President Trump recently made waves by announcing a military pullout from Syria and a tentative pullout from Afghanistan. The announcement caught his advisors by surprise, prompting the resignation of General Mattis. Loud disagreement followed, as well as some civil debate about Trump’s decision. Adherents to the (at least) four schools of thought of foreign policy talked past each other, and the news cycle moved onto something else.
I’m here to tell you, every reputable expert is wrong. Let’s start with the isolationists.
Isolationists
Mr. Trump seems to adhere to this worldview; retreat from foreign entanglements, just gets the troops out there and let someone else deal with the problem. Our blood and treasure should not be spent on foreign ‘adventures’.
This sounds terrific, but it only delays. It is not a lasting solution. When Barack Obama withdrew from Iraq, ISIS came close to conquering Baghdad. Starting with a group of fewer than a hundred defeated jihadis, ISIS created a de facto state. The Taliban had a state until we toppled them. They will likely get it back if we withdraw. Victories in Syria and Afghanistan would be an enormous boon to the worldwide jihad movement.
Realists
The “Realist” school has been the dominant school of foreign policy when it comes to dealing with the Islamic world. We deal with nations and rulers as they are, on the basis of mutual benefit. They may not be our friends, but we are open to making deals.
Problem here being, this school of thought failed. The “deals” have been destructive to the West, and are always open to revision. Our rulers talk to their rulers, to their mutual benefit. (That’s how the massive Muslim immigration to Europe ‘happened’—a deal.) We gave one concession after another, and in the end, we got the murderous fanatics anyway.
Neocons
Conservative idealists believed that the best solution was to remake the Middle East, if not exactly in our image, into a better image of itself. They got their chance with the George W. Bush administration—and failed spectacularly.
There are three strong forces in the Islamic world; Islam, modernity and tribalism. Modernity is not strong enough to there, so the only force left to oppose Islamic fanatics is tribalism. And tribalism comes with its own set of problems, starting with, well, tribes. Endemic corruption and lack of cohesion plague tribe-based societies. Islamic fanatics have dedication and cohesion on their side.
Anti-Colonialists
This is the dominant school of thought of the American and European Left. In short, it is our fault for robbing and exploiting “them”, and it is imperative we seek “their” forgiveness. This is why Barack Obama engaged in his apology tour at the start of his presidency; he genuinely thought we owed the Muslim world an apology. This is also why the international Left opposes Israel—Israel is an affront to the Muslim world, a colonist state, a European transplant, etc. They are right and we are wrong, and we must make concessions to earn their forgiveness.
Both grotesque and historically wrong, anti-Colonialism unsurprisingly fails. Worldwide jihadism accelerated under Obama. We have already mentioned ISIS, but that is not all. Obama’s approach resulted in one failure after another, most spectacularly in sub-Saharan Africa. (Say, how about those kidnapped and enslaved Nigerian girls). Groveling won’t lead to peace.
I have no solution either. As a society, we don’t have a solution to this problem. We only have uneasy trade-offs. We are dealing with a movement that has used violence and coercion to spread itself for over 1,400 years. I expect the problem will persist long after we are gone.
