Toward A New Geopolitics

++I have been besieged by a flutter of e-mails by neoconservatives who want to revisit the Benghazi incident,warn against Syria or Wahhabism. It strikes me that some of these, which quotes Politico's article that Al Qaeda had a good year misses certain important geopolitical points that haven't appeared openly.

++As someone who advocates democracy and human rights,I have to remind myself that American national interests are seldom found solely in these areas. From a humanitarian point of view, we must respond to the crisis of Syria's refugees and internally displaced but we are no longer in a Cold War type situation or the W days of talking about regime changes anywhere. 

++While we all have been trained to think the Middle East is central to our national interest,I'm not so sure it is. President Obama has it right--the concern about the proliferation of chemical and nuclear weapons. But are we to get mired in a civil war among different forms of Islam? What sides do we choose? 

++Al Qaeda's real triumph this year was the military takeover in Egypt. They hated Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood intensely. So where will the Brotherhood go but become more radicalized. I can see a rapprochment between extremes in the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda. 

++Does the involvement in Syria represent a triumph? Or can anyone really say Hezbollah is stronger because of the Syrian civil war? Or Assad? 

++And what is the realpolitik case for any involvement in the Middle East? Preventing terrorist groups from having a capability of engaging in international acts of terror against us and our European allies. And here I would include Russia,even though it is not strictly an ally. To prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction. But the old days of the language talking about oil are gone. 

++You can see this with the Saudis' panic over America's policy. They are courting the French and funding the Lebanese military themselves. Yes, Russia still arms Assad and retains its port at Tartus. But the days of a freedom agenda are long gone. Besides, the Saudis would subvert such efforts.

++I expect these issues to come to a head this year over the Iranian nuclear pact. We will hear disinformation from all sides. There will be efforts to tie us down for even more years in the region,even get us to go to war. 

++But over what? The future dynamics in the energy field come from the Southwest Pacific and the Arctic. In terms of world economics, it is Asia and Brazil. Most of this reorientation by the Obama Administration has been done quietly and without much debate. My fear is that our own Congress may drag us back into the Middle East in a war that is counterproductive to our future national interests.

++I expect that President Obama may well approve the Keystone XL pipeline, not because it represents anything but America staking claim to the North and ensuring Canada remains on our side in any conflicts over Arctic Resources. I also would see a play at normalizing relations with Cuba as an attempt to find an opening to Venezuela and the Orinoco Basin. I may be wrong but the thrust for a new geopolitics does not lie through the Middle East. 

++Where does that leave human rights and democracy? We have enough to do in that area at home and where possible advance those ideals abroad. But there will have to be a policy of triage where we can not go off on crusades in which we are not well equipped and have lost alot of moral authority over the years. We have not regained our moral stature after the Iraq debacle and have much less authority than before.

++We need a debate over these issues. You can't keep running the same schemes and expect different results. Areas where planning is sometimes twenty-five years in advance show that our present geopolitical mindset is obsolete and untenable for the future.