Extraordinary. In their columns today, the Post's gun-blazing Krauthammer and the NYT's daisy-toting Egan are both supportive of, and optimistic about, our latest ill-fated adventure in the Middle East. Not since the yellow horde poured across the 38th parallel, or the "gooks" sped a phantom torpedo at us in a little-known Asian gulf, have we seen such ideological unity (I omit 9/11's immediate patriotic harmony, since Bush Inc. threw a wrench into that almost as immediately).
Krauthammer praises the president for "effecting a workable strategy" of "containment-plus" against ISIS in Syria. Egan, though he acknowledges the "careful-what-you-wish-for peril" of our martial efforts, believes we can "pressure the Sunnis to police their own" and, in Obama's words at the U.N., thereby end the "corruption of young minds by violent ideology."
Krauthammer concedes our campaign "will take years"; Obama, he adds, must "demonstrate the steel to carry it through." Likewise, Egan knows our Middle East reengagement will consume the commander in chief "till the end of his presidency." Krauthammer says Obama is bringing to bear "the best of our available strategies"; Egan says Obama's objective is "a long shot," but it could produce "a path to a peace that may outlast him."
But--and it's a big but--in the eyes of our Sunni partners, the objective is unlikely to be a forward-looking peace.
Can they "police their own"? Absolutely. This morning the NYT takes note of the oppressive nature of each our regional allies--Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE, Jordan and Qatar--further noting that the latter, in 2012, "sentenced a poet to life in prison for reciting a verse deemed insulting to the country’s ruler." That's some Middle East playmate we have there--one straight out of the Middle Ages.
What's more, Saudi cooperation, especially, is precariously hinged on the U.S.'s utter rejection of Shiite Iran as a regional, cooperative force--and on Bashar al-Assad's ultimate destruction. Any apostasy on America's part will find the Saudis dumping us, and taking their Sunni allies along with them. We are, in effect, at the mercy of Saudi policy--not our own. And Saudi policy is entrenched in ancient Sunni-Shiite hostilities.
I am unsurprised that Krauthammer and the hawkish right can't or won't see the hoary, underlying sectarian land mines scattered before us. They have their war, and unpleasant realities only upset them--hence they avert their eyes. But that the customarily shrewd Egan and so much of the center-left have been dazzled by the unrealistic prospect of a lasting, civilized peace? Distressing.