Writing in today’s Washington Post, Peter Beinart contends that America is likely to withdraw from the activist role in world affairs that has marked the days since September 11th as the Iraq War draws to a close.
Beinart’s central hypothesis is that there are periods of activism and isolationism in American foreign policy. September 11th, he contends, represents not the beginning of a new phase of activism but the apex of one that started in 1991, and the Iraq War and public reaction to it, represents the end of that phase.
Obviously, Sept. 11 had a dramatic effect on U.S. foreign policy. But it didn’t usher in an extrovert age so much as it intensified the one that already existed. Kosovo had bred optimism about the efficacy of American airpower when it was combined with local allies on the ground, and Afghanistan dramatically affirmed the same point. By late 2002, when Americans debated the invasion of Iraq, the United States had completed three successful military interventions (Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan) in the previous seven years. Confidence in America’s military capacities was at a historical high, and Vietnam — which saturated the Gulf War debate — was invoked far less frequently. Of course, many Americans still opposed the invasion, but in Congress the vote for war was more lopsided, even though the merits of the case, which I supported, were weaker than they had been in 1991.
The difference between the interventions of the 1990s, whether it be in Kosovo, or Bosnia, or Somalia or even the first Gulf War and the war in Afghanistan is simple, but Beinart misses it completely; in Afghanistan we were fighting an enemy that had directly threatened us and attacked our homeland. This was not true of the Serbians, or the Somalians, or even, quite frankly, the Iraqis during the first Gulf War. One could, and many did, make a case that each of these conflicts affected America’s interests (although it was hard for me at the time, and even harder for me today to buy the argument that we had any business at all getting involved in either the Balkans or Somalia), they did not threaten America directly. That is, I think, an important difference.
Beinart goes on to ask whether this purported coming withdrawal from the world would be a good thing:
Is this swing of the pendulum something to celebrate? Yes and no. To be sure, the Bush administration had grown dangerously unaccountable. Presidents must recognize the limits of their power, and so must America itself. But if history is any guide, there will be costs as well. In the years to come, if the isolationist mood deepens, future presidents may find themselves unable to act early and aggressively against foreign threats. At the end of his 1974 article, Michael Roskin worried that by the 1980s and 1990s, Americans might have learned the lessons of Vietnam too well. Perhaps by the 2010 and 2020s, they will have overlearned the lessons of Iraq.
I am not enough of a foreign policy expert to know if Beinart’s theory is right and if we really are drifting back into another period of isolationism, but I do know that, if it is true, it is would be a horrible mistake. We withdrew from the world after World War One, and World War Two followed. We withdrew at the end of the Vietnam War and it resulted in Communist expansion in Central America, Iran being taken over by Islamofacsists, and the Soviet Union invading Afganistan. One can only assume that similar consequences would arise from a post-Iraq withdrawal from the world, most likely in the Middle East.
More importantly, though, September 11th should have taught us one thing — we cannot simply withdraw behind the shores of Fortress America and hope for the best. Our enemies can, and, if they want to, will bring the battle to our shores. Pretending otherwise would be foolish.
Alexandra at All Things Beautiful has more on the idea that isolationism and appeasement will solve our problems in the Middle East.
Linked with Don Surber
Technorati Tags: Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, National Security
