Hussein Ibish

In some quarters of the Arab world there is a misplaced belief in growing American “isolationism” with regard to the Middle East, a false sense that the United States is pulling away from its role in the region. This erroneous conclusion is based on a powerful collection of data points, which are nonetheless being misconstrued.
 
The most important ideas cited by proponents of this interpretation require careful consideration.
 
First, the United States, while still the paramount actor in the Middle East, is finding it increasingly difficult to project the kind of military and even financial clout in the region that it used to. The fundamental reality is that it is still a uniquely potent power, but one that is nearly broke. It cannot write the kind of checks to others that used to come easily, and it’s even finding it painful to directly finance its own efforts.
 
One of the factors in the drawdown from Iraq was the cost of the war, which has been seen as prohibitive. This view is also informing the Obama administration’s preparation for a similar drawdown in Afghanistan. Voices from all parts of the political spectrum in the United States are calling for “nation-building at home, not abroad.”
 
The unquestioned loss of American financial sway means less power and influence globally, including in the Middle East. But this weakening should not be overstated since the United States remains the most influential power in the region by every measure, and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.
 
The attempted congressional defunding of the limited military engagement in Libya, however, was less budgetary than election-year politicking by cynical Republicans. Not only is it impossible to imagine Republican legislators defunding a military mission led by a Republican president, they would always have questioned the loyalty and motivations of any Democrat who tried to do so.
 
Neither Obama’s “leading from the rear” strategy in Libya nor Republican efforts to interfere with the policy for nakedly partisan reasons demonstrates any “new isolationism.” The limited engagement in Libya was a prudent if ugly approach, and Republican harassment of the president is inevitable during an election season.
 
Perhaps the strongest evidence that there is a neo-isolationist American policy towards the Arab world is the limited American response to the uprisings in Yemen, Bahrain and Syria.
 
American influence in Yemen is quite limited, the conflict extremely complex, and the variables almost innumerable. That Washington has to work closely with, and to some extent even rely on, Saudi Arabian diplomatic initiatives in Yemen might be a measure of its limited options, but not necessarily growing American isolation. When did the United States ever have more direct influence in Yemen? Even if it did in the past, it does not have a stake today in which faction or coalition emerges victorious, as long as there is a government in Sana’a that controls the country and tries to combat terrorism.
 
American options may be even more limited in Bahrain. Regarding the uprising as a Shia and Iranian-inspired conspiracy, and therefore an existential threat, the royal family and its Saudi allies are simply not listening to any outside voices, including American ones. Walking away from Bahrain is not really an option for the US, and there is no constituency in Washington for relocating, or threatening to relocate, the Fifth Fleet, which is based in Bahrain. Larger interests and great power can sometimes have the counterintuitive effect of limiting options with indispensable small clients who simply will not listen to reason on their own domestic matters.
 
Without question the most troublesome policy of all has been the Obama administration’s risk-averse approach to the Syrian uprising. The administration has been misguided in giving the impression that it believes that Bashar al-Assad’s regime either will, or possibly even should, survive the rebellion. In the long run, this is both unlikely and, for American interests, undesirable.
 
It’s true that there isn’t much the United States can do on its own beyond rhetoric to influence events in Syria, and that there is much to fear from chaos or civil war in that country. But a policy that continues to toss out lifelines and implicit reaffirmation to a regime that should and probably will eventually collapse under the weight of its own dysfunctionality and brutality—and which is historically and currently unfriendly to American policy goals—makes little sense.
 
But even the so-far misguided approach to Syria that seems to irrationally favor some form of regime continuity to the potential for internal chaos does not bespeak a “new isolationism” in American foreign policy. It is overly cautious to be sure, and excessively risk-averse. But it is not a return to fortress America by any means.
 
Ending what was always a misguided war in Iraq and what has turned into a fool’s errand in Afghanistan hardly represents isolationism. It is sensible, popular, and a case of moving beyond past mistakes. Bundling these correctives in with both justified and unjustified levels of caution regarding Arab uprisings, and thereby imagining an American retreat in the Middle East, draws the wrong conclusions.
 
The Obama administration, on the whole, is continuing to pursue American interests in the region aggressively, though not imprudently. This approach isn’t perfect, but it’s a big improvement over reckless past attitudes that smacked of hubris, and it’s anything but isolationist.

Hussein Ibish is a senior research fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine and blogs at www.ibishblog.com