Editorial: Tread lightly abroad during 2012 campaign
A Syrian rebel and children stand atop the remains of a tank in front of a bombed-out mosque in the town of Azaz, some 47km north of Aleppo, Syria. (Aug. 17, 2012) Credit: Getty Images
It's relatively easy for the United States to put its substantial problems on hold during a presidential election season. Unfortunately, the rest of the world won't grant us a timeout.
Under these difficult circumstances, what should President Barack Obama do about the Middle East between now and Election Day? The flip answer would be, "As little as possible."
Yet the joke in this case is not far from the best course of action. Restraint is usually the best approach to foreign policy, which involves tough problems that we can do little to solve. The need for restraint is even greater given that vital foreign-affairs decisions must be made amid the powerful distortion field of a national political campaign.
The uneasy coexistence of international relations and politics was thrown into sharp relief Monday when Obama pronounced the use of chemical weapons in Syria a "red line" for the United States that "would change my calculations significantly." Everything the president says now is uttered in full awareness of its political implications, and will be heard in the context of the campaign. Warning Syria, for example, makes him sound tough, always useful for a Democrat.
Obama was right to broadcast how alarming it would be if Syria used its widely reported stockpile of chemical weapons, and to emphasize the importance of keeping such weapons out of the hands of the wrong people -- a particularly scary problem given Syria's growing chaos.
Yet, it would be foolhardy at this point for Washington to seriously consider military action in connection with yet another volatile Middle Eastern country riven by political and ethnic violence. We've been down this road before, in Iraq, to no particularly good effect. Besides, we know too little about the Syrian opposition, and even less how to establish a functioning nation in a land long divided by deep religious and tribal differences, once a dictatorial government is toppled.
As to Iran, any American president must do everything possible -- short of war -- to prevent it from becoming a nuclear state, even while telegraphing clearly, if only privately, to the Israelis that they have little to gain and a great deal to lose by launching pre-emptive air strikes -- at least without more evidence of Iran's intentions or capabilities. Obama must accomplish all this while ever concerned about alienating Israel's supporters in Florida, a key swing state.
The best policy, in this case, isn't necessarily the best politics. Bad as a nuclear Iran would be, it wouldn't be the only hostile nation with nuclear weapons. Nobody is proposing to invade North Korea, after all, and nuclear states don't get much more roguish. A nuclear Iran will be tough to prevent if the Iranians aren't given an attractive alternative through negotiation. Bullying won't succeed and military action, even if it worked for awhile, eventually must come to an end. Iran hasn't yet decided to go nuclear, in the view of the Obama administration, but an attack might only harden its determination, and potentially persuade other countries to follow suit.
These are dangerous problems. If we're lucky, they won't blow up during the campaign, a process that only makes them riskier.
