Foreign Policy Matters

Far from being an expert in US foreign policy, I strongly believe this Administration not only suffers from a bipolar posture in regards to foreign policy making; but their faith-based dogmatic practices have clearly polluted the reflective mirror that gives shape to our foreign policy. It seems obvious that under this Administration the faith-based factor has come to play a critical role in the decisions influencing our foreign affairs. The time has come for the US to redesign their ideological thinking in regards to Middle East foreign policy.

You see for many years the U.S. has taken pride, or better yet, a misplaced gratification in being a rational, secular and unequivocal world leader in global affairs. Unfortunately, this is a pretense we can no longer export, let alone demand. It is true, the world has changed since 9/11 or at least some aspects of our tenure as the dominant world power have changed, but as dogmatic as many members of this Administration are when it comes to the tactical aspects of Middle Eastern political affairs, the urgent need to reestablish a coherent ideological criterion for dealing with the Middle East under a long term commitment instead of short term undertakings should not be considered an extra-curricular activity.

Since the start of the war on terror, our foreign policy has been the target of outspoken global criticism from incoherent and argumentatively short-sided to ineffective and contradictive. Even our position in the UN Security Council is sometimes counterproductive when Russia and China play the balancing act in many Mid East conflict negotiations. By refusing to establish a more accessible line of communication with Iran, and with the rest of the fundamentalist governments, which is long overdue and ultimately in our best interest, this Administration is single handedly diminishing the diplomatic strength and reputation of US and the important role it can play in the political world stage.

This diplomatic influence has already suffered many drawbacks. Under this Administration, the U.S. has been guilty of violating more international laws than our European counterparts fighting the war on terror. According to some observers - violations that have occurred at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and Afghanistan, including the Eastern European countries acting as hosts for the CIA covert internment system that detains and possibly tortures terrorist suspects - we have overstepped the boundaries of the rule of law.

Three years after the U.S. invasion nobody raises the concern anymore that this might well be an illegal occupation under the tenets of international law as defined in the UN Charter. I can see now how Saddam might have been right about us, at least on legal grounds. Not only have we been accused of torture, unfair imprisonment and disrupting civil liberties under many international statutes including the UN Convention Against Torture, the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights, and the UN Declaration of Human Rights; but what is more alarming is our reticence in admitting that as the number one world power, we continue to send mixed signals in regards to our actions and strategic interests only to naively expect that the Islamic states in the region follow our own failed guiding principles. Who are we fooling with our morality-heavy, faith-based policy making which has taken us deeper into a regional conflict that started as a game of parlor of political gains and has transcended into a conflict of political and ideological consequences?

Today many concerned Americans are struggling to understand the enormous price we are paying in lives, prosperity and national security in addition to our diminished diplomatic strength in the world community and the waves of resentment it has provoked even among our allies. The real consequence of our ignorant and misguided actions is the escalation of regional political unrest in an area plagued with religious and nationalistic sentiments that we are far from comprehending, unless we find a viable and realistic, long-term approach to Mid East foreign policy. Even more astounding is the direction our unilateral actions and extremist policies are taking us regarding the war on terror as evident in our negligence of multilateral commitments. Again, when it comes to foreign policy this Administration suffers from acute bipolarity and conflicting political principles. Let’s at least recognize that the cultural and religious framework we find ourselves in when it comes to the war on terror desperately needs rethinking.