Malice vs Incompetence
By Richard Fernandez in PJ Media and
the Belmont Club blog
One of today’s man-bites-dog stories
is that America cannot evacuate its nationals from war torn Yemen. Rather it hopes
countries like India can do it for them. A State Department official said
the U.S. government, which is providing logistical support for the Saudi
campaign, believes it is too dangerous to risk a military operation to rescue
Americans. “There are no current U.S. government-sponsored plans to evacuate
private U.S. citizens from Yemen,” the official said. “We encourage all U.S.
citizens to shelter in a secure location until they are able to depart safely.”
Fortunately New Delhi will ride to the rescue of Uncle Sam. “India
has won many friends by evacuating nearly 1,000 nationals of 41 countries from
warring Yemen. … Along with some 4,600 Indians, Singh’s mission rescued
citizens of Britain, France and the United States.” The days of
“exceptionalism” are over. Americans being left on the beach alongside
wretched 3rd World nationals is part of the march toward making it a
normal country occupying a status considerably below India and perhaps above
Nepal.
There was a time of course when
claiming American citizenship carried the same weight as the ancient civis romanus sum. ”I am a Roman citizen.” It conjured images of
grey warships offshore and grim faced Marines poised behind the ramps of
landing craft. It implied diplomats who could pound the table as the local
warlords quivered. And even if it didn’t always quiver they sometimes
did, for the despots could never be sure the Navy was not actually there.
But today even diplomats have no
expectation of being saved from the tender mercies of knife-clattering Jihadis.
If local secret agents who risked their lives for America can be left to their
grueseome fates then ordinary citizens will have to make their own arrangements. At a State Department press briefing one journalist
actually asked Marie Harf if Americans should swim out of the country.
Swimming might be a better idea than
taking the land route, given that Saudi Arabia has bombed refugee camps. CNN reports that “Bab al-Mandab is one of the busiest waterways
in the world, a thoroughfare for oil tankers and cargo ships. It’s now being
crossed by desperate Yemenis in rickety fishing boats seeking refuge from the
conflict threatening to engulf their country.”
For the other surprise story of the
day is that Pakistan is not riding to the rescue of the Kingdom. In a
rather shocking vote, Pakistan has refused to send troops to Saudi Arabia’s aid. “ADEN (Reuters) –
Pakistan’s parliament voted on Friday not to join the Saudi-led military
intervention in Yemen, dashing Riyadh’s hopes for powerful support from outside
of the region in its fight to halt Iranian-allied Houthi rebels.”
The Washington Post asks in story redolent with mixed metaphors whether Yemen
going to become Saudi Arabia’s Vietnam. Or — perhaps we can coin the
phrase now — Iraq going to become Iran’s South Korea. Perhaps the
phrase the Washington Post was looking for to express its geopolitical
perplexity can’t be found in Apocalypse Now but in the Wizard of Oz
when Dorothy tells Toto ”we’re not in Kansas any more”.
We’re in world where Indians rescue
Americans. The Saudis may be in a fight for their lives. The landscape has
turned upside down. One person whose world view changed from black and white to
technicolor in an instant is Times of Israel military
correspondent Mitch Ginsburg
who charts his journey from being an admirer of Barack Obama to being
absolutely terrified of what new catastrophe he will cause now.
It makes fascinating reading. At
first he put aside his nagging doubts, but by the time of the Cairo address
some of his dormant suspicions had been rekindled. “Rahm Emmanuel, David
Axelrod and the rest, I figured, had given him bad advice.” Inch by inch,
Ginsburg reluctantly opened his eyes until the shocking Technicolor scene
assailed him.
In June 2009, came the Green
Movement in Iran. All of my Israeli friends mocked Obama and his detachment. I
said it was best — American support was the last thing the students on the
streets needed. Iran — one of the four true nation states of the Middle East —
was scarred by the CIA-orchestrated overthrow of Mohammad Mussadeq in 1953; the
revolution against the Ayatollahs had to come from the people, for the people.
Staying on the sidelines, I told my friends, was a painful but astute piece of
policy. …
The Arab uprisings began in December
2010. … The Obama administration released a statement hailing “Egypt’s role as
a pillar of regional peace, security and stability,” and said that the US “will
stand with the Egyptian people as they pursue their aspirations for democracy,
dignity, and opportunity, and fulfill the promise of their revolution.”
This was the first crack in my
devotion. Still, though, I told myself, the president of the United States of
America could not possibly believe that political Islam, as practiced by the
Brotherhood, was a necessary stage on the path to true democracy.
In November, with no fanfare and no
letters, with dwindling conviction, I voted for him again. I believed Obama
when he told Goldberg that, insofar as the military option against Iran in
concerned, “as president of the United States, I don’t bluff.” …
And then, within the span of a few
months, a flurry of events turned my waning and rather lonely support of the
president into a clammy and bewildering sense of betrayal.
We are indisputably in the Land of
Oz. The question many people are asking, in this age of topsy-turvy news
stories, is whether we were propelled here by the tornado of Obama’s
incompetence or the subtle scheming of the Wicked Witch of the West. Hugh
Hewitt put the question of malice versus stupudity directly to former vice president Dick Cheney.
HEWITT: Is he naive, Mr. Vice
President? Or does he have a far reaching vision that only he entertains of a
realigned Middle East. That somehow it all works out in the end.
CHENEY: I don’t know Hugh. I
vacillate between the various theories I’ve heard. If you had somebody who, as
president — who wanted to take America down. Who wanted to fundamentally weaken
our position in the world, reduce our capacity to influence events. Turn our
back on our allies and encourage our enemies, it would look exactly like what
Barack Obama is doing. I think his actions are constituted in my mind are those
of the worst president we’ve ever had.
Cheney declined to make a judgment.
The case for malice is strong because of the apparent duality to the
president’s skills. On the one hand the president seems awfully good at
coercing domestic opponents, intimidating Republicans and fooling the general
public. This argues competence. But on the other hand he is laughably
outmaneuvered by men like Putin, Castro, the Iranians or the Saudis. The
Chinese run rings around him. This suggests he is throwing the match. The
existence of the duality fuels the hypothesis that he is ‘taking America down’.
But incompetence cannot wholly be
discounted. Consider that the skills required for being an American president
and those useful for being a conspiratorial despot are opposites. America
operates, to a larger extent than most countries anyway, on trust, public
assent and the rule of law. By contrast, despotism calls for dishonesty,
ruthlessness and a kind of megalomania. Anyone who makes a good despot will
make a bad president. Anyone who makes a good president will be a bad
despot.
Now consider the case of an
ambitious mediocrity in the Oval Office who is enamored of himself.
In trying to be the Lee Kuan Yew of Chicago such a man would be blindside
American polity because where people expect a president to be forthcoming, he
would lie. Where his political opponents relied on the protections of the law
and custom, they would encounter small minded and vindictive persecution.
He would succeed for a time by breaking all the rules and congratulate
himself on his cleverness, even deluding himself into thinking that
his Occupy Wall Street thugs are a street fighting force on par with the
thugs of other strongmen.
But once this mediocre authoritarian
was pitted against the real thing he would be overmatched by the pros. They
would see through his amateurish plots in an instant. To his lies they
would reply one better. Lawfare and the race card would bounce off Rouhani or
Putin like peas off the frontal armor of a King Tiger Tank. He would no more
succeed at the Game of Rogues than Occupy Wall Street would make headway
against Ernst Rohm’s Brownshirts or the Hezbollah. They would not even get to
first base.
Most of Obama’s predecessors were
smart enough to know that an American president fights asymmetrically against
foreign despots. President do not out-despot or out-conspire them. To win
they just let America do its thing. And America typically responds to
challenges by smothering its foes in a burst of productivity and creativity.
That’s what happened to the USSR: Ronald Reagan was not smarter than the Soviet
Politburo. He was only smart enough to let America be America.
Barack Obama on the other hand is
not smart enough to let America be America. But he is dumb enough to try and
outwit Putin or the Iranians. While America will almost always beat Russia,
Obama will almost always lose to Putin. Change the game from America versus
Iran to Obama versus the Ayatollahs and the dynamic changes. Once you play the
authoritarian game, you will lose. Consequently Obama is getting his ass handed
to him on a platter.
Obama’s mistake was to doubt the
greatness of his country and instead trust in the greatness of himself. Man
bites dog and the president backs the wrong horse. Now all you boys in Yemen,
swim.
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