The wreckage of US Middle East policy

President Richard Nixon was widely mocked for saying that the United States must not become a “pitiful, helpless giant” in world affairs.

That was 1970, and he was talking about Cambodia. What would he say today if he surveyed the wreckage of US policy strewn across the Middle East and Washington’s seeming inability to do much about it? The United States is on a losing streak.

The latest chapter in this sorry tale is the unfolding disaster in Iraq. There the United States expended thousands of lives and billions of dollars in a decade-long effort to establish a legitimate government capable of ensuring its own stability, and now seems unable to do more than watch, aghast, as it falls apart in the face of an onslaught by militant jihadists. That is hardly the only setback the United States has suffered in the region.

The US objectives in the Middle East have long been clearly stated and well known. In addition to forging order out of the chaos that the United States itself created in Iraq, these goals include ousting the Assad regime in Syria, bringing Israel and the Palestinians to a peace agreement, fostering democracy in Egypt, stabilizing Libya, curbing jihadist radicals, and containing Iranian troublemaking. None of those objectives is within reach, and the United States has not offered any credible plans for reaching them.

In a little-noticed speech in Qatar last week, Anne Patterson, assistant secretary of state for the Middle East, said that in his recent address at West Point President Obama “committed the United States to work in partnership with countries across the globe as a network or web of allies to confront extremist violence. Nowhere is this more true than Syria and Iraq. I believe we can do much together to contain and roll back the threat posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s aspirations to create a terrorist state in western Iraq and eastern Syria.”

That was before the radical Sunni Muslim group seized Mosul other Iraqi cities and began to march toward Baghdad, routing Iraqi security forces trained and equipped by the United States who took off their uniforms and fled. Now the picture is much darker, and there is little indication that “countries across the globe” can do much to brighten it.

Patterson said the extremist forces are motivated by “widespread anger in the region and beyond over the Asad regime’s brutal repression of its people - repression supported by Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.” Perhaps that was the group’s original cause, but its current campaign is not directed at the Asad regime – it is directed at the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad headed by Nuri al-Maliki.

The predominant view in Washington is that Maliki largely brought this on himself by his ostracism of, and refusal to work with, Iraq’s disenfranchised Sunni population. Some of the blame must also be ascribed to Saudi Arabia, which has refused to have any substantive dealings with Maliki or to open official channels by which the kingdom might have encouraged him toward more inclusive policies. (Iraq does have an embassy in Riyadh, and diplomats who have served there say that King Abdullah is adamant about Maliki because he believes the Iraqi leader lied to him when he promised an inclusive government.) Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies have provided much of the weaponry, and cash, that ISIL wields against its Shia and Alawite targets.

Patterson, a Middle East veteran and former ambassador to Egypt, said in Doha  that “To defeat ISIL, the United States and the countries of the region need to work in concert - and overcome some differences - to develop effective policies and durable solutions to this dangerous threat. Counter terrorism strategies sometimes require the use of military power, but we must also use other tools, including diplomacy and development to take on the appeal that terrorists still can have for angry, disenfranchised and unemployed young people”.

No doubt it is a worthy endeavor to “develop effective policies and durable solutions”, but it is unlikely that can be done in time to salvage the government in Iraq or prevent the creation of a de facto caliphal state across wide swaths of Iraq and Syria, which is ISIL’s stated goal.

Obama said at West Point that the United States will use its military power, “unilaterally, if necessary,” when that is the best way to protect its interests. But given that his signature achievement in world affairs is ending the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and given the overwhelming popular opposition in the United States to military intervention in Syria, it seems certain that this option will stay off the table in Iraq. Drone strikes might have some limited effect, but they would not persuade Iraqi soldiers to put their uniforms back on and return to the fray.

The wonderful irony of the Iraq disaster is that the country whose interests are most threatened by ISIL, aside from Iraq itself, is Iran. The Islamic Republic is heavily invested in the survival of the Assad government in Syria, its closest Arab ally, and is the favored strategic and economic partner of the Maliki government in Iraq.

The ouster of Assad would be a heavy blow to Iran, and would represent a victory for its principal rival for regional influence, Saudi Arabia. In Iraq, it is hard to imagine that the Iranians are prepared to accept the creation of a heavily armed, militant Sunni statelet right on its border.

In a rational world, where people make decisions based on facts and analysis rather than on old animosities and inherited grievances, the United States, Iran, and perhaps Turkey - whose consulate in Mosul was overrun and does not want to encourage Iraq’s Kurds to militarize further to oppose ISIL -would be working together now to prevent the ISIL threat from metastasizing any further.  Unfortunately, a Middle East of sectarian violence, heavily-armed zealots, embattled autocrats, tribal rivalries and desperate refugees is not a rational world. In the short term, a weak, distracted Egypt is not in a position to be of much help.

Patterson said that the United States “desires better relations with Iran”. No doubt that is true, and it is true that at least some elements of the Iranian leadership want better relations with the United States. Those better relations could come about if the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program succeed, but it stretches the imagination to think of Washington and Tehran making common cause against the menace in Iraq. That is regrettable for both countries, which could use each other’s help.

- Thomas W Lippman is a Washington-based author and journalist who has written about Middle Eastern affairs and American foreign policy for more than three decades, specializing in Saudi Arabian affairs, US- Saudi relations, and relations between the West and Islam.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Photo credit: A masked Pershmerga fighter from Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region guards a temporary camp (AFP)