Steve Chapman
The world is a hot mess. Pro-Russian
separatists shot down a passenger jet over
Ukraine. Iraq is under siege from Islamic
radicals, the Taliban is rebounding in
Afghanistan and civil war grinds on in Syria.
Israel is fighting in Gaza. Negotiations on
Iran's nuclear program have come up empty.
China is bullying its neighbors.
When trouble flares up around the world,
U.S. presidents get blamed. The latest polls
show that only about 36 percent of Americans
approve of Barack Obama's handling of
foreign affairs -- down from 51 percent in
May, 2011, after the death of Osama bin
Laden.
Republicans have not been reluctant to place
responsibility on him. "Obama has presided
over a recent string of disasters that make
even (Jimmy) Carter look competent," wrote
Marc Thiessen, a former speechwriter for
George W. Bush. "The world is on fire -- and
Obama's foreign policy legacy is in tatters."
Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina
charged that "his policies are failing across
the globe."
The indictment implies that had the
administration been tougher or smarter,
Ukraine would be intact, Syria's dictator
would be gone, Iraq would be stable, Hamas
would surrender, China would be a gentle
lamb and Iran would give up its nukes.
Conservatives say Obama thinks he's king.
But they seem to confuse him with God.
It's easy to forget that planet Earth has
always been a turbulent locale. During the
Reagan administration, often fondly recalled
as a golden age, there was endless strife
hither and yon: civil wars in Central
America; Americans taken hostage in
Lebanon; a U.S. military barracks blown up
in Beirut; and Libyan terrorists bombing a
Pan Am plane.
The Soviets shot down a South Korean
passenger jet. South Africa's minority white
government tried to suppress a black revolt.
Reagan may get credit for causing the collapse
of the Soviet Union, but tranquility didn't
follow. It wasn't long before Iraq invaded
Kuwait, Yugoslavia erupted into bloody
ethnic conflict, civil war broke out in one
African country after another, famine
ravaged Somalia, Palestinians rose up against
Israeli rule, and Pakistan and India fought a
war after acquiring nuclear weapons.
And the 21st century? It did not turn the
world into a serene oasis where America
consistently got its way. The 9/11 attacks, the
war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan are
still fresh in our minds. The Russian invasion
of Georgia, al-Qaida's migration into
Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, Israel's war in
Lebanon, the civil war in Sudan -- those are
easy to forget.
North Korea cheated on a nuclear deal under
Bush. Iran took major strides in its own
nuclear quest. Vladimir Putin gutted Russian
democracy. China tried to intimidate its
neighbors.
When was this era of harmony that Obama
has somehow forfeited? It never happened.
And it's not likely to emerge under his
successor. Even at the height of our post-Cold
War power and influence, nasty events
happened all the time, and we couldn't stop
them.
The Cold War era was a bit more controlled,
because so many governments were
dependent for their security on either the
U.S. or the Soviet Union, who could often
keep them in line. But there was still plenty
of bloodshed in plenty of places -- from
Vietnam to the Indian subcontinent to
Lebanon to El Salvador. Often, neither
Washington nor Moscow got what it wanted.
Nor is it obvious Obama could have achieved much with more assertive tactics against the Russian government or the Syrian government: His options were few and unpromising. Nothing short of a NATO
military response -- which even the hawks
didn't propose -- would have stopped Putin
from seizing Crimea.
Arming the Syrian rebels could have meant
giving aid to the militants marching on our
ally in Baghdad. Staying in Iraq and
Afghanistan, as many Republicans advised,
was a formula for wasting American lives to merely delay the inevitable.
Yet the belief persists that the difference
between a bad outcome and a good outcome is a willingness by the U.S. government to exercise leadership or show toughness or otherwise get involved. In practice, our interventions often exact a terribly high price for a dismal result. If there are two ways to get a dismal result, maybe we should choose the one that doesn't cost us thousands of lives
or billions of dollars.
We like to think we can easily shape the
world to suit our preferences. But as the 19th- century historian Henry Adams pointed out, chaos is the law of nature, and order is the dream of man.
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