Amb. Crocker’s “Middle East Meltdown”

Failed Governance and American Leadership in the Middle East

Last night, Brigham Young University’s Wheatley Institution hosted Ambassador Ryan Crocker, a career diplomat and a six-time ambassador (Lebanon, Kuwait, Syria, Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan). Crocker is a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and Pres. George W. Bush has called him “a modern-day Lawrence of Arabia.” He is currently the Dean of the Bush School of Public Service at Texas A&M University.

Having spent much of his career in the greater Middle East, Crocker had quite a bit to say about America’s involvement in the region. He addressed the topic of failed states and and the consequences of governmental “vacuums,” including the rise of non-state actors such as Hizbullah, Al-Qaeda, Daesh, etc. The “organizing principle” of Middle Eastern chaos, according to Crocker, is the failure of government institutions and the resulting lack of rule of law. Middle Eastern political history, he said, is largely a succession of failed “isms”: colonialism, Arab nationalism, socialism, Ba’athism, etc.

The current “ism,” Islamism, is typified by the Islamic State, and it is their “brutal but consistent and predictable justice” which has enabled them to win the loyalty of those weary of the capriciousness or complete absence of previous leadership. Their potential for longevity, according to Crocker, is proportionate not to their capacity for violence but to their ability to govern, and “extortionate” taxation practices recently imposed by IS have shown that their days are numbered. He then predicted, however, that something much worse would appear in their stead.

The two lessons which Crocker professed to have learned in his diplomatic career were “to be careful what you choose to get into” and to “be careful what you choose to get out of.” Intervention can have unintended and dangerous consequences, as the US experienced in Lebanon in 1982 and in Iraq in 2003, but the Obama administration’s near-complete disengagement from the region has also been destructive. The next step for the US is not to put “boots on the ground,” he said, but to put “wingtips and pumps on the ground” in the form of Foreign Service officers and government officials. Crocker believes in the necessity of American “leadership” in the Middle East and advocates for a radical diplomatic re-engagement. The next Secretary of State needs to “camp out” in the region, and the next President should communicate much more frequently with regional allies.

Though Ambassador Crocker’s analysis was obviously carefully considered and appropriately nuanced, his ideas felt a little more “right-wing” than those of most popular foreign affairs commentators, and I wasn’t surprised to learn that he is the dean of a Bush School in Texas and an honorary Marine. He is also not much of an optimist- in his closing statement he remarked that attendees should enjoy the historical moment because things are about to get much worse, and I waited in vain for him to offer possible long-term solutions for the Middle East (other than a continued American presence).