Reading George Fox

I’m deliberately avoiding any more arguments in this post to present the most conservative argument that the Republican Party has been a mess on the foreign policy front.

I had a conversation today about political polarization in our country. My friend was on the “both sides” spectrum, which I think overstates how much the Democrats have contributed to it. I’m going to leave aside the domestic side of the debate and focus on which party has had a better foreign policy. My friend argued that the Democrats were terrible, listing Kennedy, LBJ, and Carter, while contrasting them to Bush I’s multilateralism (which I think boils down to the Gulf War). Given the immense change that was the end of the Cold War, I don’t know if one can actually make a fair comparison without a lot of background research. Also, there’s the question of: “Does the Gulf War happen if the Reagan administration doesn’t arm Iraq during its war with Iran?” It seems a bit off to credit Bush for positive foreign policy if he helped create the underlying crisis in the first place.¹

Of course, the bigger argument is how bad a catastrophe was Iraq Part Duex. I’d argue it was at least as big of a disaster as Vietnam. Probably worse given the chaotic fallout across the Middle East over the past decade plus. My friend argued that it was worth it for humanitarian reasons. When I asked why Saddam and not the numerous other dictators, he replied it was because of the oil. That the real problem was W fucked up the reconstruction. Now, let’s also leave aside the morality of lying the country into a war without a just cause² and think about it from a broader strategic perspective.

What were the downsides of going into Iraq? Well, we certainly shattered our international support much more quickly than otherwise and shifted all our money and attention away from Afghanistan. Now, Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires, but if there was ever a chance to pull a Germany/Japan after WW2, it was in 2002 with the full backing of our allies and world opinion. Moreover, staying focused on Central Asia opens up a major missed opportunity—detente with Iran. Despite their years of Anti-American rhetoric³, they did put out feelers post 9/11. After all, the Taliban (a Sunni Theocracy on their eastern border) was a threat to them too. On a broader scale, Wahhabism is just about as anti-Shia as it anti-Western. They too were no friends of Saddam; that was enough common interest to at least talk.

More importantly, where did the terrorist threat actually come from? At least ideologically and monetarily—Saudi Arabia. In a pure realist sense, the last thing we should have done is rely more on them. And Iran is the Saudi’s natural enemy; it was a prime Nixon goes to China moment, balance one opponent against another. There’s even the comparison of letting down an ally (Taiwan/Israel) for our national interest. We had managed to deal with China for 30 years without them invading Taiwan, which is a much harder feat than preventing Iran from actually threatening Israel’s existence.⁴ Just the possibility of warmer relations with Iran would have given us leverage with the Saudis.⁵ Maybe pressure them to stop funding Wahhabi schools and mosques? A friendly Iran also reduces our dependence on Pakistan—the country that harbored bin Laden for years! In 2002, Iran was actually the most logically strategic ally in the Middle East—it was estranged from its Islamic neighbors by religious and strategic tensions and, pre-Axis of Evil, was probably willing to trade security guarantees for oil. A much simpler and far less risky method than invading a powder keg of a country that had no historic reason to exist other than British colonialism.⁶

Now there is the argument that the Ayatollah is a crazy religious nut who can’t be trusted. But is he really that much less reliable than Mao? There’s been no Great Leap Forward causing a famine that killed millions. Iran hasn’t started any wars since its revolution. Yes, it has sponsored terrorism, but that has been driven just as much by strategic reasons⁷ as ideological. Even its pursuit of a nuclear weapon is decidedly a realist goal. The most powerful country in the world has been vocal about regime change and listed it as one of three targets. We invaded the target without nukes (Iraq) and have not invaded the country with them (North Korea). Iran’s government has every reason in the world to create a viable deterrent.^{8 9}

I think it’s clear going into Iraq was a major mistake on a pure strategic level: it placed a major drain on our economy, strained our alliances, and there were potentially better ways to achieve our goals. So, what if there were no hanging chads and President Gore¹⁰ was in charge on 9/11? Do we still pivot to Iraq? While it’s possible, I doubt he would have filled his administration with people who had been advocating for invading Iraq since the late ’90s. I think it’s much more likely he continues the emphasis on NATO unity from the intervention in the Balkans. While Bush I may have been a multilateralist, his son certainly was not¹¹ and the rest of the party has abandoned that approach, while the Democrats at the very least still use multilateral rhetoric.

So, I think a plausible alternate history would be: a more stable Afghanistan;¹² no sectarian civil war in Iraq->no Al’Qaeda in Iraq->no ISIL->a much different Syria->a more constrained (w/o a Shiite Iraq) and potentially more friendly Iran->less death¹³ and chaos in the Middle East. And the fallout from that would have led to a very different and probably more stable world.

For my generation at least, the likelihood that the Democratic Party doesn’t make that horrendously bad decision is reason enough to rate them as far better at foreign policy.^{14 15}