American Overreach: Strategic Interests and Millennial Ambitions in the Middle East

Abstract

This article argues that American actions in the Middle East designed to advance democracy and/or ‘moderation’ tend to yield perverse outcomes that frustrate the aspirations of local actors while undermining the values purportedly being promoted by the US. In order to explain these contradictions, we emphasise the linkage between policies of democracy promotion and long-standing American commitments both to millennialism and geographical omnipresence. As a result of these policies and geopolitical vision, we argue that ‘democracy promotion’ often devolves into a simple defence of American interest – by producing electoral outcomes intended to strengthen local agents seen as compliant with US regional priorities. In this context, the shift from democracy promotion to a policy of pursuing ‘moderation’ in the region, understood as support for American policies, is entirely coherent. Commentators tend to present this shift (particularly in the wake of the Iraq War) as recognition by US political actors of the imperial overtones embedded in more heavy-handed approaches to regime change. Yet, the call for moderation is itself profoundly intertwined with American millennial aspirations, while remaining remarkably devoid of clear content and thus equally amenable to manipulation for strategic ends. By way of conclusion, we suggest an alternative basis for a less intrusive American position in the region, one that rejects the need for an overstretched territorial presence and that is grounded in a substantive respect for local self-determination.

Notes

1. These numbers are collected in Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (New York: Metropolitan Books 2004) pp. 156–160.

2. For a more systematic historical discussion of the role of millennial ideals in American foreign policy and political identity, see Aziz Rana, The Two Faces of American Freedom (Harvard University Press, forthcoming); David Campbell, Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity, Rev. Ed. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota 1998).

3. For example, see Tamara Cofman Wittes and Richard Youngs, ‘Europe, The United States and Middle Eastern Democracy: Repairing the Breach’, Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution (Jan. 2009) (Analysis Paper No. 18), available at <http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2009/01_middle_eastern_democracy_wittes.aspx>.

4. John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2007).

5. For example, see Kurt M. Campbell and Derek Chollet, ‘The New Tribalism: Cliques and the Making of U.S. Foreign Policy’, The Washington Quarterly 30/1 (Winter 2006–2007) pp. 193–203 (arguing that interagency rivalries and partisan foreign policy ‘cliques’ are a key component in explaining the formulation of US foreign policy).

6. In particular, we take from Gearóid Tuathail and John Agnew an emphasis on how discursive frameworks regarding territory “‘spatialize’ international politics” and shape global relations of political power. Gearóid Tuathail and John Agnew, ‘Geopolitics and Discourse: Practical Geopolitical Reasoning in American foreign Policy’, Political Geography 11/2 (1992) p. 190.

7. Department of Defense, Office of the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense (Installations and Environment), Base Structure Report, Fiscal Year 2009, p. DOD-22; Department of Defense, ‘Active Duty Military Personnel Strengths by Regional Area and by Country’, 30 June 2009, available at <http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/2009/hst0906.pdf>.

8. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, ‘SIPRI Yearbook 2009: Appendix 5A. Military Expenditure Data, 1999–2008’, available at <http://www.sipri.org/yearbook/2009/05/05A>. For a detailed discussion of the relationship between spiralling military budgets and US sense of permanent, see Julien Mercille, ‘Mind the Gap: Security ‘Crises’ and the Geopolitics of U.S. Military Spending’, Geopolitics 13/1 (2008) p. 54.

9. See generally John Agnew, Hegemony: The New Shape of Global Power (Philadelphia: Temple University Press 2005).

10. Ibid., pp. 1–2.

11. See generally Ernest Lee Tuveson, Redeemer Nation: The Idea of America's Millennial Role (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1968).

12. John Winthrop, ‘A Model of Christian Charity’, in Edmund S. Morgan (ed.), Puritan Political Ideas 1558–1794 (New York: Hackett Publish 2003) p. 93.

13. NCS-68, ‘U.S. Objectives and Programs for National Security’ (1950), available at <http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/nsc-68/nsc68-1.htm>.

14. For a post-September 11 account of the continuing role of millennial language in US foreign policy and national identity, see Paul T. McCartney, ‘American Nationalism and U.S. Foreign Policy from September 11 to the Iraq War’, Political Science Quarterly 119/3 (2004) p. 399.

15. For a discussion of the shift from Wilsonian liberalism to neoconservative democracy promotion, see Jonathan Monten, ‘The Roots of the Bush Doctrine: Power, Nationalism and Democracy Promotion in U.S. Strategy’, International Security 29/4 (Spring 2005) p. 112.

16. George W. Bush, ‘State of the Union Address’, White House Office of the Press Secretary (28 Jan. 2003), available at <http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/print/20030128-19.html>.

17. Barack H. Obama, ‘Remarks by the President on a New Strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan’, White House Office of the Press Secretary (27 March 2009), available at <http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-on-a-New-Strategy-for-Afghanistan-and-Pakistan>.

18. Ibid.

19. Anne-Marie Slaughter, ‘Wilsonianism in the Twenty-First Century’, in G. John Ikenberry, Thomas J. Knock, Anne-Marie Slaughter, and Tony Smith (eds.), The Crisis of American Foreign Policy: Wilsonianism in the Twenty-First Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press 2009) p. 115.

20. Ibid.

21. Barack H. Obama, ‘Remarks by the President at the Acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize’, White House Office of the Press Secretary (Dec. 10, 2009), available at <http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/remarks-president-acceptance-nobel-peace-prize>.

22. George W. Bush, ‘Address at Swearing-In Ceremony for Second Term’, White House Office of the Press Secretary (20 Jan. 2005), available at <http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/01/20050120-1.html>.

23. Fouad Ajami, ‘We Have George W. Bush to Thank for the Arab Democratic Spring’, Daily Star (Lebanon: 23 May 2005).

24. Michael Hirsh and Daniel Klaidman, ‘Washington: Condi's Clout Offensive’, Newsweek (14 March 2005).

25. The only possible exception would be the case of the Lebanese electoral system, but this counter-example was complicated historically by the Syrian presence in the country.

26. “During his May 2005 visit to Washington, Mahmoud Abbas reportedly struck a chord with US officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, arguing that a clean Fatah victory – which he then confidently predicted – would deal Sunni Islamist militancy a profound setback in the region.” International Crisis Group, ‘Enter Hamas: The Challenges of Political Integration’, Middle East Report 49 (18 Jan. 2006) p. 10.

27. “As a political party, Hamas revealed itself to be disciplined, pragmatic and surprisingly flexible. It fielded well-regarded candidates, including doctors and academics. In some cases, Hamas aligned itself with independents once affiliated with the secular Fatah party.” Fotini Christia and Sreemati Mitter, ‘Hamas at the Helm’, New York Times (27 Jan. 2006).

28. For an example, see Nathan Brown, ‘Aftermath of the Hamas Tsunami’, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, available at <http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/BrownHamasWebCommentary.pdf> p. 2.

29. International Crisis Group, ‘Enter Hamas’, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, available at <http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/BrownHamasWebCommentary.pdf> p. 32.

30. The Quartet on the Middle East is a group comprised of the United Nations, the US, the European Union and Russia, which was formally established in 2002 to serve as a mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In this context, mobilizing the nations represented by the Quartet to boycott the Palestinian Authority – the elected representative of one of the two parties in the conflict the Quartet was to mediate – is especially troubling.

31. International Crisis Group, ‘After Gaza’, Middle East Report 68 (2 Aug. 2007) p. i.

32. “They say they acted in response to efforts to undermine their electoral mandate and obstruct their ability to govern and to pre-empt plans within Fatah to confront them militarily with US, Israeli and Arab aid. They argue they had no choice, given the need to reverse a deteriorating security situation that was part of the effort to bring them down.” Ibid., p. 1. The report also contains valuable analysis of the role played by Dahlan in the conflagration in Gaza at pages 8–9. The belated discovery of Fatah as the horse to back in the Palestinian territories is ironic given the damage done to Fatah by international isolation from 2000–2006. Indeed, the Oslo peace process and Palestinian relations with the international community were the undoing of whatever political legitimacy Fatah leaders once enjoyed in the Palestinian territories. Under Oslo, they came to be seen by Palestinians as representatives of an illegitimate government installed under conditions of occupation and implicated in Israeli practices.

33. Ibid., p. 1.

34. ‘Abdelbari ‘Atwan, ‘Rule by Decree’, Al-Quds al-Arabi (4 Sept. 2007) (noting that “Palestinian President Abbas’ resort to rule by decree threatens to turn the PA into another Arab dictatorial regime”).

35. In a rare example of the International Committee of the Red Cross making a public statement based on its activities, the ICRC issued an urgent humanitarian appeal for Gaza. The ICRC Director of Operations for the Middle East was quoted by the BBC as arguing that “in Gaza the whole strip is being strangled, economically speaking, life there has become a nightmare. And for that there is no solution that can be provided by humanitarian organizations.” ‘Red Cross Demands Mid-East Action’, BBC (13 Dec. 2007), available at <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7141875.stm>.

36. Alex Spillius and Dina Kraft, ‘Hillary to Offer $1 Billion to Gaza in Move to Sideline Hamas’, The Daily Telegraph (1 March 2009), available at <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4903829/Hillary-Clinton-to-offer-1bn-to-Gaza-in-move-to-sideline-Hamas.html>.

37. ‘General Dayton admits the U.S. is helping Fatah’, Jerusalem Post (27 May 2007).

38. For a careful discussion of the expiration of the current Palestinian Authority's electoral mandate, see Nathan J. Brown, ‘Palestinian Presidential Elections’, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (July 2008).

39. Barack Obama, ‘Remarks by the President on a New Beginning’, White House Office of the Press Secretary (4 June 2009), available at <http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-Cairo-University-6-04-09>.

40. The monies spent on training and arming the LAF and ISF were often described by Bush administration officials as part of a broader policy of seeking the “full implementation of UN Security Council 1701” – code for disarming Hezbollah, the principal unimplemented provision of the resolution. For example, see Office of the Spokesman, ‘U.S. Delivers Police Vehicles to the Lebanese Internal Security Forces’, U.S. Department of State Bureau of Public Affairs (2 July 2009).

41. Michele J. Sison, ‘Statement of Ambassador-Designate to Lebanon before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’, U.S. Department of State Bureau of Public Affairs (23 July 2008).

42. This also meant that the US placed clear conditions on military assistance that arms provided to the Lebanese army not be used against Israel, but strictly for internal security purposes. Natacha Yazbeck and Saleh Hodaifeh, ‘Talking to Michele Sison’, Lebanon Now (Feb. 2009) (interview with Ambassador Sison).

43. ‘US Vice-President Joe Biden visits Lebanon’, BBC (22 May 2009), available at <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8063111.stm>.

44. For background on this impasse and the American role in demanding a hard-line from the Siniora government, see Stephen Zunes, ‘Lebanon Intrusion’, Foreign Policy in Focus (10 June 2008).

45. For a discussion of the development and ultimate collapse of the Future movement militia, see Borzou Daragahi and Raed Rafei, ‘Lebanon's Sunni Bloc Built Militia, Officials Say’, The Los Angeles Times (12 May 2008).

46. Sam Ghattas, ‘Biden Links U.S. Aid to Outcome of Lebanese Election’, AP News (22 May 2009), available at <http://wire.antiwar.com/2009/05/22/biden-links-us-aid-to-outcome-of-lebanon-election>.

47. Ibid.

48. In his blog, Satloff writes: “Biden's surprise visit to Beirut on May 22 was not just gutsy. By reminding Lebanese voters that Washington will review financial assistance and other aspects of our relations with Lebanon depending on the outcome of the election, Biden played Middle East hardball. Lebanese voters – especially the critical swing Christian voters – seem to have gotten the message. They cast their ballots in droves for candidates opposed to the Hezbollah-backed alliance and, in so doing, appear to have turned the tide in the election.” He contrasts Biden's “hardball” with his dismay at the lack of threats or sticks in Obama's Cairo speech but then expresses the hope that behind Cairo's rhetoric is a set of policies in line with his own preferences and thus continuous with those of the previous administration. Robert Satloff, ‘Biden's Hardball Pays Off in Lebanon’, available at <http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mesh/2009/06/bidens-hardball-pays-off-in-lebanon>.

49. For a sense of the pervasive sense of frustration with American policy in the Arab press and policy circles, see Editorial, ‘The US is Colluding in the Trampling of Democracy in Egypt’, The Daily Star (Lebanon: 6 Aug. 2008); Rami G. Khoury, ‘Time to Bring Home Arab Human Development’, Saudi-US Relations Information Service (21 Jan. 2005) (arguing that “for the U.S. government to speak of Arab liberty, on the one hand, while using financial blackmail, on the other hand, to squash this exercise of free-thinking Arab activism, is a sign of precisely Washington's double standards, presumptuous arrogance and pro-Israeli bias that cause so many people in the Middle East – and the rest of the world – to criticize the U.S. these days”); Mohamad Salah, ‘Bad U.S. Diplomacy’, Al Hayat (18 Nov. 2008) (translated in Mideast Mirror, Section B (The Arab World) (18 Nov. 2008)).

50. There is a striking parallel between the preoccupations of American policy makers and commentators on American policy in the press and the academy. As American policy makers made the rhetorical transition from democracy to moderation, so the emphasis in policy and media circles shifted to concern with moderate rather than democratic forces in the region. For a discussion of the historical relationship between American hegemonic designs and scholarship in international relations, see Robert Vitalis, ‘International Studies in America’, Social Science Research Council Items and Issues 3/1 (Summer 2002).

51. An influential and representative articulation of this position comes from Fareed Zakaria in his book, The Future of Freedom, which calls for moderation and liberty as the principal focus of American foreign policy. Zakaria argues that although electoral practices are gaining increasing global sway, these practices are as likely to result in illiberal and oppressive regimes as they are to secure stability and liberal rights. See generally Fareed Zakaria, The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad (New York: W.W. Norton 2004).

52. Sean McCormack, ‘Daily Press Briefing State Department’, U.S. Department of State Office of the Press Secretary (20 March 2007), available at <http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2007/mar/81963.htm>. For a detailed discussion of the course of the Egyptian elections in 2005, see Aslı Bâli, ‘From Subjects to Citizens? The Shifting Paradigm of Electoral Authoritarianism in the Middle East’, Middle East Law and Governance: An Interdisciplinary Journal 1/1 (2008).

53. Amnesty International, ‘Egypt: Proposed Constitutional Amendments Greatest Erosion of Human Rights in 26 Years’ (18 March 2007).

54. Nathan Brown, Michele Dunne and Amr Hamzawy, ‘Egypt's Controversial Constitutional Amendments’, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (23 March 2007).

55. Andrew Exum and Zack Snyder, ‘Democracy Demotion in Egypt: Is the US a Willing Accomplice?’, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Policy Watch #1212 (23 March 2007).

56. Stephen Zunes, ‘How Not to Support Democracy in the Middle East’, Foreign Policy in Focus (8 June 2009), available at <http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6173>.

57. ‘Obama Interview: The Transcript’, BBC News (2 June 2009), available at <http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/news/2009/06/090602_obama_transcript.shtml>.

58. For a statement of the “Forward Strategy of Freedom,” see ‘Fact Sheet: President Bush Calls for a “Forward Strategy of Freedom” to Promote Democracy in the Middle East’, White House Office of the Press Secretary (6 Nov. 2003), available at <http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/11/20031106-11.html>.

59. For an example, see Robin Wright, ‘Iran: The Uninvited Wildcard in Mideast Talks’, Washington Post (27 Nov. 2007) p. A12; Michael Oren, ‘Middle East Peace Through Anxiety’, New York Times (2 Dec. 2007); and Robert Blecher, ‘In Annapolis, Conflict By Other Means’, Middle East Report (26 Nov. 2007). The Arab press also saw Annapolis as largely about building support for a confrontation with Iran. For an example, see Amin Qammouriyyeh, ‘Maximum Offer’, An-Nahar (Lebanon: 27 Nov. 2007), (arguing that Annapolis was convened because President Bush felt the need “to be armed to the teeth with ‘moderate’ allies in his counterattack against the camp of ‘evil’ who were not called to Annapolis but left at home: Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah”); ‘Urayb al-Rintawi, ‘Waiting for Bush’, Ad-Dustour (Jordan: 27 Nov. 2007) (arguing that a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is valued by the US administration “because it facilitates lining the Arab moderates up behind Washington in its campaigns against Iran and its allies”).

60. ‘Big Turnout, Small Result’, The Economist (29 Nov. 2007).

61. George W. Bush, ‘Remarks by President Bush to Open Annapolis Convention’, Department of State Office of the Press Secretary (27 Nov. 2007), available at <http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/rm/2007/95695.htm>.

62. For a discussion of what such a deal might have resembled, see Jackson Diehl, ‘Fuses in Gaza’, Washington Post (3 Dec. 2007).

63. Hussein Agha and Robert Malley, ‘Obama and the Middle East’, New York Review of Books (11 June 2009), available at <http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22731>.

64. ‘Obama Mulls Reaching Out to Moderate Taliban: Report’, Reuters (7 March 2009); and Helene Cooper and Sheryl Gay Stolberg, ‘Obama Ponders Outreach to Elements of Taliban’, The New York Times (8 March 2009).

65. Proponents of the ‘surge’ model in Afghanistan argue that in addition to the influx of American forces, the strategy will require a doubling or more of the Afghan National Army and police forces. For an example, see John Nagl, ‘Surge in Afghanistan Can Work, With Right Resources, Enough Time’, U.S. News & World Report (23 Feb. 2009).

66. Commonly cited estimates of the combined cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan military commitments range from several trillion dollars, according to prominent economists Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, to the Congressional Budget Office's 2007 estimate of $2.4 trillion through to 2017. The portion of these costs attributable to the Afghan theatre of operation is roughly one-third, or nearly $1 trillion dollars. Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz, The Economic Costs of the Iraq War: An Appraisal Three Years After the Beginning of the Conflict, Working Paper No. 12054 (Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, Feb. 2006); Peter Orszag, ‘Estimated Costs of U.S. Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and of Other Activities Related to the War on Terrorism’, United States Congressional Budget Office (24 Oct. 2007), available at <http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/86xx/doc8690/10-24-CostOfWar_Testimony.pdf>.

67. Rory Stewart, the director of Harvard's Carr Center for Human Rights, offers a critique of President Obama's speech and the policy it introduces, arguing that external dependence and authoritarianism are the most likely outcomes. Rory Stewart, ‘The Irresistible Illusion’, The London Review of Books (9 July 2009) pp. 3–6. For another critique, see Andrew Bacevich, ‘Afghanistan Surge Is Not Worth the Cost in Blood and Treasure’, U.S. News & World Report (23 Feb. 2009).

68. Stewart (note 66) p. 6.

69. One common metric for gauging the degree of freedom in a given country is the Freedom House evaluation based on their scoring of political and civil liberties. According to these rankings, of the principal eighteen Arab states, only Bahrain and Lebanon have changed status in a positive direction during this period. (Excluded from our list of Arab states are: the Comoros Islands, Djibouti, Mauritania and Somalia.) In the Lebanese case, the Freedom House score is not a reflection of domestic changes. Rather, as the narrative description of their analysis makes clear, it is the Syrian departure that is viewed as liberalisation, moving the country from “not free” to “partially free” in 2006. With respect to Bahrain, Freedom House also registers a slight improvement of the country's score taking it from the higher end of the “not free” category to the lowest rungs of “partially free.” However, the narrative explanation of this change in coding suggests little substantive improvement. The principal change was the holding, for the first time in 30 years, of elections for the lower house of parliament. Still, political parties remained illegal, four main opposition groups boycotted the vote, the lower house was subject to the veto of an upper house appointed by the monarchy, and Freedom House noted that widespread gerrymandering of districts diluted the majority Shi'a vote, as did measures to enfranchise non-Bahraini Sunnis from elsewhere in the Gulf. Each of these features limited the democratic legitimacy of the election. Inexplicably, Freedom House also scores Yemen as having made a transition from its status as “not free” to “partially free” in the year 2005. Yet, the actual scores on political rights and civil liberties in Yemen did not improve from the previous year and the narrative analysis offered in defence of this change of status described a “downward trend arrow due to governmental restrictions on press freedom.” ‘Freedom House Country Report: Yemen (2005)', available at <http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=363&year=2005&country=6864>.