over, at least limit the damage they can cause.

He must now reconcile that idealistic world view with the facts on the ground, and he has been proven as wrong in his beliefs as George W. Bush was in believing the people of Iraq were thirsting for democracy.

So what to make of the strategy of American air power and indigenous ground forces carrying the fight to ISIS, at least for starters, instead of going in with guns ablaze on the ground, as so many on the right have said we should do?

Fact is, support for indigenous ground forces should always be the first and best option in a foreign conflict.  Find the people fighting for the same cause in the region, equip them, and if necessary supplement with our own unrivaled air power.  Send in our ground forces only if that strategy fails to tamp down the rebellion, but do not make them targets unless absolutely necessary.  A physical, occupying presence by US forces just provides more recruiting power to ISIS and like-minded barbarians.

If the president has made a mistake in his ISIS policy, it would be in categorically ruling out the use of American ground forces, which he may or may not have done.  It is hard to understand the wisdom in alerting the enemy of your strategy, notwithstanding the political need to gain the support of the American people by promising we won’t get involved in another ground war.

There is much noise on the right about the ever-growing instability in the region being caused by Obama’s withdrawal from Iraq.  It is as if Bush’s failed gamble had little or nothing to do with the chaos.  Get real.

The last decade has been one continuous reminder that there are no good guys in the middle east.  Oh sure, the ruling Husseins of Jordan are a civilized family trying to navigate the shark-infested waters of middle east politics.  There are elements of the Free Syrian Army who share our goals of democracy and a robust civil society.  And we can not discount the apparent goals of Iran’s green movement (and no, that has nothing to do with the environment).  But in order to protect our oil interests in the middle east – and why else would we be so involved in that region? – we must accept that, while dictators past and present – Bashar Assad of Syria, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and yes, even Saddam Hussein – are bad actors – they always represent the only available option for providing the stability necessary for an uninterrupted flow of oil, and are far less likely to allow independent terrorist armies to seize and control broad swaths of territory like those seized by ISIS, which have now reached the size of the state of Indiana.

Yes, polls reveal Americans support strong(er) action against ISIS than what they perceive the current policy to be, but we can hardly discount the effect of emotions involved in the news that two Americans got their heads chopped off.  But it is hard to make sense of previous polls indicating an increasingly non-interventionist spirit among Americans…while simultaneously expressing disapproval of Obama for advancing, at least compared to Bush, just that kind of strategy.

Some of the best news an enemy can ever receive is that the people they are fighting are divided, and that their commander has failed to rally broad support among his people.  The right needs to stop reflexively demonizing every move Obama makes and support the pragmatic notion of allowing air power and indigenous ground forces the first opportunity to roll back this threat.  And the left needs to allow for the possibility that some American boots on the ground might ultimately be necessary.  And let us all remember the chilling consequences of allowing a mortal enemy to metastasize as we fail to put partisanship aside and leave our differences at the water’s edge at a crucial juncture in our history.