“LIBYA-GATE” & THE US FOREIGN POLICY DEBATE: STAKES HIGH FOR ISRAEL, MIDDLE EAST & BEYOND

OCTOBER SURPRISE?

THE STAKES IN TONIGHT’S FOREIGN POLICY DEBATE

Bruce Thornton

Front Page Magazine, October 22, 2012

Foreign policy, the topic of tonight’s debate, was suddenly thrust into the voters’ consciousness by the murder of 4 Americans, including [the US] ambassador, in Benghazi on the anniversary of 9/11. Intensifying the fallout of this event has been the Obama administration’s incoherent, clumsy, duplicitous, and rapidly unravelling attempt to blame the terrorist murders on a YouTube movie trailer lampooning Mohammed, in order to downplay the strength of the heavily armed jihadist outfits, some connected to al Qaeda, now swarming in Libya as a result of [the US]  overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi.

If Governor Romney wants to succeed, he must focus on the Benghazi attack and subsequent misdirection not just to highlight the administration’s increasingly obvious attempt to spin a carefully planned terrorist attack into a spontaneous reaction to an offensive video. More importantly, Romney must use the attack to emphasize its real significance: the political expediencies, character flaws, and dubious ideological assumptions behind Obama’s foreign policy failures.

The evidence of this failure is obvious throughout the Middle East. Start with Libya, the country most in the news. Eighteen months after U.S. air power facilitated the overthrow of Gaddafi In Libya, a weak central government is dominated by hundreds of heavily armed militant Islamist bands, some with links to al Qaeda, of the sort that killed [the US] ambassador. Before his death, ambassador Chris Stevens reported that black al Qaeda battle-flags were flying over government buildings in Benghazi. This is consistent with an August 2012 report from the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress, which documented al Qaeda’s influence in Libya and concluded, “The Libyan Revolution may have created an environment conducive to jihad and empowered the large and active community of Libyan jihadists, which is known to be well connected to international jihad.”…

Likewise in the Middle East, where the jihadist Muslim Brothers have come to power in Egypt, the region’s most populous country, thanks to Obama’s abandonment of the brutal but reliable Hosni Mubarak, who had kept them in check. Even as al Qaeda terrorists have stepped up attacks in Iraq in the wake of our withdrawal, that country is strengthening its ties to Iran, allowing the Iranians to cross Iraqi air space in order to deliver arms to Syria’s Bashar al Assad. In Syria, numerous jihadist groups fighting Assad are gaining valuable battlefield experience in tactics and weapons, including surface-to-air missiles probably acquired from Gaddafi’s looted arsenals. The Taliban in Afghanistan are surging in anticipation of Obama’s announced 2014 withdrawal, with U.S.-trained Afghan security forces turning their weapons on coalition troops, killing 51 this year. Given the weakness of the corrupt regime of Hamid Karzai, there is a very good chance that the Taliban will reestablish itself as a major power in Afghanistan after U.S. forces withdraw in 2014.

Most dangerously, Iran continues its march to the acquisition of nuclear weapons with which it can “wipe Israel off the map,” as President Ahmadinejad has threatened. According to a recent DEBKA report, Iran’s “nuclear program’s high-speed uranium enrichment plant has now been entirely sequestered in the fortified underground Fordo site near Qom,” which means the Israelis will not be able to destroy the site completely without America’s help. DEBKA continues, “The Iranians are preparing to change the ‘active formation’ of the Fordo centrifuges and adapt them for refining uranium up to the 60 percent level, a short step before the weapons grade of 90 percent. The conversion is expected to be ready to go in the second half of December or early January 2013.” Yet despite this fast approaching point of no return, the Obama administration has refused to back up non-lethal sanctions with a credible threat of force, leaving the Iranians to calculate correctly that they have enough time to reach nuclear capability.

Finally, Obama has chilled relations with our one reliable ally in the Middle East, Israel. He has accepted the specious pretext that “settlements” are the roadblock to peace, claimed that negotiations must start with the indefensible 1967 armistice line, snubbed and insulted Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, and worst of all, refused to back vigorously and unequivocally Israel’s attempts to eliminate the existential threat represented by a nuclear-armed Iran. Indeed, his Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, said of an Israeli preemptive strike on Iran, “I don’t want to be complicit if they [Israel] choose to do it.” Such hostile talk has emboldened the Iranians and disheartened not just Israel, but other allies like Saudi Arabia who know what sort of disruptions and dangers will follow the mullahs’ getting the bomb.

Obama, in short, has reversed the famous aphorism of the Roman general Sulla: under his foreign policy, America has become no better enemy, no worse friend. Our retreat and weakness have diminished America’s stabilizing role in the region, creating a vacuum other countries are eager to fill. As Amir Taheri recently wrote, “For six decades American power acted as the pole that kept the tent [regional stability] up. Over the past four years, however, Barack Obama has pulled that pole away, allowing the tent to sag and, in parts, collapse. As opportunist powers, Russia, Iran and Turkey are trying to fill the vacuum created by America’s retreat. Thus, Russia has just returned as a top supplier of weapons to Iraq, clinching a $4.2 billion contract, partly thanks to lobbying by Iran.” Under Obama, the United States now has little influence over events, even as our own national interests, values, and security are put in jeopardy by these developments.

If Romney wants to gain the upper hand tonight, he needs to highlight this litany of failure. More important, he has to identity the flaws of character and ideology that have led to foreign policy disaster….He staked his foreign policy success on the narrative that our major problem was al Qaeda, so all we needed to do was kill bin Laden and use drone strikes to degrade al Qaeda’s leadership. Hence Obama’s recent assertions that “Al Qaeda’s on its heels” and  “Al Qaeda is on the run.” Couple the war on al Qaeda to “democracy promotion” in the region, and all our terrorist problems would disappear. As Obama said on “60 Minutes,” follow this policy and “over the long term we are more likely to get a Middle East and North Africa that is more peaceful, more prosperous and more aligned with…our interests.”

That narrative explains Obama’s clumsy attempt to attribute the Benghazi attack to the “disgusting” YouTube video and the “spontaneous reaction,” as U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice said five days after the attack, that the video provoked, thus supporting the “al Qaeda on its heels” claim. But as we’ve seen above, al Qaeda is not just active, but growing. It is the mother ship of numerous other jihadist outfits with whom it cooperates and coordinates. But Obama’s admission that the attack was a carefully planned lethal celebration of the 9/11 attacks would perforce have repudiated the linchpin of his alleged foreign policy success, and it would have shown that contrary to his “60 Minutes” assertions, during his administration the region has become less peaceful and less aligned with our interests.

But equally important are the failures of Obama’s character, particularly his grandiose estimation of his world-historical significance. Believing that Muslims would react positively to his Muslim name and Muslim roots, Obama thought that all he had to do was show up, and all these countries would forget their national interests and religious beliefs. Of course that arrogant assumption has failed miserably, as surveys of the region show. According to the Pew Research Center, confidence in Obama exceeds 25% only in one country, Lebanon. And those numbers are significantly lower than they were when he took office in 2009. These data should not surprise anyone who knows that nations base their policies on their own culturally specific beliefs and national interests, not on other leaders’ charm or efforts at ingratiation. All Obama’s solicitous “outreach” has achieved is to create the impression that America is a weak enemy and an unreliable ally.

But more than anything else, the widespread self-loathing, self-doubt, and guilt over America’s presumed historical crimes like colonialism, racism, and imperialism have undermined our foreign policy by projecting weakness and a lack of confidence in our own principles and way of life. We saw this in Obama’s infamous 2009 Cairo speech, in which he extolled––before an audience including Muslim Brothers sitting in the front row–– the mythical superiority of Islamic culture, and implicitly apologized for “colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations.” Given this history of exploitation and oppression, Muslim terrorism thus must be understood as a response to these historical injustices, a reaction to our sins rather than the expression of religious beliefs.

This progressive reflex to blame America first explains why Obama spent so much time after the Benghazi attack talking about the obscure YouTube video. In his remarks on September 12, rather than explicitly linking the murder of Americans to terrorist jihadists and defending the First Amendment, he harped on the video and thundered, “We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others.” In his U.N. speech, again he referred 6 times to the video, and said nothing specific about jihadist terror, not to mention failing vigorously to defend the central human right of free speech enshrined in our own First Amendment. Indeed, the producer of the video has been jailed on a minor probation violation, creating that “chilling effect” the ACLU usually frets over…. Worse yet, the administration produced an ad shown in Pakistan once more protesting our love of Islam and castigating the video, even as across the region Christians and other religions are murdered, brutalized, and driven into exile.

This betrayal of a quintessential political right and the de facto validation of the “malevolent culture of Islamic supremacism,” as Andy McCarthy writes, illustrates the delusional ideologies that have created Obama’s foreign policy now threatening our security and interests. They have made America look weak and exhausted, a civilization of unparalleled military and economic power but crippled by abject moral poverty, one more terrorist attack away from capitulation and retreat. That is the point Romney needs to hammer home tonight if his priority is to expose Obama’s foreign policy failure. (Top of Page)

LIBYAGATE

John O’Sullivan

National review, October 22, 2012

As the final presidential debate looms into view, there is — or at least I sense there is — a mood of deep trepidation on all sides. That is understandable, of course, because the race is so tight that both candidates have a world to win or to lose this evening. Moreover, the two Libya debacles — the first by President Obama in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy, the second by Governor Romney in the second debate — have raised the stakes even further.

Charles Krauthammer’s column last Friday was characteristically precise about how Libya had become so crucial: When President Obama said he was offended by Governor Romney’s suggestion that he had misled Americans over the terrorist murders of four Americans, including Chris Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, he thereby gave a dangerous hostage to fortune.

For the evidence, mounting daily, is that the president did so mislead the nation. Here is the case in Charles’s words:

His U.N. ambassador went on not one but five morning shows to spin a confection that the sacking of the consulate and the murder of four Americans came from a video-motivated demonstration turned ugly: “People gathered outside the embassy and then it grew very violent and those with extremist ties joined the fray and came with heavy weapons.”

But there was no gathering. There were no people. There was no fray. It was totally quiet outside the facility until terrorists stormed the compound and killed our ambassador and three others.

In addition, the president himself advanced the argument that “the video did it” in his speech to the United Nations. So, as Charles concluded, he is extremely vulnerable to a counterattack tonight from Governor Romney, who will have 90 minutes and much on-the-record evidence when he presents his case. That, however, raises the pressure on the governor not to screw it up a second time….

In one important respect, however, Charles understated his argument. Though he observed that Obama had sent out other administration spokesmen to present the administration’s false account, he argued the quite limited case that it was the president who was facing the music.

That may be true tonight and on Election Day. If, however, Romney persuades the world that the Obama administration has given a “misleading” account of the Benghazi murders to American television viewers, to the media, to the United Nations, and to the world at large, he will indict a great many people in addition to the president.

Simply list the people who have gone out in public to repeat the video argument — and related arguments such as the claim (maintained for eight days after the president used the phrase “acts of terror” in the Rose Garden) that it couldn’t yet be said for certain that the Benghazi attack was a terrorist action

If this was indeed a deception, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Ambassador Susan Rice, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, White House aide David Axelrod, and press spokesman Jay Carney are only six of the people who apparently cooperated in it — though Mr. Carney is probably safe, since no one believes that the press guy is told what really happened unless that also happens to be the cover story.

Think what this means for American politics. Obama, Axelrod, and Rice are the top level of the Obama establishment in the Democratic party; Hillary Clinton is the titular head of its Clintonian counter establishment. All have appeared in public to defend the argument that the Benghazi murders began as a response to an anti-Islam video on YouTube.

Hillary Clinton is also the leading potential Democratic candidate for 2016 (despite her denials). The other leading figure is Joe Biden. Both are implicated in spreading an account that nobody now believes or even defends.

Think next about the ripple effect when figures of this weight fall under a cloud — if they suddenly have to start hiring lawyers, answering subpoenas, trying to recall when and where they were told what, and eventually resigning and going into private life. The longer Libyagate lasts, the more likely it is to damage the Democrats. It would mean more than merely a lost election (though it might well mean that too). It would mean a wholesale revolution at the top of the Democratic party.

Without Watergate, neither Gerry Ford nor Ronald Reagan would have got near the presidency. Nixon’s successor would have been someone like George H. W. Bush or John Connally. Nixon rather than Reagan would then have shaped the modern Republican party, rather as FDR shaped the pre-Vietnam Democrats. The entire spectrum of American politics would have been different (and conservatives must surely think much worse).

That’s good news for ambitious young governors and senators like Andrew Cuomo and Ron Wyden. It’s bad news for all the current leading Democrats, who will be feeling the chill of scandal this week, planning to protect their interests against it and estimating the degree of threat it poses.  Well, how big a threat does it pose?

Recall that the cover story concealed not a burglary, as in Watergate, but the security failures that led up to the murder of an American ambassador and three of his colleagues, the fact that it was an organized terrorist attack that killed him, and the deteriorating political and security situation in Libya, which the Obama campaign was touting as a symbol of the president’s successful foreign policy. So it’s a big deal.

As is often the case with scandals, moreover, almost every aspect of this one is metastasizing. The cover story about the video is collapsing under the weight of on-the-record statements by intelligence officials about what really happened. The security failures leading up to the ambassador’s murder, which until now have been the backdrop to the story, have suddenly emerged front and center because a cache of his appeals for more security assistance has been published. These on-the record revelations explain why the establishment media have to cover the story seriously; it is now a test not of the press’s investigative powers but of its ability to read and write….. (Top of Page)

The [al-Qaeda] Terrorists Are Winning and We Are Being Lied To:

Laura Logan, CBS New, Oct. 11, 2012 (You Tube video, 19min)

Laura Logan, CBS News chief foreign correspondent and "60 Minutes" contributor, delivers a hard-hitting speech about the reality of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, why the U.S. is not winning the war and how the American people are being lied to.   

For the longer 36 min version: http://youtu.be/6fHq7TLN7Pc

Arms Flow to Syria May Be Behind Benghazi Cover-Up:

Clare Lopez, Radical Islam, Oct 18, 2012

While it clearly matters (a lot) if and when the President told the truth to the American public about the terrorist nature of that attack,…the deeper, unaddressed issue is about the relationship of the U.S. government, Ambassador Christopher Stevens and the U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya with Al Qaeda.

The Great Gaffe at Hofstra, Charles Krauthammer, National Review, 

October 18, 2012

At Hofstra, Obama emerged from his previous coma to score enough jabs to outweigh Romney’s haymaker, his dazzling takedown of the Obama record when answering a disappointed 2008 Obama voter.

Obama vs. Romney on the Mideast, Zack Gold, National Interest,

October 19, 2012

Mitt Romney gave his most detailed foreign-policy speech last week at the Virginia Military Institute, just in time for his forthcoming foreign-policy debate with Barack Obama. Romney’s focus on the Middle East in that address allows for a serious discussion about the similarities and differences between the policies of each candidate toward that region.

Monday’s Debate Puts Focus on Foreign Policy Clashes, David E. Sanger, NY Times, Oct 21, 2012

This debate is about how America deals with the world — and how it should.

Why Obama Blamed the Video, Nonie Darwish, Front Page Magazine, October 22, 2012

How can Obama expect to get away with this? Holding Islamic outrage as a justification for violence and then changing to a wishy-washy condemnation of terror has failed to fix the damage already done. I was used to this kind of dishonest maneuvering by Arab leaders…

The Islamic Schoolyard-Bully and Obama’s America, Raymond Ibrahim, Front Page Magazine, Oct. 18, 2012

The embassy attacks across the Muslim world, especially the most savage in Egypt and Libya, are a testimony to this: U.S. policy towards these countries fundamentally exacerbated their wild reactions.  To understand all this, one need only turn to the classic “schoolyard bully” paradigm, that any child can understand.