At this point in his career it may be that Chistopher Hitchens just wants to take shots at Democrats, and that might explain his grossly unfair take on the White House’s performance on Egypt, Libya, and the democratic wave in the Middle East in general. He comes out swinging, acknowledging that the president is a Christian and Hawai’ian born, but wondering if he might actually be Swiss.
After asserting that dictators in the Arab world know that their reign is over when the Swiss close their bank accounts, he accuses the Obama administration of overcaution and timidity.
A Middle Eastern despot now knows for sure when his time in power is well and truly up. He knows it when his bankers in Zurich or Geneva cease accepting his transfers and responding to his confidential communications and instead begin the process of “freezing” his assets and disclosing their extent and their whereabouts to investigators in his long-exploited country. And, at precisely that moment, the U.S. government also announces that it no longer recognizes the said depositor as the duly constituted head of state…
…The Obama administration also behaves as if the weight of the United States in world affairs is approximately the same as that of Switzerland. We await developments. We urge caution, even restraint. We hope for the formation of an international consensus. And, just as there is something despicable about the way in which Swiss bankers change horses, so there is something contemptible about the way in which Washington has been affecting—and perhaps helping to bring about—American impotence. Except that, whereas at least the Swiss have the excuse of cynicism, American policy manages to be both cynical and naive.
To begin with, Hitchens has the most basic facts wrong. While it’s true that Switzerland froze the assets of Tunisia’s Ben Ali and Egypt’s Mubarak, they did so only after they stepped down. Here’s the Economic Times discussing the Swiss government’s decision to freeze Gaddafi’s assets:
In the past weeks, the Swiss government had frozen the assets of the ousted Tunisian President Ben Ali and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek, but only after they were swept out of office by the popular uprisings against their regimes.
The Swiss government’s decision to freeze Gaddafi’s bank accounts while he is still clinging to power is an unprecedented move that wouldn’t have even been legal under Swiss law prior to the reforms they passed last October. And, as press secretary Jay Carney made clear on the February 25th, the United States is also making similar efforts in what appears to be a coordinated effort with our allies.
Earlier today the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued an advisory to U.S. financial institutions to take reasonable risk-based steps with respect to the potential increased movement of assets that may be related to the situation in Libya.
During this period of uncertainty, FinCEN is reminding U.S. financial institutions of their requirement to apply enhanced scrutiny for private banking accounts held by or on behalf of senior foreign political figures, and to monitor transactions that could potentially represent misappropriated or diverted state assets, proceeds of bribery or other illegal payments, or other public corruption proceeds.
So, contra Hitchens, there has been no “precise moment” after the Swiss have acted when the U.S. has decided to ditch its support for Arab dictators. The entire premise of his article is based on a lie. But, beyond that, his article is completely unfair. Let’s look at this next bit:
For weeks, the administration dithered over Egypt and calibrated its actions to the lowest and slowest common denominators, on the grounds that it was difficult to deal with a rancid old friend and ally who had outlived his usefulness. But then it became the turn of Muammar Qaddafi—an all-round stinking nuisance and moreover a long-term enemy—and the dithering began all over again. Until Wednesday Feb. 23, when the president made a few anodyne remarks that condemned “violence” in general but failed to cite Qaddafi in particular—every important statesman and stateswoman in the world had been heard from, with the exception of Obama.
Setting aside Egypt for the moment, it’s not true that Obama waited until the 23rd to make a comment on events in Libya. On the morning of the 18th, press secretary Jay Carney met with reporters on Air Force One and shared with them a press release that expressed “deep concern” about violence in Bahrain, Libya, and Yemen, and urged all three governments to show restraint in dealing with peaceful protesters.
When the president made his remarks on February 23rd, his comments were not “anodyne.” He said that Libya had the responsibility to respect people’s human rights, to refrain from violence, and that if they did not they would “face the cost of continued violations of human rights.” He discussed efforts to coordinate a response and to have the international community speak in one voice of condemnation. In the meantime, he was working behind the scenes to get American citizens out of the country so they would not become hostages or pawns in Gaddafi’s desperate effort to cling to power. Hitchen’s has nothing but contempt for this effort to protect our citizens and deny Gaddafi a potential gambit.
Evidently a little sensitive to the related charges of being a) taken yet again completely by surprise, b) apparently without a policy of its own, and c) morally neuter, the Obama administration contrived to come up with an argument that maximized every form of feebleness. Were we to have taken a more robust or discernible position, it was argued, our diplomatic staff in Libya might have been endangered. In other words, we decided to behave as if they were already hostages! The governments of much less powerful nations, many with large expatriate populations as well as embassies in Libya, had already condemned Qaddafi’s criminal behavior, and the European Union had considered sanctions, but the United States (which didn’t even charter a boat for the removal of staff until Tuesday) felt obliged to act as if it were the colonel’s unwilling prisoner. I can’t immediately think of any precedent for this pathetic “doctrine,” but I can easily see what a useful precedent it sets for any future rogue regime attempting to buy time. Leave us alone—don’t even raise your voice against us—or we cannot guarantee the security of your embassy.
Who’s treating the U.S. as no more important than Switzerland now? Anyone with even a passing knowledge of Moammar Gaddafi knows that he’s defined himself for two and a half decades as the man who stood up to the U.S. Air Force and survived. He’s erected monuments to that effect. If he wants to take hostages, he’s taking American hostages. Hitchens knows that, he’s just being a dick. And one has to ask, “what’s the hurry?” Are we in such a rush to save Libyan dissenters that we disregard the safety of our own citizens and embassy staff? I know we live in a 24-hour news cycle these days, but this is a ridiculous demand.
Finally, it’s quite clear that Hitchens thinks we should be invading Libya by air and sea.
The United States, with or without allies, has unchallengeable power in the air and on the adjacent waters. It can produce great air lifts and sea lifts of humanitarian and medical aid, which will soon be needed anyway along the Egyptian and Tunisian borders, and which would purchase undreamed-of goodwill. It has the chance to make up for its pointless, discredited tardiness with respect to events in Cairo and Tunis. It also has a president who has shown at least the capacity to deliver great speeches on grand themes. Instead, and in the crucial and formative days in which revolutions are decided, we have had to endure the futile squawkings of a cuckoo clock.
The White House is working less martial angles (although the Pentagon is working on contingencies). But this is what I’ve been complaining about for several days. Why does Hitchens and so many other people think it is our responsibility to protect the people of Libya? I mean, we have a responsibility in a collective sense, which is the same sense in which the Swiss have a responsibility. But why are we supposed to be flying the planes? Why does everyone look to us? Where’s Obama? Where’s the U.S.?
This is an armed insurrection, not a peaceful protest in Tahrir Square. Do we even know who we want to win?
It seems to me that the president should be given credit for his willingness to put human rights on a higher plane than our short-term self-interest in sticking with brutish allies for the sake of stability and lucre. Hitchens used to be a champion of the dispossessed and politically oppressed. Now he just wants us to blow shit up before the weekend. He’s only one drunken blow-hard, but he speaks for a lot of people both in this country and abroad.
It’s always our job. It’s always our fault.