The Washington Delusion

Wednesday, 24th June 2009

In one sense, of course, John McCain is correct to say:

"The president saying that we didn't want to be perceived as meddling, is, frankly, not what America's history is all about."

And while one may say that, more often than not, the United States has been one of, for want of a less crude way of putting it, the Good Guys even that country's admirers must acknowledge that this has not always or universally been the case. And that has led to problems. It also, frankly, makes one pretty happy that John McCain ain't President.

Relatedly, it would be useful if Obama's advisors ceased this sort of nonsense:

But privately Obama advisers are crediting his Cairo speech for inspiring the protesters, especially the young ones, who are now posing the most direct challenge to the republic's Islamic authority in its 30-year history.
One senior administration official with experience in the Middle East said, "There clearly is in the region a sense of new possibilities," adding that "I was struck in the aftermath of the president's speech that there was a connection. It was very sweeping in terms of its reach."...
Obama's advisers say the outreach may have contributed to the defeat in Lebanese elections a few days later of a coalition led by Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed party, that had been predicted to win. In recent days, administration officials have pointed to the Iranian demonstrations as further evidence of Obama's possible influence in the region.

Really? Well, perhaps. But it's safer, and probably more accurate, to suppose that Obama's Cairo speech had, if anything, a tiny impact on recent events in the middle east. We've been here before. Remember how the Bush administration tried to take credit for Lebanon's "Cedar Revolution"? That was presumptious in the extreme and it's equally presumptious for Obama's officials to make the same assumptions.

It's also, of course, natural. The Cult of the Presidency has grown to the point that, in the American capital at least, there is the widespread belief that the sun orbits Washington and that the President and the United States can achieve anything merely by wishing it so. Such are the delusions of Empire.

The immodesty and arrogance of this view - itself scarcely new but stubbornly persistent despite ample evidence contradicting it - persists no matter which party holds the White House as Presidents and their courtiers persist in deluding themselves that they have the power to remake and shape the world. This too leads to the suggestion that any failure of American policy must be attributed to a lack of willpower.

This leads to absurdities such as this from the often-egregious Dana Rohrabacher (R-Ca):

If he [Obama] had been talking a little tougher even a few days ago, we might not have been seeing the violence and bloodshed of this repressive regime in Tehran over the last few days.

You really think so? I mean, who knew that the Iranian regime would come to heel the moment the American president snapped his fingers?

As I say, it's no surprise that courtiers and Congressmen think the American President is a latter-day Canute. The danger comes when the President agrees with them and lacks Canute's wisdom.

Filed under: Empire (27 more articles) , Iran (144 more articles) , Obama (365 more articles) , Washington (169 more articles)

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NJ

June 24th, 2009 5:38pm Report this comment

I don't necessarily disagree with a lot of what you're saying here, Alex.

But I think you might be "misunderestimating" the importance of regime-change in Iraq, with regards to the Cedar Revolution.

Of course it is absurd & ridiculous for some of Obama's team (& media sycophants) to claim responsibility for the election result in Lebanon or the explosion of protests in Iran (Even the pro-Obama Jon Stewart made fun of this "Cairo Effect" bulls**t on his show the other week.)

However, with regards to the Cedar Revolution, it was Lebanese democrats themselves who made the claim of the “Bush Doctrine” helping in Lebanon (alongside the disgusting Hariri assassination of course.)

I seem to remember Walid Jumblatt saying it repeatedly (he is of course an anti-American socialist with no love for Bush):

“this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq. I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world…The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it."
(Interview with Michael J Totten)

He has repeated this several times & adds that Assad’s Baathist thugs would NEVER have left Lebanon, had Bush not removed the Baathists in Iraq.

Add to this, elections in Afghanistan, a small opening of several party elections in Egypt, Palestinian elections, & some municipal elections in other Middle Eastern countries too.

And remember the Baathist thug Assad’s comment, to Joe Klein, in 2005:

“Please send this message: I am not Saddam Hussein. I want to cooperate."

Of course, Iraq deteriorated, Hamas won, the Muslim Brotherhood gained votes, & the Arab Spring didn’t spread further & deeper – but I think Bush does deserve credit (along with the French for once) for helping force Syria to pull-out of Lebanon after decades of occupation.

So I don’t think it is “presumptious in the extreme” to suggest they had an effect, unlike the imaginary Cairo one.

Gil

June 24th, 2009 5:44pm Report this comment

Several points, Alex:

1. There is no certainty that McCain would have been talking like this if he had been President. This is conjecture.

2. McCain is as you say, right - albeit from his opposition stance.

3. US members of congress are also bound to take into account their constituents' wishes; perhaps this congressman, being from California, has Iranian-American voters?

3. There is nothing that the US can do now without making the matter worst. What we SHOULD be seeing are demonstrations from the er...bottom up. And the sight of Tony Benn's posterior at one of these would cheer me to no end.