It wasn’t that long ago when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Syrian President Bashar Assad was a force for reform. Now she is outraged that Russia is allegedly backing Assad with weapons. At the same time, the U.S. is arming the government of Bahrain, which oppresses its Shia majority.
Duplicity and hypocrisy may be inevitable in diplomacy. However, ostentatious duplicity and hypocrisy are not. Sanctimoniously denouncing Moscow for behaving like Washington tarnishes America’s image abroad.
Syria is a horrid tragedy, an incipient civil war as the majority of people attempts to oust a family dictatorship. Unlike Libya, however, a substantial segment of the population either supports Assad or opposes a revolution which could result in a vengeful, violent spree against ethnic and religious minorities. No outcome looks good and there is little Washington can do to prevent more violence.
Moreover, the U.S. has no security interest, let alone one of any importance, to warrant military intervention in yet another Muslim and Arab nation. Nor is humanitarianism a good justification. Iraq should banish the illusion that war is a sophisticated tool for engaging in delicate social engineering abroad. With 200,000 or more Iraqis dead as a result of George W. Bush’s “splendid little war,” Barack Obama would be well-advised to keep the troops at home.
Finally, American policymakers should drop their “do as we say, not as we do” international routine. There’s nothing new about one set of Washington diplomats wandering the globe promoting democracy and advancing human rights while another set simultaneously is busy promoting stability and advancing security. That was most evident during the Cold War. The U.S. stood for all that was good and right, except when it came to South Korea, Pakistan, Egypt, Nicaragua, Chile, Zaire, Iran, Somalia, Iraq, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and other Third World dictatorships.
The disappearance of the Soviet Union relieved America of the seeming necessity of trashing its principles in order to save them. Then the so-called global war on terrorism pushed Washington closer to Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the Central Asian thugocracies. More recently the Obama administration had trouble responding to the Arab Spring since it was invested in Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak and comfortable with Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.
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