A Clash of Paradigms

With Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's appearance on Capitol Hill this week, the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, Libya and the killing of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stephens is, hopefully, more or less behind us. Eugene Robinson has an interesting analysis of Clinton's testimony and Republican--wrong-headed, according to Robinson--fixation on the administration's response to the events in the following weeks.

He makes the point that Congress is so focused on the tragic and still-unclear events of September 11 (2012), that they are overlooking larger, more nefarious developments in North Africa. These involve the decimation of Al-Qaeda and subsequent fragmentation and realignmentof sympathetic groups in the Arabian Peninsula and the Islamic Maghreb.

I think Robinson is mostly right. It seems though, that while conservatives were and are (rightly) concerned that the Obama administration would cover up or spin information surrounding the Benghazi attacks so close to an election, what is really at play here is a deeper indignation at the administration's apparent refusal to place the tragedy within the dominant "war on terror" narrative that dominates the public discussion of foreign policy today (certainly when we talk about the Middle East and North Africa).

Though as the administration has repeated, it did immediately call the 9/11 attacks an act of terror--despite the continuing state of confusion surrounding what actually happened at the time Obama made these remarks. But the president's statements and behavior in the coming weeks apparently did not carry enough vengeful fervour (U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice's comments on the Sunday talk shows later that month didn't help this cause) to satisfy those who were already calling his foreign policy "weak" or "naive."

This episode is the result of a clash of paradigms, whereby (largely, but not only) conservative groups have displayed a real frustration with the Obama administration for its caution and hesitation to see the signs of insecurity in the weeks leading up to the killings, and in labelling the day's events as clearly terrorist in nature. The conservative paradigm--I imagine they would fancy themselves more "realist"--is a more bird's-eye approach to understanding the churning forces in the world. Hence, their long-running criticism of Obama's supposed lack of a grand strategy for foreign policy.

On the other hand, the administration has repeatedly shown a willingness to approach foreign policy issues (and crises) on a case-by-case basis. This approach, I think, is more helpful in understanding the issues affecting U.S. interests in the region. The knee-jerk, war-on-terror posture just doesn't have much to offer in understanding, much less dealing with, the Arab uprisings or the situation in Mali, for example. That's not to say a grand strategy would have to adopt the neoconservative approach, just that this is the dominant paradigm, currently. The other major difference between the approaches involves leadership. Having a grand strategy purportedly allows the U.S. to influence or lead (from the front!) events around the world, while the Obama approach is more reactive in nature.

This may (or may not) be a radically new Arab world we're dealing with, and the reigning paradigm simply may not be useful in understanding it, if it ever was. Without getting too much in the weeds on the destruction wrought by our Cold War grand strategy, I argue that Obama's approach (as much the result of a preference for domestic issues than anything) is better suited to a world in which the American ability to project power is more limited than it has been in generations, particularly coming on the heels of military misadventure, economic crisis, Arab upheaval, and the (relative) decline of U.S. power.