A Middle East That Didn’t Exist
Ostensibly about foreign policy, the two men and their questioner, the usually savvier Jim Lehrer, spent more than 90 minutes blind-spotting over the hardest questions and terrains of the Middle East. If the perspective on the world is as narrow and, one has to assume from their omissions, as ignorant as the two men projected, neither the Middle East nor the United States stand to make much progress toward peace or understanding over the next four years.
The Palestinian-Israeli conflict was never mentioned. Not even alluded to. It’s the first time that’s happened since the two 1992 Clinton-Bush-Perot debates, when Arab-Israeli matters were also ignored. The Taliban’s resurgence in Afghanistan was alluded to, but not its control of western Pakistan (Mullah Omar, who was Afghanistan’s Taliban leader before being toppled in the American-led invasion of 2001, is believed to be living in Balochistan, the largest of Pakistan’s four provinces), nor al-Qaeda’s control of the Waziristan area of Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
McCain’s Place-Dropping
John McCain in particular, allegedly a foreign policy maven, came across as a bumbling, incapable name-dropper who couldn’t pronounce the name of Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, got the name of Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari wrong (recalling George W. Bush’s inability to name Zradari’s predecessor, Pervez Mushartraf, in November 1999). McCain’s glib and infantile claim that he had “visited Waziristan,” a claim he’s been making since his campaigning days in Iowa, underscored the foolishness of the very air of certainty and knowledge McCain was trying to impress on what turned out to be less than 57 million viewers.
Misunderstanding Pakistan
McCain went on, sounding more Palin than McCain on this one: “I don’t think that Senator Obama understands that there was a failed state in Pakistan when Musharraf came to power. Everybody who was around then, and had been there, and knew about it knew that it was a failed state.” Well, yes, senator, but do you know why it was a failed state? Why the Pakistani economy was crumbling?
Because in May 1998 the Pakistani government, in its idiotic nuclear race with India, detonated five nuclear bombs in a test, becoming the first Islamic nation to own The Bomb but also triggering severe economic sanctions from the world community, including, from the Clinton administration, restrictions on bank loans credits and guarantees and military sales. Is McCain suggesting the sanctions weren’t wise?
Telling Omissions
Details, to be sure. But telling details, mostly for their omissions. It wasn’t just the big subjects the two candidates failed to address, but the fine print in the subjects that they did address. That’s not to say that they didn’t necessarily know their stuff. But the debate was (or should have been) designed to showcase not just their knowledge, but the priorities they project for America’s foreign policy. Those priorities are (or should be) overwhelmingly focused on the Middle East, where the American military and the Treasury’s budget are disproportionately focused, and where other nation’s political and social developments will ensure that American isolationism is not an option.
For all that, the candidates gave few hints that they have their priorities straight. No wonder nations like Israel and Syria are using nations like Turkey as mediators for a possible peace deal. No wonder Turkey and Armenia didn’t even consult with the United States before deciding to give friendship a try. No wonder Lebanon resolved its constitutional crisis over the choosing of a new president not by turning to Washington for help, but to Qatar’s emir. And no wonder Pakistan continues to drift toward real failure while American policy clings to such fallacies as Musharraf’s false benefits of the last eight years.
