“Easier to Be President of China”

Let’s face it, policy prescriptions are the only things that really matter in this post-9/11 world–a world in which unpredicted and high-impact events like the so-called “Arab Spring of 2011” are common, but no more predictable. A report, blog or op-ed is nothing without some oughts and naughts for U.S. FoPo.

But there are handicaps that make it intimidating–and more often, impossible–to predict for policy. Nassim Taleb calls these handicaps “triple opacity”.

Cover of Nassim Taleb's Black Swan

“The human mind suffers from three ailments as it comes into contact with history,”

1)  The illusion of understanding.

2)  Retrospective distortion, or how we can assess matters only after the fact.

3) The overvaluation of factual information.

It’s this psychological triple whammy that moved President Obama to remark (I’d use “quip” if I were feeling generous) that it would be easier to be “president” of China.

Naturally, all resident grousers at The New York Times, Foreign Policy, Washington Post and the rest have been reserved in their policy prescriptions. While Tunisia’s revolt against Ben Ali may have been the death knell of the culturally relative perspectives, most are now latching on to the idea of a mitigated approach built on what we think we understand, what we can ascertain in retrospect, and what we can accomplish through interpersonal manipulation–put simply, diplomacy.

The ugly truth is that policy suggestions proffering pure diplomacy before power (hard or soft) can hardly be considered suggestions for the United States–at least for now.

Foreign Policy writer James Traub tries desperately to shore up diplomacy and non-interventionism in the case of the Arab Spring . In his op-ed, he writes,

I come before you today to say that we have put that ambivalence aside. We embrace the truth that in the long run a democratic Middle East is the essential precondition to securing regional peace and stability, and to ending the scourge of terrorism….The second thing the United States can do to help the birth of a new Middle East is to provide diplomatic support to the forces of change. Above all, we must help prevent backsliding in those places where the old order has been overthrown and a new one has yet to be born. That means making it clear to transitional leaders in Egypt and Tunisia that ongoing American military and economic support will be conditioned on laying out a clear path to elections and on bringing democratic forces into the government right away.”

Essentially, Traub sees the Arab revolutions as a purging. Lost are the old authoritarian regimes with which America compromised virtues for economic security and military safeguards. According to Traub, this is an unprecedented opportunity to support democratic government, while pushing for ethnic and religious tolerance and universal access to civic institutions.

This is an idealistic point considering that we don’t know if the dust will settle in universal representation. Egypt’s military guidance and the speed of its constitutional rewrite, for one, is worrying. But Traub is appealing to the most important tenet in the canon of the analysis: Cultivate institutions and partnerships most beneficial to national interests. The power vacuums and vulnerable structures of the Arab Spring present a fine forum for real results through diplomacy. The United States has done well in guiding Egypt in its interim.

Col. Muammar Ghaddafi

But, in truth, other forms of soft power are necessary in this period of upheaval and uncertainty. While we equivocated in the case of Egypt, we were quicker to stop hailing the perversely obdurate Muammar Qadhafi as a bulwark against terrorism. We froze his assets, threatened a no-fly zone, and Clinton is talking new sanctions. So that, even though Qadhafi unleashed death squads by land and air when Obama’s ears were still corked, America has portrayed a united front with the resistance in Benghazi and is working to circumscribe a threat.

Diplomacy is not only limited to pacific circumstance, but it works best in a hegemonic world. Traub makes the assumption that the world continues to be as unipolar as it appeared after the fall of the Soviet Union. He forgets the proxy war between the two regional greats–Saudi Arabia and Iran. He disregards the persevering, and often transmutable, Al Qaeda. He simplifies practical foreign policy by making America the only player on the field.

In fact, the only area in which Traub supports other forms of soft power is in “backsliding”, which suggests that his prescriptions are really propositions for a democratic peace. He forgets, as he forgot when calling Israel the epitome of a “successful democracy”, that there is a point at which the backsliding of other democracies no longer affects our national interests (see, Knesset bills limiting assembly, speech and naturalization). Elections are the only requirements of a democracy. The liberal mores come at additional cost, and are not always required for “democratic peace,” no matter what Hilary Clinton remarks before the Human Rights Council.

Traub’s prescriptions also underestimate the will and wherewithal of dictators. Qadhafi, for instance, is not only psychotic, but a big deal. Howard French published a brief article in The Atlantic that  illustrates Qadhafi’s military and strategic prowess and his complete disregard for human life.

Qaddafi’s big idea was to meld a modern, anti-Western, anti-imperial discourse with an impassioned pan-Africanism, an ideal that still resonates deeply across the continent.

For decades in Africa, Qaddafi has put his money where his mouth was: showering petro-dollars on favored clients, funding liberation groups, nurturing political movements, and even paying civil servants. To make sure that no one missed the message, he has often paid a huge portion of the operating costs of the continental body, the African Union.

It is no surprise, then, that the man who tutored the engineers of the invasion of Liberia and the civil war in Sierra Leone would use sub-Saharan mercenaries to combat, suppress and repress his own people.

So what happens when the ouster is not happening organically?

Bring in the hard power:

“We [the U.S.] will not move unilaterally. We are clear that Gaddafi has to go, and the violence is terrible. We have put as much financial pressure on him as possible and we are trying to isolate him,” says American ambassador to London Louis Susman.

In upcoming days, we will see more commingling between hard and soft power in the North Africa, and the Middle East. As Sen. John McCain told Fox News, we don’t want to miss this page in history, and diplomacy is not enough to oust men like Qadhafi or to answer the call of a popular and battered opposition in Libya.

In recent days we have taken the right steps: deploying an aircraft to monitor conditions in the country; landing Marines in Crete to prepare for eventualities. I see no reason for a large-scale attack/deployment to Libya. In conjunction with Britain and France, the US could easily impose a no-fly zone to markedly diminish the power of Qadhafi’s attacks and mitigate the growing humanitarian crisis.

There is also no doubt in my mind that we should not extend the same relief to the people of Bahrain, though the situation there is complicated by SaudIran. About 1,000 Saudi troops entered Bahrain today, at the bequest of the Bahraini government. While they are masquerading as assistance from the Gulf Cooperation Council, we potentially have another proxy war on our hands–with Saudi Arabia acting first on behalf of the Sunni government. I suggest we spend our diplomacy on Saudi Arabia, and our more threatening soft power on Sheikh Al Khalifa, before the backlash against protestors heightens and Iran acts on its own designs.

Edit:

From Jean Francois-Seznac’s FP piece, “Saudi Arabia Strikes Back”,

Ultimately, this may also be a defeat for Saudi Arabia as well. The Saudis have long tried to avoid overt interventions in their neighbors’ affairs. They intervened once during the 1994 upheavals in Bahrain and in the past two years have been active on the Yemeni border — but under King Abdullah they have tried to arbitrate, rather than dominate, events on the Arabian Peninsula. Their decision to intervene directly in Bahrain’s affairs suggests a weakness in the Saudi leadership and Riyadh’s surrender to the more conservative elements in the country.

If Seznac’s conclusion holds any truth, then Saudi Arabia’s symbolic entrance in to Bahrain may reflect its internal political struggles. Saudis have been petitioning and preparing for their own “Riyadh Spring” since Saddam’s fall in 2003. After all, this powerhouse also faces massive youth unemployment, poor distribution of wealth, and financial mismanagement and corruption at the state-levels. And, everybody knows it.

Conservatives in the Kingdom could have deployed troops to Bahrain as a distraction to its dissenters. There may also be some hope that a regional and Sunni-centric endeavor might bolster support for the House of Saud. And, as Seznac hints, it a symbolic imprecation to the U.S.–perhaps the overture of a state showcasing its regional might. But, as we all know, the masquerade continues, for fear of severing the relationship between the House of Saud and the White House.