Rave this: if you think Obama has discraced America?

Turmoil in the Middle East looked like a gift to the presidential campaign of Mitt Romney. With unseemly eagerness, the Republican candidate unwrapped his present – blaming the Obama administration for encouraging Islamist militancy. Conservative commentators chimed in. On Fox Television, Charles Krauthammer announced: “What we are seeing on the screen is the meltdown, collapse of the Obama policy on the Muslim world.”
With an American ambassador dead and US embassies under assault, this is an easy accusation to make. But it is wrong. Rather than making things worse, the policies pursued by Barack Obama mean that the US is much better positioned to deal with the anti-American violence that has been a feature of politics in the Middle East for decades.
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The conservative critique of Mr Obama relies heavily on selective amnesia. The argument seems to be that before his election, the US was strong and respected across the Middle East. But now a weak president has returned America to its enfeebled state under Jimmy Carter, when US diplomats were taken hostage in Iran. That humiliation, the Republicans well remember, contributed mightily to Mr Carter’s 1980 election defeat.
But the “Obama is Carter” critique ignores the fact that Islamist and Arab rage against America has plagued every US president since Mr Carter – Republican and Democrat alike. In 1983, 241 American servicemen were killed when the marine barracks in Beirut were bombed (under Ronald Reagan). The first attacks on Americans launched by al-Qaeda took place during the Clinton presidency. Then came the horror of 9/11 – as well as George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq, which provoked anti-American ire across the Muslim world.
It is true that Mr Obama came to office hoping to end this dismal pattern. Mr Obama made a speech in Cairo appealing for a fresh start between the US and the Islamic world. His Republican critics claim that, in Cairo, he apologised for America – showing weakness that is now being punished by the Cairo mob. But that argument makes little sense.
The fact that mobs have attacked US embassies simply shows how easy it is to whip up rage among angry, ill-educated fundamentalists. We have seen this movie before: after the fatwa against Salman Rushdie and the publication of the Danish cartoons. In neither case did it require American “weakness” to bring protesters on to the streets. If the mob has been enraged by US foreign policy (and that may be crediting the protests with a coherence they lack), the trigger seems more likely to be the death of Osama bin Laden, or Palestine, than American weakness.
Mr Obama’s policies have not ended Islamist rage with America. But they have made it easier to contain. It is worth comparing the US position now with its situation after the invasion of Iraq. The murder of Christopher Stevens, ambassador to Libya, is reminiscent of the attack on the UN mission in Baghdad in 2003, which killed many UN diplomats. In both Benghazi and Baghdad, security was, in retrospect, far too relaxed. In both cases, al-Qaeda was probably involved. But in Iraq, there were thousands of American troops on the ground who were easy targets in the subsequent mayhem. There was also no legitimate Iraqi government to take responsibility for restoring order.
By contrast, Mr Obama’s refusal to engage US troops directly against Muammer Gaddafi means that American soldiers are not sitting targets in Libya. Even more important, it is up to Libya’s government – not an American viceroy – to restore order.
In Libya, the Obama administration allowed local rebels to lead the fight, backed by French and British air power, with the US providing vital logistical support. An anonymous Obama aide described this policy as “leading from behind” – a phrase that has drawn much Republican derision. But leading from behind is preferable to leading with your chin, which seemed to be the policy under Mr Bush.
The Libyan intervention was so successful that it rarely attracts direct Republican criticism. There is much more grumbling about Mr Obama’s response to the Egyptian revolution. Some Republicans complain that under Mr Obama, the US threw an old ally, Hosni Mubarak, “under the bus” – only to see him replaced by anti-western Islamists. But President Mubarak could only have retained power by brutally suppressing the Tahrir Square demonstrations. Does anyone seriously believe that America would be more popular and more respected in the Middle East if it had encouraged the massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators in Egypt?
In truth, the Republican party is deeply divided over the Arab spring. An isolationist wing, associated with Ron Paul, wants America to pull its troops out of the region and cut off aid. A neoconservative wing, associated with John McCain, supported Mr Mubarak’s overthrow – and now wants America to back an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities and offer military aid to the Syrian rebels. A realist wing quietly laments the fall of the Mubarak regime but is sympathetic to Mr Obama’s wariness of military action.
At times, Mr Romney has flirted with all three arguments. In the current crisis, he is simply resorting to vague charges that everything can be blamed on Mr Obama. Even as an electoral tactic, this is a questionable gambit. As an analysis of events in the Middle East, it is laughable.