It looks obvious

Last week the Congress passed a non-binding resolution that acknowledge the Armenian genocide committed by Turkey during WWI. The decision angered the Turks and added stress to a complicated situation in the northern border of Iraq. Not surprisingly the decision widely criticized  and was described as irresponsible and motivated by partisan calculations. The administration’s criticism is probably right - it motive behind the, long due and justified, recognition of this genocide was not motivated by the sudden realization of the injustice made to the Armenian people but because of the coming elections. Furthermore the decision clearly made the explosive situation in the Iraqi arena more complicated.

But I have to wonder if anyone in the administration, while being busy forming alliances and trying to navigate between all the factions and different interests, stop to ask himself if a strategy that make one choose between moral calling and interest is the right strategy? or maybe a foreign policy that make you choose to ignore a nation’s genocide isn’t going to help bringing democracy to the Middle-East rather than made you sunk in the swamp of long history of intrigues and feuds?

One might argue that those who in support of higher level of non-intervention, and the examination of the concept that being an active superpower serve the American interest, are somewhat naive. However, the fact is that when the US managed to stay uninvolved it achieved much more. Short examination of Eisenhower presidency - his ability to calm the cold war, the get out from the disaster in Korea and to stay out of the swamps of Vietnam, or Nixon and Kissinger’s strategy in the Middle-East - when they cornered the soviet union into active involvement and remain the only superpower that can arbitrate between the different sides - was anything but naive.

The sad story is that when those who praise abstaining from direct involvement are regarded as naive and old fashion the stage is left for the knights of Realpolitik. And those simple minded strategist prove once again that they learn nothing from the Vietnam fiasco. The geniuses who charged in harsh into Iraq full of hope that once American tanks will appear the Middle East will turn into the Mid-West and the region will flourish under liberal regimes and everlasting Pax Americana.

But instead of changing the Middle East the geniuses had to form alliances and cooperate with the same people they were suppose to fight. And now, few years after we vowed to defeat terror, we learn that terror is only bad when aimed at us or our allies:

The guerrillas from the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan, or P.J.A.K., have been waging a deadly insurgency in Iran and they are an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known as the P.K.K., the Kurdish guerrillas who fight Turkey.

Like the P.K.K., the Iranian Kurds control much of the craggy, boulder-strewn frontier and routinely ambush patrols on the other side. But while the Americans call the P.K.K. terrorists, guerrilla commanders say P.J.A.K. has had “direct or indirect discussions” with American officials. They would not divulge any details of the discussions or the level of the officials involved, but they noted that the group’s leader, Rahman Haj-Ahmadi, visited Washington last summer.

Sadly this is not going to change in January 2009. It might be worse if it will be Guiliani with his simplistic doctrine,  and dangerously nuts advising team, or somewhat more sophisticated would Clinton be the President. The premise is the same - deeply involve in places we better not be in. We should apply very simple rule - when the moral calling contradicts our perceived interests - we should check our interests. 

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