Biden’s First Foreign Policy Test Bombs
It’s Time to Rethink Our Relationship to the Rest of the World
Joe Biden promised a return to normalcy when he was elected, and it is difficult to find anything more normal than an American president using military force to send a signal to foreign adversaries.
Biden, in the tradition of nearly every man who has occupied the White House across our history, has flexed American military muscles to defend American presence overseas — to proclaim that our military has a right to be wherever we say it needs to be, regardless of whether we are welcome there or not.
The administration is painting the attacks as a defensive measure. The Associated Press quoted White House press secretary Jen Psaki saying that the air strikes on a way station in Syria used by militants with ties to Iran were ordered “to deter the risk of additional attacks over the coming weeks” against Iraqi and American forces.
On its face, the defense of American military personnel will be enough for some to support military action, but this ignores the history of our involvement in the region, and the role we played in destabilizing Iraq and Syria. The United States under President George W. Bush invaded Iraq in 2003, justifying an all-out war with knowingly false claims that Iraq possessed nuclear weapons and posed an existential threat to the United States. The fall out from that decision has been civil war and the growing radicalization of the region, with the United States maintaining a significant troop presence even in the face of opposition in Iraq and the surrounding countries.
Our presence in Iraq, a sovereign nation, at best has tacit support from some in the Iraqi government and a difficult-to-count minority of Iraqi citizens. And while the issues in play are more complex, implicating Iran, oil, foreign contractors, military weapons makers, and other regional concerns, Iraqis are not wrong to view us with suspicion.
Conservatives are fond of citing the castle doctrine in defense of the right of citizens to use firearms to repel a home invader. Homeowners has the right, under this doctrine, to use whatever means necessary to defend their home from an invader. Catholic “just war” theory follows this same logic, with nations having the right to use proportionate force to defend themselves from invasion and attack.
Supporters of the air strikes — and by extension, a foreign policy based on an American exceptionalism view of the world in which we have an inalienable right to defend our interests and not just our borders — may view us as the homeowner or the nation under attack. We’re not. We are the invaders. Uninvited guests, at best. As long as we are there, we will be seen as aggressors. As interlopers.
Rather than play these dangerous military games as if the world were a Risk board, we need to exhibit far more humility in foreign affairs. We can play a constructive role in the world, in the Middle East, but not through force. Not by imposing our will, or imposing our interests.