Well, one thing you can say for David Broder’s latest column is that at least he realizes that navigating the crisis in Egypt is beyond his pay grade. The problem is that he falsely assumes that it is beyond anyone’s pay grade. This is the kind of stuff we elect and pay our presidents to figure out and execute. If they screw it up, then they probably came up with the wrong answers. No, we can’t control everything, but knowing that is part of coming up with a proper strategy, not an excuse that removes any responsibility for taking tough decisions.
There is a feeling that is quite prevalent on the left, and which I sometimes feel quite strongly myself, that most of our problems in the world are the result of too much action, not too little. We could examine the ways in which this is true, and one can certainly construct a very robust critique of U.S. foreign policy along these lines. Yet, the truth is we cannot shrug off our position in the world. To understand our position, all you had to do was watch last week’s joint press conference between President Obama and Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Here was the first question out of the box.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: All right, we’ve got time for a couple of questions. I’m going to start with Alister Bull.
Q Thank you very much, Mr. President. Is it conceivable to you that a genuine process of democratic reform can begin in Egypt while President Mubarak remains in power, or do you think his stepping aside is needed for reform even to begin?
And to Prime Minister Harper, on the energy issue, did you discuss Canada’s role as a secure source of oil for the United States, and in particular, did you receive any assurances the U.S. administration looks favorably on TransCanada’s proposed Keystone Pipeline to the Gulf Coast? Thank you.
What’s striking is that Harper’s opinion on Egypt was not solicited.
The next (Canadian) reporter also asked Harper about the proposed pipeline, and about privacy and sovereignty issues related to open borders and a more integrated economy. As an afterthought, he did ask Harper his opinion on Mubarak. His response? “On the question of Egypt, let me just agree fully with what President Obama has said.”
He went on to echo points Obama had already made.
In reality, we are the country who brokered a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt. We’re the ones give those two countries billions of dollars in aid annually. We are the ones who are in the center of negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians. And, if a future Egyptian government is going to honor not only the commitments made at Camp David thirty-two years ago, but countless ongoing bilateral relations with our country, we’re the only ones who can facilitate that. We have leverage that Canada does not. We can choose to use that leverage, or not to use it, but we do have it.
And, that is both the problem with U.S. foreign policy and the reason why the world looks to us in many situations to take a leadership role. While we frequently get burned by our own hubris, our real error isn’t so much that we have a leadership role, but that we are too selfish, too inconsistent in applying our highest values, and sometimes, just too fearful to make good policy. In the present case, excessive fear of the Muslim Brotherhood is exactly the kind of brain malady that can lead us to make bad decisions.
We can see our leadership vacillating between what they know is right, and other stances that are more cautious and clearly based on fear. It’s not that we have no control over what happens in Egypt. We have tremendous control…too much control. The right answer is probably to relinquish some of that control. Ride the horse with a loose grip of the reins. Accept that there is a wider breadth of acceptable outcomes than the fearful would have us believe. Let events proceed on Egyptian lines, guided by little more than some basic outlines based, obviously, on our willingness to continue our generous aid package and bilateral arrangements.
I envy the Canadians that they don’t have these responsibilities, or the blowback that comes as a consequence. But, I don’t think things should be this way. America shouldn’t be in the position of guiding the fate of nations. Not like this. Our allies should bear more of the burden. And, at the same time, they should have more say so. Reporters should be just as interested in what the Canadian prime minister thinks as what the president of the United States thinks.
As for David Broder, if he thinks the United States can be understood by reference to the Chicago Cubs, he’s a defeatist. And his writing is getting more incoherent every day.
