Interventionism is once more permeating American foreign-policy thinking in the Middle East. This time around, however, it is ‘soft’ intervention, although it is laden with the same kind of language and misleading references. But it seems that the American government has learned so very little since the last botched effort at remaking the Middle East to its liking.
On June 26, the White House asked Congress for $1.5 billion (Dh5.5 billion) to bolster ‘stability’ in Syria’s neighbours — Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and Turkey. A third of that amount will be dedicated to train ‘moderate’ Syrian rebels for the purpose of fighting the Syrian army and its allies on one hand and holding back the growing influence of militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) on the other. The Isil is in control of large parts of Iraq.
Considering the level of complexity of the Syrian battleground, and the predictable splinters within existing groups, it is difficult to imagine that the $500 million will lead to anything but greater instability in Syria and its neighbouring countries, including those that are part of the proposed US Regional Stabilisation Initiative, for which the funds have been requested. It has been reported that the administration was pressured by Republican Senator John McCain and others. But the reading of the Middle East by John McCain has been as erroneous as that of the former leading ‘intellectuals’ of the neoconservative movement. McCain is as discredited as the rest, but the recent gains of Isil have left the US administration with difficult choices: Intervention (which proved to be a complete disaster in the past) or non-intervention (which would leave the pro-US camp in the Middle East vulnerable).
The US seems to be opting for neither option, but ‘soft’ intervention: Military and financial support of some groups and forging, even if temporarily, alliances with others, including Iran.
Despite its attempt to exert pressure and demonstrate its relevance, the degeneration of US foreign policy is unmistakable and proves to be meddling for the sake of asserting its relevance, and nothing more. The proposed funds are meant to serve “vetted elements of the Syrian armed opposition to help defend the Syrian people, stabilise areas under opposition control, facilitate the provision of essential services, counter terrorist threats and promote conditions for a negotiated settlement”, according to a statement by the White House. In other words, a protracted war.
Although Russia itself is playing its own power game in the region, Russian ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, was accurate in his depiction of the US strategy: The Americans “are moving things in their own direction, they keep the fire burning instead of doing something political”.
However, the US is not the only party that wants to keep the fire burning, Israel does too. During a visit to the US Chief of Mission Residence in Paris on June 26, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman announced his country’s readiness to back ‘moderate’ Arab countries in their fight against Isil, which he described as a ‘threat to all countries of the region’.
The swift advances of Isil, which led to a Sunni rebellion in parts of western and central Iraq, is rapidly rearranging the power paradigm in the region in ways unprecedented in recent history. Lieberman, who often depicts Arabs with a most racist language, and has a political legacy that has largely predicated on his enmity to the Arabs, is now calling on Arab states to ‘stand together against the (Isil) threat’. And considering US-Iranian coordination in the fight against Isil militants, Iran and Israel are finding themselves, more or less, as members of the same alliance. But these are shaky alliances, made more unstable by the fact that the US no longer possesses a clear foreign policy agenda in the Middle East, which is to be expected considering the devastation created by previous US administrations.
Obama’s years have thus far been spent on crisis management, a mix of compulsory pragmatism and a disordered attempt at ensuring American relevance. Considering the multiple crises created by the US in Iraq in past years, no one, not even the supposedly level-headed US President Barack Obama, can make any difference without a clear and decided shift in US foreign policy that has yet to actualise.
Indeed, it was the US-led western invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq that drew the battle lines in the Middle East like never before — lines that the Americans, and now the Israelis, are desperately attempting to redraw. However, policymakers, no matter how astute, often forget — or rather ignore — the underlining reasons behind violent phenomena. Even worse, they exploit the violence to further their political and strategic interests, despite the fact that it means more violence.
When Baghdad fell in April 2003, and as American soldiers so conceitedly drowned Baghdad with their flags, millions of already alienated and angry Arab and Muslim youth felt that their countries had reached the lowest depths of humiliation. And while Iraqi men and women were being tortured, raped and filmed dead or naked by smirking US soldiers in Baghdad’s prisons, a whole new nation of angry Muslim youth was born. Western wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were not the exclusive harbinger of Arab and Muslim youth anger, humiliation and the current violence under way in Syria, Iraq and other Muslim countries. The wars were the catalyst. But those whose countries are responsible for the ongoing war in Iraq are taking no responsibility whatsoever.
Instead of some serious introspection about his country’s role in the burgeoning conflict in Iraq, British Prime Minister David Cameron is worried about the threat to the national security of his country as a result of the ongoing strife, instigated by territorial gains of Isil. Obama continues to preach from the White House about violence and the moral responsibility of his country as if the destructive and leading role played by Washington in the Middle East is completely removed from the state of hopelessness and humiliation felt by a generation of Muslim youth. It is as if war, foreign occupation and the systematic destruction of an entire civilisation will come at no price, aside from fluctuating oil prices.
However, the alienated “angry” Muslim youth is hardly a mystery, but a fully comprehensible historical inevitability. For many of them, even if they insist otherwise, the ummah (Islamic nation) and caliphate are more of incorporeal spaces than actual geographical boundaries. It is an escape to history, from poverty, alienation, oppression and foreign occupations.
The US’s Regional Stabilisation Initiative and Israel’s call for Arab unity against Isil hardly takes any of that into account. Their policies are most likely to engender greater alienation, much more anger, and untold violence, which is yet to come.
Ramzy Baroud is a PhD scholar in People’s History at the University of Exeter. He is the Managing Editor of Middle East Eye. Baroud is an internationally-syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press, London).
