Questioning America's involvement abroad

It does not take much to look at the fraying situation in Iraq, the cesspool that is the Syrian Civil War and Vladimir Putin’s Ukrainian puppet show and conclude that it is just too much.

It seems to be the time to cut our losses and “avoid recommit(ting) to the same mistakes” of the past, in the words of Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.

It would be foolish of me to disagree. Public opinion is clearly in Sen. Paul’s
favor, while President Obama searches for a way to appear resolute without
actually committing military resources.

On the part of the President, these token gestures just make him look hesitant. Of course, in the delicate world of international diplomacy, one cannot so easily and simply state intentions as in the Senate.

But because of policy flip-flops from the administration and half-hearted
answers to pleas for help from potential allies, we’ve caused struggling nations to look to our geopolitical rivals for aid.

America’s failure to help push Bashar Al-Assad past the breaking point has sent Syrian rebels scurrying to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar for arms and ammunition and has energized Islamic extremism within that movement.

The ever-deteriorating situation in Iraq has driven Iraqi prime minister Nouri Al-Maliki to ask Iran for assistance.

Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko still fights to regain control of his country after tanks appeared in the hands of pro-Russian militants.

Are these days the final ones for the supposed warmongers and blubbering idiots like Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.? Is it time for neoconservatives to shut up and finally become deader than disco?

I would contend not.

The nature of politics is cyclical, and Americans’ attitudes towards the world around us shift constantly.

We were steadfastly isolationist in the 1930s to become interventionist during the Cold War, only to move away in the 1990s to reenter in the 2000s.

Some figures in the Obama Administration have this view, chief among them Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power who argues for intervention on
humanitarian grounds.

Unless we are content to plug our ears, shout “la la la” at the top of our lungs and coldly watch the Balkanization of the Middle East, the United States will continue to be involved, either militarily or geopolitically.

The world is continuing to work out its conflicts and disagreements, sometimes through force and sometimes by negotiation.

Is it too much to hope that the U.S. can play a positive role in world affairs as the sole global superpower? I do not believe so at all.

mjsu@indiana.edu