Lincoln Mitchell

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This page contains links to recent blogs by Lincoln Mitchell

Tagged with: Iraq

Trump and the Return of the Foreign Policy Establishment

The Trump presidency has pushed many Democrats not so much to the right, but towards supporting the foreign policy establishment of the last half century or so. While the trauma of the Trump presidency has made any comfortable alternative seem better, it does not follow that returning to the foreign policy status quo is the best approach. There is a reason why Trump’s promises to extricate America from foreign wars and his “America First” policy, despite, and for some because of, its ugly anti-Semitic pedigree, resonated so much with the electorate. By 2016, most Americans had realized that the foreign policy establishment was no longer serving them well. Accordingly, while structures and institutions of American foreign policy need to be restored, returning to policy choices of that establishment is a questionable electoral and governing approach for any Democrat.

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Honest Talk About the Military Would Be Good for America

Honest discussions about our military, as distinct from our foreign policy, are difficult because they are so emotionally laden, but when those conversations do not occur, or are deliberately repressed by the government as Ms. Sanders has sought to do, our country is weakened. Democracy requires not just civilian control of the military, something already under stress during the Trump presidency, but a civilian culture that is never intimidated or silenced by military brass. Accordingly, frank discussions about who serves in our military and why, or what the purpose of all of these wars, conflicts and military bases make our country, and our democracy, stronger.

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Americans Still Can’t Have a Real Discussion About Foreign Policy →

The incoherence of Trump’s ideas, and his struggles to present them in a reasonably clear and informed way, also preclude what should be a meaningful discussion between the candidates. It would be valuable for the American people to hear the central arguments of the foreign policy establishment, of which there is no better representative than the Democratic nominee, challenged. However, between Trump’s inability or refusal to do anything more than speak in seemingly random superlatives, insults and promises about foreign policy, and Matt Lauer’s obsession with a political scandal about which every American has already made up their mind, we missed this opportunity yet again.

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The American People and American Interventions →

The question of whether the US should, or can, sustain a foreign policy that is increasingly out of synch with the views of the people is one that should be taken seriously in a democratic country. If the American people have no appetite for further intervention, then that should be a major consideration for any president or policy maker. If those leaders believe the policy is essential for US interests or security it is their responsibility to build public support for that policy. A failure to build that support is a failure of leadership and ultimately of democracy as well.

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Four Things You Might Not Want to Know About the Conflict in Ukraine →

Russia's invasion Ukraine has set off paroxysms of frustration, anger and incredulity in the west, not least in Washington. Some policy makers and pundits are struggling with ways to constructively address the problems raised by Russian action, others struggle to ensure that somehow President Obama is blamed for these events, and many are trying to figure out the complexity, context and background of these events. Understanding the conflict in Crimea, and the best way forward for the US, requires holding several, conflicting, and often unappealing, ideas in one's head at the same time. These are four of the most important of these ideas.

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Is Fox Even Helping the Republicans Anymore? →

This has been a difficult election season for Fox News. Among the most enduring media images of the last few days of the election are Karl Rove late on election night angrily denying that Ohio, and thus the presidency, had gone to President Obama, and Dick Morris only a few days before the election confidently predicting a Romney landslide. Morris later tried to explain away his mistake after the election by claiming he had done it to create enthusiasm among Republican voters. The incidents involving Rove and Morris, both of whom work as both commentators on Fox and political consultants to conservative clients, are obviously embarrassing for Fox, but also raise the question of whether the network has outlived its value, even to the Republican Party.

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Weak Candidates Are the Least of the Republicans' Problems →

Now that the Rick Santorum boomlet seems to be ending, Republicans can return to the real work of bemoaning the state of the presidential primary. Republican dissatisfaction with the primary, which is coming from party stalwarts such as Haley Barbour and John McCain, is presented as concern that the drawn out primary will weaken the Republican chances against Obama, but it is also, implicitly, a recognition both that Mitt Romney, despite his potential appeal to those outside of the Republican base, is a weak candidate, and that no strong conservative candidate emerged during the primary season.

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The Sum of Obama's Foreign Policy Parts

The problem the Obama administration faces, both politically and substantively, is that while it has numerous foreign policy accomplishments to which it can point, the whole to which they add up remains less than the sum of its parts. For example, while the killing of Bin Laden is something about which Americans are rightfully happy, and the conclusion of the military effort in Iraq, while almost a decade late and a few trillion dollars short, is also a good thing for the U.S., the overall impact these things have on American security, stability in South Asia or the Middle East or other related issues is less clear.

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U.S. Leaving Iraq with All Deliberate Speed

The U.S. is now planning to remove all its troops from Iraq by the end of 2011. This might mean that one of the most expensive, ill-conceived and destructive chapters in American foreign policy is now coming to a close. The decision to get out of Iraq could not have been an easy one. Fears of a growing Iranian influence in the region or the collapse of the young Iraqi state are legitimate. They are no longer, however, compelling reasons for the U.S. to remain in Iraq. If there was any guarantee, or even strong likelihood, that two, three or even five more years of U.S. involvement in Iraq would ensure that Iran’s influence would not grow in Iraq or that the Iraqi government would be stable and well-functioning, there would be a strong argument for staying in Iraq. The reality, that there is no way to know how much longer, or at what cost, the U.S. would need to stay in Iraq to achieve these goals, means that it is time to get out. More accurately, it means that it has been time to get out for a while.

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Ten Years of War in Afghanistan

In the ten years since the war started, a lot has happened to the U.S. The threat of terrorism which was on everybody’s minds when the war started, while still real, is no longer something which ordinary Americans think about every day. However, the added security we confront in our daily lives has become a permanent part of life in the U.S. The U.S. is moving towards surrendering its role as the global hegemon as the world seems more strongly than ever to be moving towards multi-polarity. The U.S. has also experienced the most severe economic downturn since the great depression with widespread unemployment threatening to change life in America for years to come. Not surprisingly, the political polarization and vitriol, which was already a source of great consternation in 2001, has gotten worse in the last decade.

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How the World Changed and Who Changed It after September 11th

It would be inaccurate to link the current American decline too directly to the events of September 11th. This would be giving Bin Laden too much credit. Had there been no attacks, it is certainly possible that the Bush administration would still have led the country into damaging and extremely costly wars, perhaps even in Iraq. It is almost certain that the Bush administration would have sought to cut taxes and found ways to spend money thus creating the debt-related problems the U.S. now faces, but this might have happened more slowly or less dramatically.

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After Gaddafi

Defining and assessing the mission in Libya has never been easy because the underlying notion that the role of NATO was to prevent a genocide from occurring cannot easily be determined to have been successful or not. Although genocide has not happened in Libya, there is no way of knowing with any certainty whether one would have happened had there not been an intervention. It is the military equivalent of proving a negative.

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Foreign Policy and Presidential Expectations

In foreign policy, however, Obama has been far less able to manage expectations. Obama has done little to dampen expectations that he needs to to make progress in bringing peace to the Middle East, peacefully remove autocrats from power in Syria, Libya and Belarus, even quicken the pace of democratization in Egypt since the resignation of former President Hosni Mubarak. Obama is also expected to resolve problems he inherited, such as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which are still going on with, at best, mixed signs of progress. These expectations are obviously stressed more by critics of the President, but it remains true that Obama is expected to achieve very broad array of foreign policy outcomes.

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The Death of Bin Laden a Definite Game Changer Maybe →

Keeping America safe from Jihadist terror remains a complex task, which may be slightly easier, particularly in the short term, without Osama bin Laden. It still requires a delicate combination of domestic security, some use of force, sincere efforts to win hearts and minds, good intelligence work and an awareness of how US actions are perceived by many outside of our country. The killing of bin Laden, while a positive development to be sure, addresses none of these things, but more significantly provides a moment for our leaders to pause, recognize this important victory and determine what direction to take the fight against terrorism.

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What Next for the U.S. in Libya

Although the situation is Libya in 2011 is quite different than that in Iraq in 2003, the way Bush went to war in Iraq still partially framed the decision and options facing the Obama administration in recent weeks. The decision to establish a no fly zone over parts of Libya may or may not have been the right thing to do, but the process for arriving at this decision is different. This time, for example, the administration secured support from key European allies in a collaborative way. Although much of the heavy military lifting will be done by the U.S., the perception that this is truly an allied effort is extremely important.

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A Grim Report on Democracy

Freedom House’s finding should not come as a surprise to anybody who even casually consumes international news. Fraudulent election in Belarus, Iraq and Afghanistan being, at best, stuck in some kind of post-conflict semi-democratic morass, and the stubborn persistency of authoritarian regimes from Pyongyang to Havana all support these findings. Democracy is frequently spoken about in waves, with the third wave beginning in southern Europe in the 1970s. For the last few years, however, democracy has been in something of a trough with few advances or breakthroughs and a paucity of hope.

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Obama and the Compromise Fallacy →

For Obama, however, compromise seems to have taken on a bigger meaning. Rather than view compromising as an important tool, but only one of many that is at his disposal, Obama has treated it as an ends, and goal, in itself. Compromise, however, is only a valuable tool if it is one of several, such as strong-arming recalcitrant legislators or building popular support for a position and is backed up by a credible threat to end negotiations, attack the other party or something else. Since taking office, Obama has seemed reluctant to view compromise this way.

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The START Treaty and Partisan Politics

For many years the notion that partisan politics ended at America’s shores contained a smattering of accuracy with a healthy overlay of propaganda. There have been too many exceptions over history for that phrase to contain more than a kernel of truth. Partisan disputes about entrance into World War II, Cold War strategy and the Vietnam War were just some of the times that the American political leadership was divided on key foreign policy questions during the time when this framework was allegedly at its strongest. Since the Vietnam War era, disputes over foreign policy from Central America to the Middle East have been a constant presence in our political life.

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Will the Election Change Obama's Foreign Policy?

The election results, however, may have an effect on American foreign policy, but this will probably not be as significant as some might think. The new Republican members of congress will focus likely continue to focus their attention on domestic issues. Moreover, many of these people have very little experience on foreign policy and know very little about it. Of course, this is true regarding domestic policy as well, but lack of experience and knowledge tends to be more of a barrier in the making of foreign policy.

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Why Obama Institutionalized the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars

The war in Afghanistan has now gone on for nine full years with no clear end, other than a self-imposed summer 2011 deadline from which the administration has been back pedaling almost since it was set, in sight. Similarly, the end-again-of combat operations in Iraq has left 50,000 American troops there with no clear indication of when they will come home. Ironically, a president whose campaign was initially made possible by substantial support from the anti-war movement, will be responsible not for ending the two wars that he inherited, but for institutionalizing them.

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