The Wrong Side of Everything: US and EU Foreign Policy

Published by Eurasia Review,  October 4, 2012

The people of the Republic of Georgia went to the polls Monday (October 1, 2012), and threw out of office the incumbent party (United National Movement) that has led (or some say ruled) this small nation since the Rose Revolution of 2003. The winner is a coalition of small political groups called the Georgia Dream Party, led and founded by businessman Bidzina Ivanishvili.

What is important, and fully reported by the western media, is that the democratic election process worked. But not being reported, and equally important, in my view, is the fact that the United States of America (US) and the European Union (EU) bet on the wrong horse again.

In the past couple of years, Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton, Messrs. Barroso and van Rumpuy and Lady Ashton, have backed the loser in every transitional election, and supported the overthrow of every regime with ties to the west or providing a stable force in an unstable region.

Here’s the record:

·      Georgian Election – The US and EU did everything they could (billions in economic aid) to support Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili’s continued role as President and/or Prime Minister (the two positions are separate and the latter is appointed by Parliament). Mr. Saakashvili lost because he is an arrogant authoritarian jerk; who was suckered by Russia and led his country into war (2008 Georgian-Russian War) that it could not win, and then lied about how it happen; terrorized political opponents; and in spite of massive foreign aid and opportunity presided over a failed economy. He is not the “democratic leader” the sycophantic western media wish him to be. Being educated in the West does not ensure western principles and values. Egyptian leader Mohammed Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood, was educated at a California university, and he certainly doesn’t endorse western values.

      Serbian Election - The Serbian people, on May 20, 2012, elected a new President, Tomislav Nikolic, in a "surprise victory." Surprise to whom – apparently to western journalists and tendentious pollsters. The Serbian people are telling the EU imperialist technocrats that they had enough of their malarkey. Serbs will not be serfs.

 ·   Egyptian Election - On June 17, 2012, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Muhammad Morsi won Egypt's presidential election. The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928. Its slogan is “Islam is the solution.” The Brotherhood’s stated goal is to instill the Qur’an and Sharia Law as the foundations of an Islamic government. There should be little dispute that Egypt is now an Islamic state. Does foreign policy Establishments of the US and EU not remember the naïve and foolish policy of the Carter Administration with the Shah and Iran, and the outcome of that decision? Surely, they must. We are living today with the horrendous consequences of that foreign policy failure, and the consequences may prove catastrophic. The US now wants to double down.

·       Iraq - The inability to fashion a sensible accord between Iraq’s three sectarian groups, resulted in the immediate and ongoing sectarian warfare. There has been no peace. The result has been diplomatic malpractice by both the Bush and Obama Administrations, and their principle foreign policy chiefs, Condoleezza Rice and Hilary Clinton. With al – Maliki and his Shi’a control of Iraq’s central government, Iran will continue to exert untoward influence. It is Iran who is attempting to steer policy in Iraq. Mr. al - Maliki is simply the puppet. Iraq is an artificial state. To believe that Kurds, Sunni, and Shi’a can live peacefully together contradicts realty. Just as Bosnia became a failed state when Muslims, Serbs, and Croatians, were provided with the means to choose the conditions under which they wished to live - similarly the Kurds, Sunni, and Shi’a, are doing so in Iraq today.

·       Tunisia – The Tunisian Revolution, the first of the so-called “Arab Spring,” began on December 18, 2010, and led to the removal of longtime President (had ruled since 1987), Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, on January 14, 2011. Today the ruling Islamist party has been strongly criticized for failing to clamp down on Tunisia’s Muslim extremists, who have carried out numerous acts of violence since last year’s revolution. For those in the west who believe that Tunisia has established a “moderate Islamic regime” – not so fast.

 Libya – The Libyan Revolution began in February 15, 2011, and ended on October 20, 2011, with the capture and killing of Libyan dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, who had ruled Libya since a bloodless military coup in 1969. The revolution would not have succeeded without the direct military involvement of the United States, England, and France. On September 11, 2012, the United States Ambassador to Libya and three of his staff were murdered by ·      an Islamic mob in Benghazi. At no time did the security forces intervene to protect US personnel or property in accordance with International Law. In short, Libya is a foreign policy failure. We removed a secular dictator, who had renounced terrorism and a nuclear weapons program, to give birth to an Islamic terrorist nation.

·     Syria – The Syrian Revolution (Civil War), began on March 15, 2011, and continues to this day. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on March 27, 2011, that the U.S. would not intervene militarily in Syria as it did in Libya, and drew a distinction between Libya's Muammar Qaddafi and Syria's Bashar Assad. The latter, she explained, is seen as “a reformer.” Yet, today, she wants his head. This is not foreign policy – this is schizophrenia.

    Why are the US and EU clueless to the will of the people in each of these situations? Why do they support the losers in pivotal elections? Why do they support revolutionary forces that wish to do harm to the West? Why do they push nation states away from the West and into the arms of Mr. Putin, Iranian Ayatollahs, and Chinese Communists?

The addle US State Department and European Union elitists seem to equate rhetoric and fawning with principle. The people of other nations who have to live under failed leadership know better. The people of other nations whose views and voices are not represented in the hysterical reporting of today’s tendentious mainstream media are not being represented. And, apparently, you no longer can buy them off. They have seen what the West is selling – and won’t sell out to be a part of it.

The real story is not only the upheavals that are sweeping the world. Rather, the real story is also the failure of Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton, and the leaders of the European Union, to understand what the hell is going on out there. Their record of failures are not individual acts of misjudgments, but repeated acts of institutional incompetence that manifest itself in indefensible ignorance.

Lawrence S. Schneiderman is an International Consultant and Dr. of Public Policy, Vanderbilt University. The views expressed are the author’s own.