By Patricia H. Kushlis
In a December 30 Newshour interview with Judy Woodruff, a group of five wavering Iowa Republicans described who they intended to support in the January 3, 2012 caucuses and why. The whys ranged from thoughtful to questionable despite the fact the individuals had been carefully chosen by respected but unidentified educational and civic groups as articulate and informed Americans and also despite the fact that our news media has assured us that Iowans are better educated and more politically savvy than voters living in most other states.
Woodward was careful to pose the most objective questions she possibly could. She did not attempt to correct factual errors even though she must have known when she heard them. The Newshour should, however, have run a follow-up Snopes Fact Check because without it, viewers could have all too likely passed on fiction as fact – in a kind of 21st century game of telephone - or simply think a Newshour senior staffer had problems herself making the distinctions.
One of the more mistaken – but unsurprising - comments I heard from this focus group was that one of two reasons an interviewee supported a Republican candidate in 2012 was that America’s image abroad was poor. Here’s the quote: “And I think, also, our world standing has declined.”
Declined from when? Who was responsible?
Therefore, I suppose, blame it on Obama and the Democrats although she didn’t make that inference herself and she didn’t say when it had declined. This, in itself, is a dubious observation for a Republican to make because, well, our most recent Republican president, George W. Bush’s foreign policy mistakes sent this country’s international favorability ratings into the cellar. But furthermore, and this is where a Snopes Fact Check should have come in, some of those international favorability ratings have recovered remarkably since Obama became president in 2009.
From the nadir of the Bush presidency post Iraq invasion in 2003 to his departure from the White House January 20, 2009, Ms. Nawsike would have been right – with a few notable exceptions where George W. Bush’s administration was liked – as in Sub Saharan Africa where US aid continued at about the same levels as under Clinton and has continued to flow under Obama and where a war against terror, aka Islam, didn’t matter because most people are not Muslims.
In 2009, however, with the change in US administrations, the US favorability ratings rose dramatically throughout almost all of Europe and much of Asia especially in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation, where Obama spent several years as a child with his anthropologist mother.
The ratings even spiked somewhat in the Muslim world as a result of his decision to send “the war on terror” packing and his acclaimed speeches in Istanbul and Cairo - although the numbers have declined somewhat since then. Even in Turkey and Egypt, the US is not seen quite as negatively as during the Bush 43 administration by as much as 15 percentage points.
What then are the major image problems for the US that recent polls have identified in Muslim majority countries?
- First, the lack of progress in settling the Israel-Palestine conflict. (Note: this is most visibly manifested in the US government’s support for the right wing “greater Israel” policies of the Netanyahu government); and
- Second, the continuation of the US military presence in the Middle East. This principally means Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Whether the US troop withdrawal from Iraq on December 30 and the draw-down in Afghanistan will make a difference is too soon to tell - but it could.
Listening to the jingoistic rhetoric coming from most Republican candidates, the answer seems to be even more militarism. There is only one - namely Ron Paul - whose foreign policy proposals would address the two most contentious issues differently.
Paul, who represents the old isolationist wing of the party, would pull all US troops out of the Middle East, Asia and as far as I can tell elsewhere as well as let Israel fend for itself. It's unclear to me how he would use diplomacy - if at all. Who knows, maybe he'd close our Embassies abroad and dispense with America's diplomats as well.
Just two problems with Paul's approach: 1) he apparently intends to throw the baby out with the bathwater, pull up the drawbridges and return the country to a distant, if not fairytale foreign policy past; and 2) its unclear how he would deal with an irate and highly influential AIPAC - by far the most significant foreign policy lobby in the country which would not take kindly to America's "abandonment" of Israel.
All the other candidates would – they tell us – implement an even more muscular US foreign policy than we have now with, perhaps the exception of Huntsman – the only one with real, on the ground, foreign policy experience and actually knows of what he speaks at least with respect to Asia - China in particular.
In the days since Woodruff's interview, a Newshour focus group interview by Gwen Ifill of five undecided New Hampshire Republican primary voters on January 6 suggests to me that 1) the individuals chosen had a better grasp of US politics and a more realistic view of America’s role in the world than their Iowa cousins – Snopes not needed; and 2) that Ron Paul’s anti-interventionist platform continues to play well with returning Iraq war veterans.
Yes, Matilda, sometimes personal experience does make a difference.
Could the rah-rah militaristic jingoism of the Bush years be waning among American youth? Texas Governor Rick Perry whose swan song will surely come after his defeat in the South Carolina primary has been its loudest proponent. If so, this could represent a sea change in how the US behaves in the world.
Then there’s Jon Huntsman’s comment on Sunday Morning’s Republican presidential candidate debate on Meet the Press: "I was criticized by Mitt Romney for putting my country first." When Romney countered that it would have been preferable had Huntsman stood for people with conservative principles and not called President Obama "a remarkable leader", Huntsman fired back, "The nation is divided by attitudes like that."
A return of civility? Don't count on it
No I don’t expect civility to return to American politics if, indeed it ever really existed. Romney’s not-so-secret PAC’s negative advertising in Iowa against Newt Gingrich did pay off. Gingrich’s support plummeted and Romney supposedly won the Caucuses by 8 votes. The shoot-out at the Republican corral, therefore, will continue until, at least, Romney’s immense War Chest has either bought him his party's nomination - or not.