Editor’s note: This commentary by retired ABC News diplomatic correspondent Barrie Dunsmore first appeared in the Barre-Montpelier Times Argus and Rutland Herald Sunday edition. All his columns can be found on his website, www.barriedunsmore.com.
[O]ne of America’s enduring myths is that in a competition between an expert and a person with sound instincts and common sense, the latter will usually prevail. This is based on a widespread belief that the expert gets paralyzed by details while the non-specialist will not be distracted by useless information and will more easily get to the core of the problem. I am not suggesting that this belief is the main reason for Donald Trump’s success, but I think it has certainly contributed to it.
I concede that there may be times when the myth may even be true. But almost never is this the case in the formulation and conduct of American foreign policy. In fact, one of the key reasons the Middle East has been such a mess for so long is because European and American leaders have historically known little or nothing about the region but persisted in interfering in its politics anyway. The British and French bear much of the responsibility for the current instability in the region by the way they divvied up the Ottoman Empire after World War I. But in recent decades the United States has made major blunders of its own. These were two of them.
In 1983, President Ronald Reagan made the fateful decision to intervene in Lebanon’s long-running civil war. The Israelis had invaded Lebanon in 1982 in an alliance with Lebanese Christians and remained in force around Beirut. The Syrians had deployed 30,000 troops, mostly in eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, and Iran had sent its revolutionary Guards Corps in support of the Shiite Muslims of the south. By this time the previously docile Shiites had formed Hezbollah (Party of God) with a strong militia that often used terrorism as a weapon.
It was into this steaming Lebanese cauldron that President Reagan introduced the U.S. Marines as the main element of a multinational force trying to impose stability – and to get Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization out of the country. But it wasn’t long before America was perceived to be on the side of the Lebanese Christians and the Israelis – against the Muslims.
On Oct. 23, 1983, the smiling driver of a Mercedes Benz truck filled with several tons of dynamite slammed his vehicle into the Marine headquarters near Beirut Airport, killing 241 American servicemen. This was the deadliest single attack on the Marines since the World War II Battle of Iwo Jima.
Jane Mayer, a top correspondent for the New Yorker, was in Beirut that day, working at the time for the Wall Street Journal. Two years ago she wrote a retrospective in the New Yorker titled “Ronald Reagan’s Benghazi” with the sub-headline, “When militants struck, Congress pointed fingers at the perpetrators, not at political rivals.”
Looking back, Reagan had made a strategic error in sending American troops into the Lebanese civil war where the U.S. had no vital interests.
She duly notes that the U.S. military command considered the Marine’s presence a non-combative “peace keeping mission.” So the vehicle gate to the headquarters was left wide open and the sentries were ordered to keep their weapons unloaded.
Mayer also reminds us that six months prior to the Marine barracks tragedy, militants had bombed the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 63 people including 17 Americans. Among the dead were seven CIA officers including the agency’s top analyst in the Middle East. She then makes her major point.
“There were more than enough opportunities to lay blame for the horrific losses at high officials’ feet. But unlike today’s Congress, congressmen did not talk of impeaching Ronald Reagan, who was then the President, nor were any subpoenas sent to cabinet members. This was true even though then, as now, the opposition party controlled the majority in the House.”
But instead of playing politics, Democratic Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill called for an investigation aimed at finding out what went wrong and why. Just two months later Congress issued a bipartisan report which found “serious errors of judgement” on the part of officers on the ground and all the way up the chain of command. It also recommended major improvements in embassy security.
Looking back, Reagan had made a strategic error in sending American troops into the Lebanese civil war where the U.S. had no vital interests. But his mistake set off no political witch hunts like the blatantly partisan Benghazi hearings which House Republicans have dragged out over four years – ostensibly because of four American deaths but in reality to damage Hillary Clinton’s presidential prospects.
President George W. Bush had very little interest in or knowledge of foreign policy prior to his election. Just days before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, President Bush still didn’t know the significance of the differences between Sunni and Shia Muslims. This is according to Iraqis who supported Saddam Hussein’s ouster but were shocked at what little the president knew of the country he was about to invade (evidently under false pretenses.)
In a sharply critical new biography of President G.W. Bush, noted historian Jean Edward Smith writes, “His decision to invade Iraq is easily the worst foreign policy decision ever made by an American President.” Among other things, it set off a civil war between pro-Saddam Sunnis and pro-Iranian Shiites, which to this day defies efforts to bring peace to Iraq. And however much Donald Trump and Republicans would have us believe that the radical Islamic terrorism of the Islamic State is the fault of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the incontrovertible evidence is that the Islamic State is a direct outgrowth of al-Qaida in Iraq – which did not exist before George W. Bush’s invasion and was firmly established well before Obama’s election.
The cautionary tale here is obvious. Donald Trump’s total ignorance of even the recent political history and geography of Europe and the Middle East – not to mention his complete lack of understanding of the use and escalating dangers of nuclear weapons, can in no way be construed as assets. On the contrary they are screaming red light warnings that as president this man would be a serious danger to this country and to the world.
