There are two competing schools of thought about history. One school believes that great men and women shape the trends and tides of history and mark events by the force of their character. The other school holds that great events make great men and women. An example of the second school comes from George Friedman at Stratfor. In his post Foreign Policy and the President's Irrelevance, he places our current contention over Iraq in an historical context:
History deals up the agenda, and the options in response are severely constrained. If Thomas Dewey had been elected in 1948, do we really believe the Korean War would have played out differently?
Presidents are not to be judged by how they make history. They are to be judged by how gracefully they submit to the rules that history lays down. The consensus or disinterest of candidates is not important. What is important is this: The dominant foreign policy issue facing the candidates is going to hit them out of the blue one day. Their options will be few, and how quickly they recognize what must be done as opposed to what they would like to do is about all they will be judged by.
We know that Johnson made a terrible hash of Vietnam, while Roosevelt did pretty well in World War II. We strongly suspect that if Johnson had been president during World War II he would be respected and admired today, while if Roosevelt had been president during Vietnam he would be reviled. It’s not that presidents don’t matter. It’s that they don’t matter nearly as much as we would like to think and they would have us believe. Mostly, they are trapped in realities not of their own making.
I would hasten to point out that George Friedman does not make a categorical prescription out of this, he merely points out that Presidents are much more hostage to circumstance than masters of circumstance. However, he does use these ideas to illustrate why he believes that our foreign policy in regards to the Iraq War will not be significantly effected by our choice of President:
In foreign policy, presidential candidates make promises and, if elected, do what they must to get re-elected. Assume that the situation in Iraq does not deteriorate dramatically, which is always a possibility, and assume a president is elected who would simply withdraw troops from Iraq. The withdrawal from Iraq obviously would increase Iranian power and presence in Iraq. That, in turn, would precipitate a crisis between Iran and Saudi Arabia, two powers with substantial differences dividing them. The United States would then face the question of whether to support the Saudis against Iran. Placing forces in Saudi Arabia is the last thing the Americans or the Saudis want. But there is one thing that the Americans want less: Iranian dominance of the Arabian Peninsula.
Any president who simply withdrew forces from Iraq without a political settlement would find himself or herself in an enormously difficult position. Indeed, such a president would find himself or herself in a politically untenable position. The consequences of a withdrawal are as substantial as the consequences of remaining. The decline in violence and the emergence of some semblance of a political process tilts the politics of decision-making toward a phased withdrawal based on improvements on the ground and away from a phased withdrawal based on the premise that the situation on the ground will not improve. Therefore, even assuming Obama wins the nomination and the presidency, the likelihood of a rapid, unilateral withdrawal is minimal. The political cost of the consequences would be too high, and he wouldn’t be able to afford it.
In response to this post, Dinocrat poses a question:
Question: suppose Obama were elected, and it was partially on the strength of his seemingly firm commitment to withdraw from Iraq — what would happen to his popularity and his standing among his Democratic base if he failed to deliver on his apparently clear promise, assuming the Stratfor analysis is correct?
I agree that it would be problematic for Obama to disappoint his Democratic base, though I also suspect that the anti-war fever is primarily a cause and a symptom of BDS. Once George Bush is no longer identified with Iraq, the drop in casualties will be accompanied by a drop in interest in immediate withdrawal. Like JFK discovering the "missile gap" didn't really exist once he was elected President in 1960, I do not think it unlikely that if Obama wants to manage Iraq as per George Friedman's suggestions, he will have no trouble enlisting the MSM in his "discovery" that circumstances in Iraq, post election, require keeping our troops there a bit longer than he previously thought. The issue, as long a casualties remain low, will disappear at that point.
I have two concerns with Stratfor's analysis, however.
First, I think it is quite possible that Barack Obama actually believes what he says about Iraq. In other words, he may well believe that it is a distraction from the war on al Qaeda and unconnected to the greater ideological war of radical Islam against the West. Further, since it is part of accepted liberal wisdom in regard to the Middle East that our actions have provoked, and continue to provoke, Arab and Muslim animus, our withdrawal would be demanded by his strategic vision. It is important to keep in mind, as well, that the current Democratic talking points in regards to Iraq include that the war was a failed venture that caused a break down of Iraqi civil society and has left us with a civil war which we cannot stop. Thus, if fighting and casualties escalate in an Obama administration, this will be taken as de facto evidence that the war is unwinnable.
The quandary for an Obama administration then becomes that if casualties stay low he will be tempted to start withdrawing troops sooner rather than later and if casualties increase he will be tempted to withdraw troops sooner rather than later.
It is unclear whether Barack Obama, accurately noting the tribal and sectarian nature of the conflict in Iraq, understands that the current progress (progress he ignores) depends upon the ability of the US military to play referee and separate the combatants. If he recognizes the necessity of continuing American troops in Iraq, a la John McCain, and the risk of devolution to full scale civil warfare if we leave prematurely, I would feel more sanguine about his potential victory in November. His current pronouncements and his article in Foreign Affairs unfortunately offer no evidence that he follows through to the logical conclusions of his positions.
This means an Obama victory in November will be an open invitation to al Qaeda and to the Iranian backed Shia to take up arms and escalate their attacks and brutality. To complicate matters further, various neighbors who have an interest in unsettling Iraq will be more than tempted to increase their meddling in stable areas of Iraq such as Kurdistan. None of this is inevitable, but an Obama victory makes it all more likely.
The second problem I have with Stratfor's analysis involves the perception that Obama is force-averse. The recent NIE on Iran, touted as proof that it poses no nuclear threat, most likely means that the Bush administration will have essentially passed off the problem to the next administration. Iran is actively seeking nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. The question for Obama, or Hillary Clinton for that matter, is that since that their only proposal for dealing with Iran is to essential continue the same dysfunctional "diplomacy" that has failed up until now, but to sweeten the pot to encourage Iran to give up a nuclear program that they consider to be in their national interest, does their apparent aversion to force make it more or less likely that Iran will both succeed in attaining nuclear weapons capabilities (almost certain) and subsequently use them, or threaten to use them, to achieve their strategic goals?
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