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US FOREIGN POLICY AND NATIONAL SECURITY

Louay M. Safi

The following paper was presented at "Islam, 9/11, and National Security" Conference, American Council for the Study of Islamic Societies (ACSIS), William & Mary, Washington DC, March 4, 2002. 

US foreign policy is often characterized by American leaders and foreign policy analysts as one of benevolence and good will toward foreign countries. American actions toward other nations are frequently expressed in such terms as the provision of foreign aide, the promotion of human rights, and the defense and strengthening of democratic rule. America’s self-perception of the way it projects its enormous power has been succinctly described by Lawrence H. Summers, who served as deputy secretary of treasury in the Clinton Administration, when he called the United States “the first nonimperialist superpower.”[1] 

Indeed, American leaders have always been careful to distance US policies and actions from those associated with empires and empire building. A nation that came to existence by rejecting imperialistic policies and fighting imperialist armies under the banner of freedom and democracy, the United States has never been comfortable to send its troops to control other nations. And despite its short flirtations with colonial adventures in the Philippines, the United States has managed to stay away from ruling other counties directly. 

Still, the United States’ projection of power in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East is often subsumed by popular movements in those regions under the rubric of imperialism or neo-colonialism. In fact, the charge of imperialism was made against US foreign policy by one of its brilliant children. John Dewey, a great American philosopher and sociologist of international repute, accused American political leaders in an article published in 1927 in the republic, under the title “Imperialism is Easy,” of this very embarrassing stigma. Dewey was aware of the dichotomy of action and intention in American foreign policy, and, therefore, stressed that “[i]mperialism is a result, not a purpose or plan.”[2] He went on to argue that American actions towards Mexico have all the features of imperialism, even when the American government acts to protect the freedom of movement and private property of ordinary American businesses. He, thus, concludes that imperialism “can be prevented only by regulating the conditions out of which it proceeds.”[3] 

I examine in this paper the basic tenets that guide US foreign policy, and argue that US foreign policy has been gradually changing from one based on the deeply held American values of freedom, self determination, and human rights, to one in which the freedom and human rights of others are subordinated to national interests. I, further, contend that the principles of current US foreign policy are plagued with inconsistencies, selectivity, and short-sightedness that is bound to hurt America and American interests in the long run. I, therefore, advocate a return to a foreign policy informed by American values lest the US stamina and power become consumed in building a Pax-Americana. To avoid becoming an empire, I conclude, US economic and geopolitical interests must not be placed over and above the right of other nations to live a life of freedom and dignity. 

FOREIGN POLICY’S PRINCIPLES

In 1996, The Heritage Foundation (HF) produced a voluminous document entitled Restoring American Leadership: US Foreign Policy and Defense Blueprint. The 1996 Blueprint was an expanded version of an earlier blueprint the Foundation published in 1992 under the title Making the World Safe for America. The document complained of the lack of clear direction in U.S. foreign policy, and called for a “clear, principled, and consistent leadership.”[4] 

The new direction advocated by The Heritage Foundation, epitomized in the phrase “making the world safe for America,” is a far-cry from the early direction U.S. Foreign policy took a little over a century ago under the able leadership of Woodrow Wilson. In the declaration of war speech before a joint meeting of the Congress in 1917, Wilson made it abundantly clear in his speech that the projection of American power beyond US borders was intended to make the world “safe for democracy.”[5] A year later, on the eve of the defeat of the Axis countries in 1918, Wilson introduced, in speech he once again delivered before the Congress, a program of fourteen points he called the “program of the world’s peace.”[6] All fourteen points stressed the need to promote world peace by guaranteeing nations, small and large, their political and economic independence and the right to develop their own national institutions.[7] Point fourteen introduced the then novel ideas of “international organization” and “international law” that represented America’s commitment to the rule of law and its contribution to world peace. “A general association of nations,” Wilson proclaimed, “must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity of great and small states alike.”[8] 

Wilson’s failed bid for reelection, and the Congress’s hostility towards the idea of the League of Nations, deprived the newly founded League from the Wilson’s commitment to the principles of self-determination and democracy, and the League was transformed by the two established European powers of Britain and France into an instrument to be used for furthering their imperialist ambitions in the Middle East. For this purpose the League devised the peculiar institution of the “mandate.” Britain and France were given “mandates” to practically have direct rule over the gulf municipalities, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria. 

The League of Nations, and its mandated colonialism, was among the casualties of World War II, but the idea of world peace promoted by an international organization and international law was resuscitated by Harry Truman. In 1945, Truman announced twelve points, which he described as the “fundamentals of American foreign policy.” The twelfth point introduced the United Nations Organization as the new instrument for promoting world peace. “We are convinced,” he stated, “that the preservation of peace between nations requires a United Nations Organization comprised of all peace-loving nations of the world who are willing jointly to use force if necessary to insure peace.”[9] 

The other eleven points Truman announced stressed America’s commitment to freedom and self-government. The first point made it quite clear that the Untied States does not, and will not, seek territorial expansion or self-advantage. “We seek,” Truman declared, “not territorial expansion or self advantage. We have no plans for aggression against any other state, large or small. We have not objective which need clash with the peaceful aims of any other nation.”[10] 

AMBIVALENCE BETWEEN INTERESTS AND IDEALS 

Over the five decades since Truman made his declaration of the fundamentals of US foreign policy, the principles continued to shift from ones based on freedom and self-government, to principles concerned mainly with US economic and geopolitical interests. 

The shift is, fortunately, neither complete nor clear. American leaders mindful of the public abhorring of imperialist objectives have always coached the aim of military adventures in a language that stress democracy and human rights. The sad reality, though, is that concerns for human rights have been aligned with US national interests to the point where the overwhelming perception today is that the US government uses human rights as an instrument for advancing national interests. 

The Heritage Foundation Blueprint, indeed, brings clarity to US foreign policy by making explicit what has been implicitly practiced and upheld by successive US administrations, beginning with the Nixon’s. The Blueprint urges US leaders to champion liberty around the world. “By nurturing this dream of liberty for others,” HF contends, “the United States is grounding its foreign policy in a universal idea that is good for both America and the World.”[11]  

The commitment to liberty advocated by HF is, however, conditioned by another principle: the principle of selective engagement. HF insists that while the US “must be deeply engaged in international affairs to protect its freedom and security,” it should do that by adopting “a strategy of selective engagement that would enable America to apply military power only when vital or important interests are threatened…”[12] Among the vital interests that justify the use of military power, the HF document lists “trade protectionism, trade wars, and trade blocs.”[13] 

To ensure that American leaders have great flexibility in selecting the issues and regions that requires US engagement, the document rejects any solemn commitment to the international structures and the United Nations. The US must be free, HF counsels, “from the constraints imposed by excessive multilateralism,” because “too much reliance on global institutions like the UN impinges on American sovereignty and weakens the leadership role America must play to protect freedom around the world.”[14] 

In sum, US foreign policy as ensilaged by HF, and as has been practiced in effects for sometime now, is based on three cardinal principles: 

1. US should promote freedom and democracy in other regions of the world, since this is the only defensible moral ground on which the projection of US military power can be justified.
2. US moral concerns for freedom and democracy must be curtailed by the national interests of the United States, which fundamentally take the form of economic and geopolitical US concerns.
3. To harmonize principles 1 and 2, the US must adopt the principle of selective engagement, which align US moral to economic concerns, and hence subordinate the former to the latter. 

The foreign policy HF Blueprint describes is a policy that subordinates the universal principles of right and justice to the national interests of the United States, and which reduces the United Nations and its resolutions to a convenient instrument to be invoked only when it serves the US interests. While the document and the strategy it advocates is quite disturbing, it is more disturbing to note that it, indeed, describes the tenets of US foreign policy since the Nixon administration. 

Since our discussion is linked directly to Islam and the Middle East, I will endeavor in the next two sections to show the shape of a foreign policy that has been informed by the very principles outlined above long before HF issued it blueprint. I argue that these principles are in the long run a recipe for disaster, as they have impacted negatively on the lives of many nations, and are likely to create more devastation in the years to come, thereby producing more antagonistic attitudes towards the Untied States, and gradually transforming the later into a world empire.

US POLICY TOWARDS THE MIDDLE EAST

American leaders often reiterate America’s commitment to freedom, democracy, and human rights, but the sad fact is that in many parts of the world, and particularly in the Middle East, America is associated not with freedom and democracy but with suppressive and autocratic regimes. For the last fifty years, successive United States governments have stood behind self-appointed leaders, providing them with financial and military support, as well as security and political advice.  Far from being the guardian of freedom and democracy, the United States is often seen as the power behind military regimes and brutal dictators.

The United States involvement in Iran is a case in point. The United States Central Intelligence Agency was directly involved in engineering the coup d’état that removed the democratically elected government of Mohammed Musadeq, and installed the Shah regime in Iran in 1954. Despite his abuse of the civil liberties of his people, and his extensive use of state security forces to suppress critics and opposition forces, the Shah continued to receive the blessing of American leaders. President Carter, who insisted that the United States foreign policy must be informed by American concerns over human rights, praised the Shah during a visit shortly before the latter was ousted by the Islamic revolution. The United States later took an active part in arming Saddam Hussein in a bid to topple the revolutionary government in Tehran. To ensure the cooperation of the Iraqi military government, the Reagan Administration kept silent when Saddam used Chemical weapons against Iranians as well as against the Kurdish opposition in Northern Iraq. It was only when the belligerent Saddam turned his newly acquired military strength against the oil rich Gulf countries that he was declared a renegade.

The blunders of United States foreign policy in the Middle East have not ended with the Gulf war. Rather than finishing Saddam, US-led coalition decided to keep him in power and to impose an economic embargo on Iraq. The American decision brought about a human disaster of great magnitude. For over a decade, the people of the Middle East, and many humanitarian workers and human rights activists, had to watch in horror hundreds of thousands of ill-stricken and malnourished Iraqi civilians perish.[15]

America’s commitments to freedom and democracy have hardly had any bearings on the United States’ foreign policies towards Iraq and Iran. To the Iraqis and Iranians, the United States appears as a technologically advanced military power, unrestrained by moral obligations in its pursuit of its own self-interest.

The failure of successive United States administrations to project clear and sustained interests in freedom and democracy can be seen in the United States position vis-ŕ-vis the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For decades, Arabs and Muslims watched the Israeli government expand its territories at the expense of its Arab neighbors. Israel was allowed to occupy the West Bank and Gaza, the Golan Heights, and South Lebanon with the tacit approval and blessing, and occasionally with the open support, of the United States government, in spite of successive UN resolutions and clear violation of International law.[16]

Over the past year, Middle Easterners watched countless pictures of Israeli soldiers shooting at rock-throwing Palestinian kids, of US-made Apache, designed to destroy tanks, used for assassinating Palestinian activists, and US-made tanks and rocket launchers used to suppress the Palestinian Intifada. 

The failure on the part of policy-makers to confront the inconsistencies of US foreign policy, and thus to acknowledge its malevolent consequences on other nations, continues to antagonize increasing segments of Middle Eastern peoples, and is threatening to polarize Muslim and Western countries, thereby rolling back early achievements of US foreign policy. Indeed, the Middle East provides us with a clear case study of the negative consequences of the tenets of the US foreign policy in force since the Nixon Administration.  

US POLICY TOWARDS TERRORISM

Terrorism is a plight that must be fought. No amount of anger and discontent can justify the targeting of non-combatant civilians with the brutality we all witnessed on September 11, 2001. The level of destruction inflicted on civilians, the brutality with which the terrorist attacks were executed, and the fact that the terrorist design is undertaken by extensive deliberation and determination sent shock waves throughout the world, and brought condemnation from foes and friends alike. Targeting thousands of unarmed civilians, using civilian airliners carrying civilian passengers, and bringing down two of the most spectacular buildings in the whole planet, in a drama that was played on live TV in front of millions of viewers, made the attacks even more sinister and apocalyptic.

But terrorism cannot be fought by mystifying it or by ignoring its root causes.  The first step for developing a sound strategy to effectively combat terrorism is to examine the conditions that give rise to the anger, frustration, and desperation that fuel all terrorist acts. To focus on individuals and organizations that employ terror, while ignoring the socio-political circumstances that give rise to acts of desperation, can potentially strengthen the arms of the terrorists. A devastating force unleashed against elusive groups can exacerbate the very conditions that gave rise to resentment, frustration, and anger.

America is admired throughout the world for a political system characterized by freedom, democracy, and the rule of law. But America is resented in many parts of the world for, ironically, its willingness to support authoritarian and corrupt regimes as long as they advance America’s economic and strategic interests. Those who are using terror against America are the product of political repression. They are the product of Middle Eastern regimes befriended by the United States but have little respect for freedom and democracy.  It is indeed a sad but true reality that many prefer to ignore: Free and democratic America has been nurturing repression aboard. To acknowledge this fact is the first step to deal with the roots of terrorism.

 Equally important is that we pursue a methodical and persistent approach to terrorism. Terrorism must be clearly defined, and systematically confronted. If terrorism is defined as the use of violence against unarmed civilians, then we have to ensure that all individuals and organizations that fit this description, regardless of their positioning and loyalty, are identified as such.  The United States government has not been consistent in identifying terrorist acts. The United States government did not recognize the Russian brutal attacks against Chechnya, and its use of disproportionate force to flatten the Chechen capital for what it is, and for what it represents.

 Similarly, The Israeli incursion into Lebanon, and Israel’s shelling of Beirut and other civilian targets, resulting in thousands of civilian deaths, did not receive the moral condemnation it deserves. Israel continues to use excessive military force to suppression an essentially civilian uprising against its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. The Bush Administration has so far given Israel a free hand to bully the Palestinians and to violate the terms of its Oslo commitments.

Israel continues its bombardments of defenseless civilians, demolition of homes, blockades of villages, destruction of farms, confiscation of land, and indiscriminate killing of unarmed civilians are blatant violations of international law. Israel uses US weapons to inflict and perpetuate these appalling conditions on the Palestinians. We have seen recently how receptive the Israelis are to any firm position taken by the American government. The US is the only government that has the capacity to put an end to Israeli excesses and lift the nightmare of Israeli occupation off the Palestinian people.  

Even though the actions of Israel drew strong criticism and condemnation from every human rights organization of note, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the UN Security Council, US government has done nothing to pressure Israel to put an end to its excesses, but instead used its veto power to deflect any criticism by the Security Council of Israel’s policy towards the Palestinians. 

The US should insist that Israel respect the human rights of the Palestinians and abide by the rules of International Law, including UN Resolutions 242 and 338. Only a clear and even-handed American stance can put an end to the spiral of violence in the Middle East, and free over three million Palestinians from decades of unsparing occupation. 

Terrorism is fueled by the actions of exclusionist regimes that privilege some and deny basic rights to others. It is fueled by rogue governments that use state security agencies and excessive force to silence critics and political opposition.  To be effective in fighting terrorism we must dry the swamps of abuse and injustice that bread radicalism all over the world.  

US POLICY TOWARDS POLITICAL ISLAM

The United States government has adopted an unambiguous and clear stance vis-ŕ-vis Islam and its adherents, but its stance towards individuals and groups motivated by Islamic ideals is often ambivalent, and at times manifestly antagonistic. The American official position distinguishes between, on the one hand, Islam as the religion that claims over a billion followers, and, on the other, a radical Islam prone to violence and intolerance towards cultural and religious diversity.[17] This position has already been tested in the wake of September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington DC. Faced with a violent backlash against Islamic symbols and centers in the US (or symbols and centers erroneously identified as Islamic), President Bush sent a clear message and stern warning to bigots who took advantage of the tragic incident to target Muslims. 

However, the distinction between normal and radical Islam is far from being clear when it comes to political action inspired by Islamic values and symbols. In its most definitive use, “radical Islam” has been employed in reference to Islamic groups that use violent means in pursuit of political ends. As such September 11 attacks by apparently Islamically motivated groups fit neatly into this category. Yet the Clinton and Bush administrations have also used the term to describe Islamic resistance movements in Lebanon (Hizbollah), as well as the West Bank and Gaza (Hamas and Islamic Jihad). These organizations have been condemned as terrorist, even though all three have been involved in national liberation struggle against a violent and unsparing occupational force. The US has not so far given a precise definition of terrorism, and has avoided using the term to describe state-sponsored violence against civilians, such as the tactics of Israel’s brutal occupation in the Lebanon and the occupied territories. 

Still, the United States has shown disturbing ambivalence towards all political groups that employ Islamic symbols, and who are engaged in Islamlically-oriented reform efforts. Successive US administrations have invariably displayed degrees of antagonism towards Islamic reform movements. From Iran to Sudan, and from Algeria to Turkey, the US government has been less than forthcoming in supporting efforts aiming at confronting authoritarian regimes, and fighting corruption, whenever those efforts were led by Islamic parties or movements. 

To be fair to the American official position, the anxiety towards political Islam is not limited to the United States, as European Union countries and institutions have displayed similar sensitivities. The anxiety is, evidently, caused by the apparent clash between Islam and secularism in the Middle East, which brings images of the struggle between modern secularism and the ancient regime of Europe. In the Middle East, however, those images are illusionary and misleading, for here more often than not secularism disguises dogmatic, elitist, and autocratic trends, while Islamic ethos have inspired the drive towards more open and democratic society. 

The struggle between the Islamic parties and the Junta-controlled government of Turkey is a case in point. The US continues to align itself with, and overlooks the excesses of, the Turkish military-backed regime. The Turkish generals have interfered in the political process, forcing a democratically elected Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan form office in 1998 because of his Islamic leanings; persecuted Turkish citizens because of their religious beliefs and preferences, firing many of them out of the army and bureaucracy; banned Turkish women who chose to wear headscarf from government offices, universities, and schools; and outlawed the teaching of the Qur’an to children below 12 years of age. Yet despite these blatant human rights violations, the United States chose to look the other way, refusing to use its considerable influence to curtail the excesses of its military allies. 

Refah Party, whom the Turkish Junta has accused of threatening the secularist foundation of the Turkish republic, hardly fits even the most extreme definition of radical Islam. The Refah Party has shown an extraordinary commitment to democracy, have exhibited a remarkable self-restraint in the face of provocation, intimidations, and outright repressive tactics by the presumably secular and democratic elites. The Party has been dissolved five times over the last thirty years, only to emerge every time stronger and with broader popular support. Refah was banned in early 1998, its property was confiscated, and its top leadership banned from practicing politics for five years. 

Commanding the largest number of seat in the parliament, Refah was dissolved under the pretext that it threatens the secular character of the Turkish Republic. The Turkish courts were unable to implicate the Refah Party in any violation of the law, and the Party was faulted for not persecuting Turkish women who chose to wear headscarf to school and work. The party emerged few months later under the name of Fadila. The Fadila Party was once again outlawed in June 2001, and was charged “with inciting protests against a headscarf ban in universities and orchestrating a failed bid by one of its legislators in 1999 to take oath in parliament wearing a headscarf.”[18] 

Commenting on the Junta’s efforts to save the Turkish republic from Islamists, Nilufer Gole, a respected Turkish sociologist, underscored the paradox of Turkish secularism. “What I find a pity is,” she explained, “that in the name of secularism, we go back to authoritarianism. This is very vicious circle in Turkish politics which is very similar to other Muslim contexts which experienced modernity and secularism.”[19] 

US foreign policy towards Islam is, evidently, influenced by powerful groups and vocal individuals, whose views are anchored more in ideology and self-serving dogmas, and less in actual reality and real movements on the ground.[20]

RETHINKING UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY

The United States foreign policy that aligns American support behind tyrants and dictators, and against the legitimate aspirations of popular movements pursuing national independence or democratic rule, is informed by notions and principles advanced by political realists. That is, they are informed by the nationalist political culture of nineteenth-century Europe. The political realist approach to international politics insists that national leaders have one paramount obligation, i.e. advancing the national-interests of their nations, often defined in economic or geopolitical terms. Political realists justify this position by pointing out that in the absence of international law that can be enforced by a central authority, nations are justified in enforcing their own interests. To do otherwise, political realists stress, is to give unprincipled foreign powers the opportunity to grow unchecked.

The pursuit of self-defined national interests led Europe to two devastating world wars. This, however, did not put an end to political realism, even after the United States introduced a new approach to international relations based on international organizations and International Law, as many of its advocates found in the Cold War atmosphere a basis for reproducing a bit more sophisticated argument to place national interests over the demand of right and justice.

The United States is the sole superpower today, and has the opportunity to restructure world politics so as to ensure that the principles of right and justice that guide the internal politics of the United States are brought to bear on international relations. That is, international politics should no more be based on the notion of might makes right. The American people have long rejected such a notion in national politics and fought a war of independence, and later a civil war, to ensure that those who have been endowed by their creator with equal freedoms and dignity are treated as such. Indeed, the United States and the American people are uniquely situated to expand the values of freedom, equality, and rule of law from the national to the international domain. Not only is the United States an unrivaled superpower, but Americans constitute a microcosm of world population. America is a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society whose ethnic and religious groups represent the major ethnic and religious communities that form the modern world. Africans, Anglo-Saxons, Arabs, Chinese, Indians, Japanese, Irish, Koreans, Latinos, and Slavs live peacefully in America, and work together in pursuit of their individual and collective dreams, and confess and practice freely different religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, along with a host of other religions.

To avoid turning the US into an empire that trample on the legitimate rights of other peoples, good intention and humane sentiments are not sufficient. What is important, we should recall Dewey’s wise observations, is to ensure that the conditions that define US relations with other nations do not lend themselves to imperialistic actions and aims. “Imperialism,” Dewey observed, “can only be prevented by regulating the conditions out of which it proceeds.”

The only way to avoid becoming an empire is for the United States to submit fully to the rules of international laws, and to insist that economic and geopolitical interests do not surpass in important the right of other nations to live a life of freedom and dignity.

GLOBAL PEACE AND AMERICAN LEADERSHIP

The recent tragic events put the world in general, and the United States in particular, on a crossroad. We have the choice of marching forward toward global peace, rooted in rules of equitable law, and fairly administered to all, the strong and the weak, the far and the near, or to immerse ourselves in empire building in which the strong conquer and dominate the weak.

The United States is in a unique position—culturally, economically, and politically—to lead the world in either direction. And given this choice, I am confident that Americans would choose global peace over world empire.  But for America to make the right choice, political leaders, as well as the leaders of public opinion, have to play a pivotal role in helping the public make the right move by choosing American values over America’s narrow and short-term interests. It is true that lending support to corrupt governments makes it a bit easier, in the short run, for the United States to influence the foreign and domestic policies of these governments. In the long run, however, a foreign policy oblivious to moral standards is bound to corrupt American politics. Indeed, the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington have already compromised the precious freedom America cherishes in the form of an anti-terrorism legislation that exchange freedom and due process for false sense of security.