Absence of Evidence for American Absence
Interventionists conjure the illusion of American “absence” in order to demand even more involvement
David Ignatius doesn’t know how to spell the word Caucasus, but he is very concerned that the U.S. isn’t paying more attention to the war that has broken out there between Azerbaijan and Armenia. This leads him to declare that “America is absent.” This is his evidence of absence:
A bloody war erupts between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and both sides look to Russia for a solution. Iranian militias destabilize Iraq, and the State Department prepares to close our embassy there for self-protection. China draws “red lines” to assert dominance over Taiwan, and U.S. military experts privately concede that Chinese power in the area outmatches that of the United States.
Two of his three examples show the opposite of an American absence. The tensions in Iraq are a result of the continued U.S. presence in that country. The attacks by Iraqi Shia (not Iranian) militias are a consequence of U.S. hostility towards them and Iran that escalated at the start of this year with the assassination of Soleimani and a leading member of Kata’ib Hezbollah. The threat to close down the embassy is a misguided attempt to clean up the mess that the Trump administration has made with its provocations, meddling, and “maximum pressure.” The Chinese example doesn’t support his claim, either. If Chinese power in “the area” (i.e., on China’s doorstep) exceeds that of the U.S., that is because it is far from America and very close to them. This is not because the U.S. is “absent” from East Asia, but because China has the advantage in any conflict that would be fought next door to their country.
If Armenia and Azerbaijan “look to Russia,” that does not prove overall American “absence” in the world. Why would they be looking to the U.S. in any case? It underlines that the U.S. has very little at stake in this conflict. Armenia is a formal ally of Russia, and Russia has sought unsuccessfully in the past to mediate the conflict between the two countries. Russia is in a far better position to serve as a mediator than the U.S., not least because it has relatively good relations with both parties to the conflict. I can think of nothing worse for an escalating conflict than to have the bumbling arsonist Pompeo wade into the middle of the region. Do-somethingists are very put out when the U.S. isn’t busily inserting itself in foreign conflicts, but in most cases U.S. involvement either isn’t wanted or wouldn’t do any good. The best thing that the U.S. could do in the case of the new conflict over Karabakh is to use whatever remaining influence it has with Turkey and Azerbaijan to accept a ceasefire, but that would likely involve threatening to withdraw military aid.
The most bizarre part of Ignatius’ argument concerns Iran policy. Like Ignatius, I think that the U.S. has isolated itself with its campaign to destroy the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, but this is no proof that the U.S. is “turning inward.” On the contrary, it is a sign of unilateral aggressiveness and an attempt to co-opt the U.N. for the purposes of strangling another state into submission. This is anything but “turning inward” or being “absent.” It is a very activist and destructive foreign policy that seeks to abuse America’s power to impose humiliating conditions on another country.
If the U.S. isn’t involved in every single thing that happens, that hardly proves that it has absented itself from the affairs of the world. The Trump administration hasn’t been “turning inward.” On the contrary, it has been lashing out here and there almost at random. Ignatius chooses to spin these events as proof of American “absence” because he and others in Washington take for granted that it is mainly our absence that causes problems overseas and never our presence. They fault the U.S. for not being involved in places where we have nothing at stake, and they pretend that the U.S. isn’t deeply involved when it is. This is how years of meddling in Syria could be recast as “non-intervention” and the last decade of growing entanglement in multiple Middle Eastern conflicts can be described as “retreat” and “withdrawal.” Interventionists conjure the illusion of American “absence” in order to demand even more involvement whether it has anything to do with U.S. security or not. Don’t fall for it.