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    How Foreign Policy Non-Experts Think

    By Michael Maiello on Fri, 08/22/2014 - 10:04am | Politics

    I am no a foreign policy expert.

    I am definitely not an expert in military history or tactics.  I have little familiarity with the science, such as it is, of national and international security.

    I am particularly not adept at issues involving the Middle East, a region of the world that I have never visited and that is populated by diverse cultures that I know little about and people who speak languages that I don't speak.  I can't even call their languages "beautiful" as is the tradition, because I am not cunning linguist enough to know.

    I have read The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles and I really liked it. I am awed that Bowles can be both a great writer and a great composer at the same time while I can't even know anything of the things I've already said I don't know.

    To be clear, I have no idea what I am talking about when it comes to the Middle East, national security or our tactics in Iraq and Syria.  Except that I somehow have been saying, for years, that arming people in Iraq and Syria just because they seemingly share our interests at the time, could backfire on us later if our friends changes their minds or if the political situation changes.

    Somehow, ISIS (which I thought was an Egyptian goddess, what do I know) is rampaging the land with American weapons, seized from Iraqis and Syrians who we had armed, and is freely spending millions of American dollars, which we used to capitalize Iraqi banks even as we refused to spend money at home to stem a joint foreclosure and unemployment crisis.

    Now, all of the experts are surprised and say we have to go to war again.  Some of them are comically arguing that ISIS rose to power because we didn't arm the right Syrian rebels a year ago (being an expert means never having to admit you're wrong, I guess).  Meanwhile, know-nothing me was right.  Flooding Iraq and Syria with American weapons and American dollars has hurt our security, rather than helped it. But nobody listens to me.  Why should they?  I don't know anything. I'm no expert.

    Topics: 
    Politics

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    2013 - Syria - Former Republican nominee for President of the United States, war hero, Sunday afternoon news program fixture, 'expert'.  A man for whom all foreign policy problems have one simple solution: send more guns and weapons.

    The bearded guy on the left is the notorious 'ISIS cannibal terrorist' YouTubed eating the organs of one of his victims.....raw.

    McCain advocated arming these guys  in his visit to Syria in May, 2013.

    He will, of course, never be confronted on national TV and asked to explain his judgment on sending weapons to these notorious killers.

     


    by NCD on Fri, 08/22/2014 - 12:49pm

    Nope.  He will never, ever be asked.


    by Michael Maiello on Fri, 08/22/2014 - 1:10pm

    Of no special relevance to foreign policy, but in honor of the reapparance of that picture which, when it first came out, gave rise to doubts about McCain's perspicacity (even without the cannibalism story...) and to remind us of with whom we deal, plus, any excuse to repost this terrific song 

     

     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZMbTFNp4wI

     

     


    by jollyroger on Sun, 08/24/2014 - 4:03am

    I think you're a bit modest. I believe I've read quite a few thoughtful pieces/comments over the years by you touching on the Middle East.  Haven't agreed with them all, but generally thoughtful as in this case.  I'm just not sure we can get by blaming the experts, unless (and it's not a bad word really) we should be isolationists.  

    Yes, McCain looks foolish having believed that we should choose ISIS over the Butcher of Damascus.   But news of the 170,000 plus people killed in Syria over the past couple of years doesn't make me feel too well either.

    It's a nasty world out there Michael.  One need not be an expert to know that much of the world does not debate within the narrow parameters folks like you and I do.  Hard choices going forward and we cannot abdicate active participation in the decision-making process to a bunch of people who favored our not so excellent adventure into Iraq.

    We screwed up big time.  Yes we did.  Experts are often wrong.  Yes, indeed.  But while I've never met an Yazidi either, I bet they do bleed when ISIS pricks them.

    Tough choices, I know, and I know you want us to do the right thing.  It's a good place to start; check that, there is no other place for decent folks to start.

    Cheers.

     


    by Bruce Levine on Fri, 08/22/2014 - 9:13pm

    Just saw this NYTs piece where the estimated death toll in Syria (according to UN estimates for what they're worth) exceeds 191,000.  

     


    by Bruce Levine on Fri, 08/22/2014 - 10:02pm

    I'm currently reading Charles Lippmann's book ... Public Opinion ... and just about 2 hours ago I read where during WWI, the French used exaggerated German death counts so as to sway public opinion the war was going well and they had the Huns on the run. Turns out, they weren't anything near the actual death tolls on the battlefields. In fact, it was so confusing, the French absent-mindedly forgot a fortress of theirs with only a few soldiers manning it who were over run by the Germans who began to fire cannons at the French from their rear, which they thought to be secured.

    In short, the truth is what they want you to believe. So any reports of death's can't be validated until the fighting stops and unbiased teams comb thru the wreckage to see what really happened.

     


    by Beetlejuice on Sun, 08/24/2014 - 12:26pm

    [t]he truth is what they want you to believe. So any reports of death's can't be validated until the fighting stops and unbiased teams comb thru the wreckage to see what really happened.

    Totally agree Beetle, and an excellent point to always keep in mind when talking war and peace. Thanks.


    by Bruce Levine on Sun, 08/24/2014 - 5:45pm

    I was on the fence about the air war against ISIS, but I'm now inclined to see it as an error. I don't think we can defeat ISIS, since we couldn't defeat the Iraqi insurgents or the Taliban. And the cost of defeating them might be too great.

      I can't blame Obama much though.


    by Aaron Carine on Fri, 08/22/2014 - 8:27pm

    I'm past the blame thing.  Who are we?  Why are we here?

    Edited to add that, "national interests" aside, the situation in Iraq is unique as a consequence of whom we blame.  Like it or not, we are the American People, and it was our elected representatives that made the decision to go to Iraq.  And shit, then our brothers and sisters re-elected them in the middle of the damn thing in 2004.  

    So what do we say?  Sorry, I voted for Kerry, lots of luck?


    by Bruce Levine on Fri, 08/22/2014 - 10:13pm

    Guilty as charged. I will feel awful for the rest of my life for not coming to my senses sooner. Actions have consequences. I'll never get over my part in this debacle.


    by stillidealistic on Sat, 08/23/2014 - 2:35pm

    You have grown since then.  It is harder for politicians to pull the wool over your eyes now.


    by trkingmomoe on Sun, 08/24/2014 - 12:44am

    Don't be so hard on yourself ... Bu$h sought and received public consent for invading Iraq using fabricated evidence and facts that people accepted as valid. And those who questioned, where labeled as enemy/taliban/bin laden/Saddam sympathizers ... I know because that's what happened to me - I said Bu$h had declared war on the boogie-man and caught all kinds of hell for it.

     

    Bear in mind, the 4th Estate ... the news media ... failed to follow thru with their responsibility to question and challenge ... they accepted what they were giving for ... I suspect ... special access to the halls of power for regurgitating what they were given without the slightest hesitation.

     

    You can't fight city hall and you can't fight public opinion ... both are set in stone.


    by Beetlejuice on Sun, 08/24/2014 - 12:34pm

    Very true. Although I never voted for Bush, I was duped into believing they were going to find those WMDs. I just found it unfathomable that they would make so explicit a case for knowing they were there without being very certain. Silly me.

    Edit to add: that's not to say I supported us invading Iraq, even at the time, but I was more ambivalent about it than I would've been had I known the WMDs were mythical.


    by Verified Atheist on Sun, 08/24/2014 - 1:38pm

    I may have been premature in saying the bombing was an error. It may be justified; it may not be justified; I just don't know.


    by Aaron Carine on Sun, 08/24/2014 - 11:29am

    Once upon a time, there was a republican Texas representative named Charlie Wilson who is best known for leading Congress into supporting Operation Cyclone , the largest-ever CIA covert ops  which, under the Carter and Ronnie Raygun administrations, supplied military equipment including anti-aircraft weapons such as Stinger antiaircraft missiles and paramilitary officers from their Special Activities Division Special to the Afghan mujahideen in Afghanistan when the Russians invaded and occupied.

     

    And there was an obscure, unknown Saudi, named Osama bin Laden, there who would in later years repay our hospitality.

     

    I would write more of the fairy tale, but it's still being written with new characters and so forth.


    by Beetlejuice on Sun, 08/24/2014 - 12:15pm

    In fairness to Carter and Reagan, they couldn't have known what would happen in Afghanistan after the Soviets left. Letting the Soviets have Afghanistan might have been as bad an option as helping the Mujahidin turned out to be. Scylla and Charybdis.


    by Aaron Carine on Sun, 08/24/2014 - 12:55pm

    It was the congress-critter who I see as the one responsible. He used the Mujahidin to conduct a proxy war with the Russians. But they learned if they could defeat one super power, they could defeat any and all who stood in their way.


    by Beetlejuice on Sat, 08/30/2014 - 9:26pm

    Michael,

    Not sure if you're familiar with Hussein Ibish.  He's a Senior Fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine and among other things he blogs at Ibishblog.com.  I've been turning to his analyses more and more because he writes with a special clarity about the region and its complexities.  Anyway, I thought of you when I read Ibish's most recent piece, in which he asserts that the United States is already at war again in the Middle East, but also asserts that ISIS made a real strategic mistake by its public execution of James Foley.  Here's a few key excerpts (my bolds):

    Although most Americans don’t know it, and certainly haven’t endorsed it, the United States is back at war in the Middle East. Its latest, and most hideous, antagonist is the monstrous aberration that calls itself the Islamic State. And no matter what the present intentions, there seems no way this conflict in Iraq and Syria can fail to metastasise.

    . . .

    Last week, the Islamic State presented the Obama administration with an impossible two-fold conundrum. On the one hand, it had driven thousands of Yazidi religious minorities onto an isolated mountaintop where they faced certain death if not relieved. On the other hand, it was threatening to advance towards the Kurdistan Regional Government capital of Ebril where the United States has a consulate and numerous offices. From both a humanitarian and a practical point of view, the president had no choice.

    . . .

    It is often said that the Islamic State is a crafty and calculating organisation. There is no sign of that here. Had they been intelligent, the fanatics would have allowed the American system to produce its own push back against Mr Obama’s initiative to challenge them. There was, and still is, a good deal of scepticism in Congress and among the public against any further American military engagement in Iraq or anywhere else in the Middle East.

    But with the Foley murder, and particularly the gruesome video and photographs they distributed, the Islamic State poked the lion in the eye.

     


    by Bruce Levine on Sun, 08/24/2014 - 9:21pm

    Adding him to my reading list.  Thanks, Bruce.  I also suspect the murder of Foley was one of those inevitable steps too far.  It certainly makes it easy for the administration to explain military action to a skeptical public.


    by Michael Maiello on Mon, 08/25/2014 - 9:39am

    We'll see. Isn't it amazing how much has gone in just a few short weeks.  Maybe the most important think to do is to just step back for a minute.  Problem is world doesn't allow it some time.

    BTW, I tried to get Dr. Ibish involved in the discussion (took a shot on Twitter).  He's very gracious but I guess he's got a few other things on his plate.  Anyway, best.


    by Bruce Levine on Mon, 08/25/2014 - 10:25am

    A very Washington Post, inside the Beltwayish scorecard on the president's options and who's behind them.  Briefly, the four options cited are:

    1. Limited airstrikes, diplomacy and emphasis on local states to do the heavy work;

    2. Expand airstrikes into Syria, even if it means an effective alliance with the Syrian government;

    3.  Boots on the ground, special ops., all the way type stuff; and

    4. Do nothing without demonstrated consensus among Americans that staying away is not an option.


    by Bruce Levine on Mon, 08/25/2014 - 9:22pm

    "ISIL must be destroyed/will be crushed"  tweeted Secretary of State John Kerry last Thursday..."

    Rillleee?  The Secretary of State throws shade on Twitter now?  This is why I can't take things seriously.


    by Michael Maiello on Mon, 08/25/2014 - 9:36pm

    Though it is interesting that the dovish response comes from the New America Foundation, where Anne Marie Slaughter is running the show.


    by Michael Maiello on Mon, 08/25/2014 - 9:43pm

    Ha! Did not even notice that.  That inside-the-beltway stuff, on any given day. . .


    by Bruce Levine on Mon, 08/25/2014 - 9:50pm