Misadventures in Telling us about Misadventures in the Middle East

Chas W Freeman gave a fascinating analysis on U.S Middle East foreign policy in a speech a few days ago as part of the 24th Annual Arab-U.S. Policymakers Conference, but there were three points he made which I fundamentally disagree with.

1. Clinton’s Middle East policy “gave birth to Al Qaeda and led to 9/11"

This is a serious down-playing of the impact of the Cold War and a white-washing of the United States’ incredibly unhealthy relationship with Saudi Arabia, which laid the foundations for Al Qaeda.

The U.S. has long held an ‘unholy alliance’ with Saudi Arabia where they have allowed and turned a blind eye to a broad policy of what can best be described as Wahhabist expansionism and sectarian sponsorship.

Linked to this, the Cold War and the desperate fight by the United States against communism and anything linked to Soviet Russia, led to the CIA (as well as Saudi royals, Pakistan and various wealthy individuals for different reasons) providing vast amounts (billions upon billions of U.S dollars) and arms to the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan in the 1980's. In the CIA’s case, it was indirectly funnelled through the Pakistani intelligence service (ISI), but they, nevertheless, still provided billions (maybe more).

These policies did far more to fortify Osama Bin Laden as a founder member of Al Qaeda and eventual leader, where he could ensure access to relatively vast Saudi resources and wealth due to his family links. The United States very likely supported their actions at this time (e.g. the usual “our enemies’ enemies are our friends” simplistic bullshit), without perhaps knowing all that much about them or their ideologies.

2. The United States, prior to 9/11, held “moral high ground [they] had long occupied in foreign affairs”, and, after 9/11, “forfeited [their] credentials as exemplars and advocates of human rights”

3. The United States sought to sustain stability in the Middle East since they became a world super power.

Where is the evidence for either of these points?

You don’t even have to look at the United States’ foreign policy in the Middle East to question the claim of them holding any moral high ground prior to 2001 (e.g. Vietnam, Cambodia, East Timur, Central and South America, etc).

Internally, they could hardly be considered champions of human rights when they were continuing to execute their own people for criminal offences and at increasingly high numbers. In the two years prior to 2001, they executed the highest and second highest number of people in a 24 year period.

Last but by no means least, if you look at the foreign policy and intervention by the United States in the Middle East since 1945, they have actively opposed the formation of many secular democracies (or even democracies), helped to orchestrate and support coup d’etats against leaders they reject (such as in Syria in 1949 and in 1950’s Iran), supported dictators and, by doing so, the subsequent human rights abuses which followed; and although Freeman is willing to question and acknowledge this aspect, they were instrumental in the formation of the State of Israel, and, more significantly, protection of their abuses in the region which included 29 UN Security Council vetoes up to end of Bush Snr’s reign, including four under him. (All of these would have, in the words of Donald Neff, “condemned, deplored, denounced, demanded, affirmed, endorsed, called on and urged Israel to obey the world body”).

This is all evidence against pertaining any moral authority or even seeking to sustain stability in the region. The most it demonstrates is a general continuing failure to consider the long term impact of their actions.

Furthermore, although Freeman might see it as strategically expedient, you can hardly make any claim to moral authority when you arm both opposing sides in a war, directly leading that war to go on for far longer than it would have done and causing significantly more casualties.

That said, Freeman’s overall analysis is good, and it’s refreshing to read someone so influential in U.S. politics, diplomacy and world affairs discussing the impact of the United States’ generally unfledged support of Israel so bluntly. But to suggest that Clinton’s policies had more causal responsibility for 9/11 or that the U.S. were exemplars of human rights is to cherry-pick and otherwise largely ignore the vast evidence of U.S. foreign policy and intervention which says otherwise, including policy and intervention under Bush Snr’s watch.