For months the American government has averted its gaze to the nefarious activity of the Iranian government. As the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism, one might assume our national policy would be designed to counter this Iranian threat. In fact, it is no longer accurate to describe the war in Syria as conflict between Assad’s regime forces and the rebels. It is a war directed and fought by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah with Assad playing a secondary role.
However, now that the Iranians have engaged in negotiations over their uranium enrichment program and, more significantly, have agreed to deploy their military force against ISIL, a declared enemy of the U.S., the Obama administration position has softened.
This isn’t surprising. President Obama said he would “reset” the American relationship with Russia, despite Russian aggression in Georgia and the Ukraine. In fact, notwithstanding the incontrovertible evidence that Russian missiles destroyed a commercial Malaysian airplane, the U.S. issued an immediate diplomatic but formal condemnation and then virtually ignored this matter afterward.
Now we have the starting spectacle of the U.S. agreeing to diplomatic ties with Cuba. Aside from returning Alan Gross, who was imprisoned in Cuba for the last five years for his activity as an aid worker, there hasn’t been the slightest shift in the totalitarian practices of the Castro led government. In fact, the willingness of the White House to return three Cuban agents jailed in the U.S., exemplifies the curious action of the Obama administration. The policy shift falls short of lifting the 54 year U.S. embargo against Cuba, but based on what we know about the negotiations, it is only a question of time before that occurs as well.
Surely this arrangement will boost the Cuban economy and the standing of the Castro brothers; what it gains for the U.S. is unclear. This is obviously another step in the Obama effort to recalibrate American foreign policy. For many of his detractors, this is another pathway on the road of appeasement. And as many have already suggested, this agreement invites further belligerence against Cuba’s opposition movement. It will certainly embolden the Castro regime to trample on individual rights and disregard democratic principles.
For President Obama the decision is consistent with his desire to empathize, if not sympathize, with U.S. enemies. Presumably, if we understand the motives of our foes, reduce the pressure we have imposed on them and remove the sanctions, their hostile action vis-à-vis the U.S. would moderate. Of course, there is virtually no empirical basis for this set of assumptions. In fact, the accommodative stance of the U.S. is usually seen as weakness. But after all, this is presumably a new chapter in our history led by a man who is intent on change here and abroad.
For Iranians who fled the terror of the Ayatollahs to arrive in the land of the free; for the Russians who have sought sanctuary in Brighton Beach, New York from the fear imposed by KGB operatives and their successors in Putin’s garrisons and for Cubans who sacrificed life and limb to flee from Castro’s oppression, Obama’s strategic overtures look like preemptive surrender, a curious fatigue in defense of freedom and liberation.
Herbert London is President of the London Center for Policy Research, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author of the book The Transformational Decade (University Press of America). You can read all of Herb London’s commentaries atwww.londoncenter.org
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