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unhappycamper

(60,364 posts)
Tue Jun 24, 2014, 06:54 AM Jun 2014

Iraq and the emerging regional disorder

http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-02-240614.html



Iraq and the emerging regional disorder
By Zorawar Daulet Singh
Jun 24, '14

US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel last week expressed a truism when he remarked, "recent crises in Iraq and Ukraine remind us all how quickly things can change in the world, and not for the better."

Since 1980, the Carter Doctrine (America reserves the right to use force to defend its interests in West Asia) has been the dominant image of the regional security system. The US took West Asia into its sphere of influence, and, Washington could be relied upon to ensure a modicum of geopolitical leadership. After all, this was the implicit contract between America and the world. The US would supply public goods via geopolitical stability and receive the consent of regional and global stakeholders to a US-led regional order. Yet the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the impasse with Iran, NATO's strike on Libya, the Syrian civil war, strengthening of radical Islam in Egypt, and Turkey's drift away from its secular moorings collectively suggest that the US can no longer credibly present itself as a regional security provider.

If there is one stark contradiction in US foreign policy it is this: A relative power decline and the weakening of the domestic base for a superpower role suggest that America would seek to craft a new role, one consistent with its means and body politic. A recent Bloomberg poll showed that 58% of the Americans surveyed felt the US was in decline as a world leader. Yet, a parallel self-image of an exceptional America as a "city upon a hill" seems to be the persistent default mantra for any mainstream policymaker. Obama's West Point speech in May exemplified this: "I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being", even as he wisely argued against the overuse of the American military "hammer". But then also insisting, "America must always lead on the world stage. If we don't, no one else will."

The dichotomy between the declining capacity and strong will to sustain an exceptional role, and, the persistence of a discourse of exceptionalism among US elites suggests a potentially dangerous inflexion point has been reached. This is nothing short of an American identity crisis that is part of the normative and material transition to a multipolar world.
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