The administration’s foreign policy is alienating American friends on three continents
Saudi Arabia
The US has sold billions of dollars of sophisticated weaponry to Saudi Arabia, elevating this country to the US’ biggest Arab ally in the Middle East. Yet, Saudi Arabia is now distancing itself from the US because the Obama administration did not carry through on its threat to attack Syria for crossing Obama’s “red line” of deploying weapons of mass destruction.
It is not just Syrian behavior and American credibility that the Saudis are worried about. It is Iran. Syria is Iran’s biggest ally in the Middle East. By not clipping Syria’s wings, the US has emboldened Iran, near Saudi Arabia. The Saudis are frightened, and the US did nothing to alleviate those fears, despite the fact that it was the US itself that defined the “red line.”
In an unprecedented rebuke, the Saudis rejected a seat on the UN Security Council, making it crystal clear that the target of its dissatisfaction was not the UN, but the US.
The Saudis cannot afford to be allied with a great power afraid to live up to its own definition of its own national security — and of Saudi national security.
If the US won’t stand up against Iran indirectly, via an attack on Syria, why should the Saudis ever expect the US to stand up against Iran — and for Saudi Arabia — directly?
Not only are Syria’s WMD still intact (all of Obama’s talk about their imminent demise notwithstanding), but the US failure to punish Syria for using WMD has emboldened the al-Qaida elements in the Syrian opposition. Saudi Arabia offered a safe haven to the US to train moderate, non-terrorist elements in the Syrian opposition. That, too, may become another security loss to both the US and Saudi Arabia; all due to the US failure to act on Syria’s violation of its own red line.
Needless to say, the ultra-repressive Saudi regime is, in and of itself, worthy of collapse, not of sympathy; but so long as the Saudi Arabian security interests begin to dovetail with those of both the US and Israel (see below), it is reckless of the US to undermine the new convergence.
Egypt
Egyptians did the US and all of the civilized world a favor by overthrowing the emerging Muslim Brotherhood dictatorship in Egypt, notwithstanding the blow to democracy that the coup represented.
The military leadership in Egypt — as well as the Saudi leadership — expected that the US would at last tacitly welcome the defeat of the terrorist-oriented government of Mohammad Morsi. What does the US do? Cut aid to Egypt. How does Egypt respond? With strong signals that, at a minimum, it will no longer honor the 34-year alliance with the US to the extent, and with the warmth, that it has done since the Egypt-Israel peace treaty of 1979.
Egypt is sending strong signals that it will plot its own course in the Middle East.
Europe
Under the Obama administration, the National Security Agency has spied on the head of state of Germany, the US’s biggest ally in Europe, as well as on heads of state of other friendly European countries. They are outraged. Even friendly countries spy on each other — but on their heads of state? The word being used in Germany is “betrayal.”
Various administration officials maintain that Obama did not know of the spying on heads of state for five years — as if ignorance by Obama of what his own administration is doing is some kind of defense. It is, rather, evidence of incompetence.
When it is only because of leaks by Edward Snowden that this massive spying on European heads of government comes to light, the administration’s promises not to do it again appear lame, and do little, if anything, to cool the outrage. It is no wonder that Sen Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif), the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, a prior defender of the National Security Agency, and an ally of Obama, has said it will undertake a complete review of all US spying operations.
Israel
We have an odd convergence between Israel and Saudi Arabia on national security interests, and both countries find themselves alienated by Obama’s positions.
Israel is appalled that the Obama administration is trying to get Congress to ease sanctions against Iran, not to mention reentering negotiations with Iran, all because the leader of Iran spoke to an American president for 15 minutes. Sobered by the realities of its “neighborhood,” Israel, like Saudi Arabia, is frightened.
Iran is neither shutting down nor deintensifying its pursuit of nuclear weapons; yet, the Obama administration sees so much significance in a 15-minute conversation that it is dropping hints about easing sanctions against Iran — all this, without a single change in Iranian behavior.
Copyright © 2013 by the Intermountain Jewish News
