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The Eisenhower exchange, part 3: Should America pick sides in the Middle East?

[additional-authors]
December 7, 2016

” target=”_blank”>Ike’s Gamble: America’s Rise to Dominance in the Middle East (Free Press, 2016). Parts 1 and 2 can be found ” target=”_blank”>here.

***

Dear Professor Doran,

I’d like to start once again with words from your previous answer:

Egypt beguiled Eisenhower and Iran beguiled Obama. Unlike Ike, however, Obama never wised up. As a consequence, America’s friends do not trust her, and her enemies do not fear her. When making policy toward the Middle East, a president should recite often the simple motto of the First Marine Division of the Marine Corps: “No better friend, no worse enemy.” This is the greatest lesson that Eisenhower can teach future American presidents.

Now, it seems that the story of Nasser and Eisenhower could be read very differently and lead to a very different conclusion: One could make the case that Eisenhower trusted Nasser too much and that the real problem was precisely that America saw him as “a friend” and gave him everything he wanted while keeping its guard down. According to this reading, one could come out with an almost opposite message from yours, something along the lines of “there are no friends in the Middle East – trust no one, be careful and calculated, and do what's best for US interests.”

Why does America need to choose sides and be a “best friend” or a “worst enemy” to anyone in the region? When an American President doesn’t trust an Israeli PM, an Egyptian President, or a Saudi King, why does he need to worry about earning their trust?

I’d like to thank you again for this exchange,

Shmuel

***

Dear Shmuel,

Your reading of the Nasser story echoes a pervasive refrain one hears these days. “There are no good guys in the Middle East,” say Americans who've lost patience with this region. If there are no good guys, then why pick sides at all?

Because we have no good alternative. The United States has vital interests in the region: ensuring the stable flow of oil at reasonable prices, protecting Israel, combatting terrorism and preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, to name just four. We cannot safeguard those interests alone.

From the days of Eisenhower, therefore, the United States has been the leading member of a Middle Eastern coalition. A quarrelsome bunch, the coalition’s members fight with each other and frequently pursue policies that give Washington massive headaches. Nevertheless, they all share one thing in common: a willingness to accept American hegemony.

Not all Middle Eastern states share this willingness. At any given moment since the 1950s, an anti-status quo power has challenged American pre-eminence. In the 1950s, it was Nasser's Egypt that played that role. Today it is Iran. Because Iran seeks nothing less than to create an alternative regional order, appeasement of it will not work.

President Obama, however, failed to recognize the full scope of Iran’s aspirations. Iran has pocketed every concession that America has offered and then demanded more. The demands will end only when they are answered with steel. But who will provide the steel, and at what cost? Wouldn’t it be more prudent to build up a regional coalition capable of playing a major role, perhaps even the dominant role, in pushing back against Iran? The technical term for such an approach is “extended deterrence,” and it is one of the most basic tools in a great power’s toolkit.

In undermining America’s extended deterrence, Obama convinced himself that he was saving the United States from another costly intervention. In fact, he was making intervention more likely and, if it indeed comes, more costly.

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