From Praeger Security International:
PRESIDENT OBAMA, MULTILATERALISM IN LIBYA, AND THE ARAB SPRING
President Obama’s direction of foreign policy with regard to the various revolutions in North Africa and the Middle East has been characterized as “leading from behind” or as an endorsement of “multilateralism” versus unilateralism.(1) In precarious economic times, however, the President’s endorsement of multilateralism may provide an effective platform for implementing foreign policy because multilateralism spreads both the risks and benefits of military action among the members of a foreign policy coalition. While noting this shift to multilateralism as a policy, the second important observation to be made with regard to President Obama’s policies for the Arab and Muslim world is that his views have evolved from democratic activism as they were expressed in his 2009 Istanbul and Cairo speeches to a different policy that is rooted in Realpolitik, even if that form of Realpolitik is essentially improvisational. While Realpolitik has emerged as a possible strength with the President’s foreign policy, its principal weakness remains its improvisational character. Obama’s foreign policy is transactional and lacks a thematic or narrative arc that gives it consistency. Looking at the first three years of the President’s administration it is quite striking that he has shifted his views from “democratic idealism” (as expressed in his 2009 Istanbul and Cairo speeches) to “improvisational Realpolitik” (his reactions to the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions) to “improvisational and multilateral Realpolitik” (the Libyan revolution). President Obama began as a democratic activist in the arena of foreign affairs; he has become a Kissingerian practitioner of Realpolitik who ruthlessly pursues what he determines to be the foreign policy interests of the United States. (Need we mention the targeted assassinations of Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki and his abandonment of long-time ally President Hosni Mubarak?) Nevertheless while his foreign policy can have a cold-blooded calculus, his policies still lack Secretary Kissinger’s sense of consistency or his geostrategic comprehension. President Obama can be ruthless and firm yet he and his team at the same time are prone to caution and extensive analysis before implementing policy, which give the impression to his critics that he and his team are dilatory, lacking in commitment and urgency, and unsure of themselves. Grand strategic vision is not President Obama’s interest or his métier; he is a case-by-case fire fighter. Problems are solved as they arise. The positive and negative claims listed above may all be true. However, three-fourths through the term of Obama administration, we now understand that his foreign policy views have undergone a trajectory from “democratic idealism” to “improvisational Realpolitik” to “multilateralism.” This multilateralism, which is a departure from the unilateralism practiced by President George W. Bush, may make sense in a context wherein the American economy is fragile and experiencing a growth rate of less than 3 per cent per annum, which limits or perhaps eliminates the possibility of unilateral action in military or foreign affairs. A multilateral approach is less costly and may provide a more stable platform for the management of risks and benefits in the implementation of foreign and military policy.
The Obama administration’s reaction to the Arab Spring reveals that the administration’s policies were ad hoc, improvisational, contradictory, and often unsupportive of the democratic activists who were leading these revolutions. President Obama’s foreign policy during the Arab Spring has been conducted on a case-by-case basis with America’s geostrategic interests being at its core while America’s democratic aspirations have played a secondary role. The Obama administration’s reaction to the Tunisian Revolution was one of reticence (until the day that President Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia), during the Egyptian Revolution it was contradictory (first supporting and then abandoning President Hosni Mubarak), and during the Libyan Revolution it was one of initial reluctance to be followed by the endorsement of multilateral military action. The prospective and unresolved struggles in Syria, Bahrain, and Yemen may reveal again whether the administration will opt for multilateral improvisation.
While the Obama administration’s policies have often been either reticent, or contradictory, or hesitant, the underlying consistent thread is that President Obama’s foreign policy has remained consonant with America’s preexisting foreign policy architecture in the Arab and Muslim worlds, which endorsed authoritarianism for decades because we believed that authoritarian governments would be stable and predictable partners in our struggle against various violent schools of Islamic jihadism. This policy endorsement of authoritarianism had contemporary origins in the 1979 Iranian Revolution and continued unabated until the emergence of the Arab Spring revolutionary movements of 2011. Our nation’s leaders adhered to this foreign policy architecture because at first we were concerned about theocratic governments like Iran; the policy continued when we became preoccupied with jihadist organizations like Al Qaeda. While we were pursuing these entirely legitimate security interests, however, our endorsement of authoritarianism subverted the legitimate aspirations of many people in the Muslim world who yearned for freedom and dignity. Also, our longstanding support for authoritarianism in the region may the source of future animus towards us.
At the beginning of his term, however, President Obama promised to the different. He was a democratic activist. In his June 2009 Cairo speech he declared that he sought “. . . a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles – principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.”(2) It was ironic, however, that while he was pronouncing his commitment to justice, progress, tolerance, and dignity, his administration was cutting by 70 percent the budget that President Bush had provided for democratic activists in Egypt.(3) Whether this shift in budgetary priorities was intentional or unintentional, principles and practice did not coincide.
During the two and one-half years since President Obama’s speech in Cairo, President Obama has endured. He has evolved. He has moved from democratic idealism towards Realpolitik. For example, President Obama tried to close the Guantanamo detention facility yet he was prevented from doing so because of Congressional opposition. He adapted and kept Guantanamo open. He dramatically increased the use of remotely piloted drone aircraft to target opponents of the United States. He has targeted opponents for assassination (notably Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki), much to the consternation and criticism of the civil liberties community. His evolution reveals that he has become a hard-line practitioner of Realpolitik yet while moving in this direction there have been missteps that led sometimes to reticence, sometimes to contradiction, and at other times to hesitance.
During 2011 we witnessed revolutions in the Arab and Muslim worlds that forced the United States to abandon at least partially our preexisting foreign policy architecture that had endorsed authoritarianism in this region of the world. Several autocrats – including Ben Ali, Mubarak, and Qaddafi – are all gone. Al-Assad and Saleh may go as well. In Tunisia a new constitutional assembly has been elected that has an Islamist party called Al-Nahda in the leadership position. (That party obtained 40 percent of the popular vote.) Al-Nahda will rule in coalition with other secular parties. When Egypt and Libya hold their elections, the outcome is likely to be similar. As a result of the Arab Spring revolutions Islamist parties quite likely will garner the plurality or the majority of the vote when elections are held and these Islamist parties will have to negotiate and compromise with the secularists in their midst in order to govern societies that are ideologically diverse. Within the newly liberated Arab and Muslim states there will quite likely be a trend in which conservative Muslim parties (like the Muslim Brotherhood) will win elections but these conservative Islamist parties will most likely not be able to create new regimes of authoritarianism because they have active and vocal secular opponents in their midst. While the secularists will constitute a minority with in these newly liberated states and societies, they will nevertheless play an important role because these secularists played vanguard roles in organizing the Arab Spring revolutions and they have the technocratic skills that are needed to run a modern state and economy. The Islamist parties, therefore, will have to moderate their positions. Rached Ghannoushi, the leader of Al Nahda in Tunisia said, for example, that his party would not ban the use of alcohol or the use of bikinis on Tunisia’s beaches – hardly a position that the Ayatollah Khomeini would have taken.(4) The Arab Spring revolutions will create an environment in which Islamist parties will have a dominant but not the exclusive voice in the formation of politics and the formulation of policy. The societies of North Africa and the Middle East are ideologically diverse, which means that the newly empowered Islamist parties will have to negotiate with secularists to create stable, effective states and mutually reconciliatory societies.
| (1) | David Remnick, “Behind the Curtain, The New Yorker, 2 September 2011, www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2011/09/05/110905taco_talk_remnick (accessed 6 November 2011); David J. Rothkopf, “Lybia is a crucial test for Obama the mulitelateralist,” Foreign Policy, 10 March 2011, www.rothkopf.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/03/10/libya_is_a_crucial_test_for_obama_the_multilateralist, (accessed 7 November 2011). |
| (2) | Barack Hussein Obama, “Remarks by the President on a New Beginning,” Cairo: Cairo University, 4 June 2009, www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-cairo-university-6-04-09 (accessed 14 October 2011). |
| (3) | voices.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2011/02/follow_the_egyptian_money.html (accessed 3 November 2011). |
| (4) | /intl/cms/s/0/6a85225e-fff3-11e0-ba79-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1d1O8uKbN (accessed 7 November 2011). |
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Ricardo René Larémont is Professor of Political Science and Sociology at SUNY Binghamton and Carnegie Corporation Scholar on Islam. He obtained his Ph.D. from Yale University and his J.D. from New York University School of Law. His books include: Islamic Law and Politics in Northern Nigeria; Islam and the Politics of Resistance in Algeria, 1783-1992; The Causes of War and the Consequences of Peacekeeping in Africa; and, Borders, Nationalism, and the African State. He is also co-editor on the forthcoming Revolution, Reform, and Reaction in the Middle East and North Africa: Political Transformation and Global Security in the Twenty-First Century (Praeger). His research focuses upon political Islam, Islamic law, conflict resolution, democratization, and civil/military relations, usually in the region of North Africa and the Sahel.
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