Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) appeared Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” chastising the 2012 field of Republican candidates for clinging to “isolationism.”
Senator McCain has long been a vocal proponent of American military involvement abroad. He vigorously advocated for American interventionism in the 2008 presidential election, and was soundly defeated by Barack Obama and his milder foreign policy approach.
On Sunday McCain condemned the candidates’ desire to scale back American military presence, claiming, “This is isolationism. There’s always been an isolationist strain in the Republican Party, the Pat Buchanan wing of our party. But now it seems to have moved more center stage, so to speak.”
Nothing new from such a prominent hawk, but the following statement from a CNN article really tickled me silly:
“If former President Ronald Reagan had watched the debate, McCain said, he ‘would be saying that’s not the Republican Party of the 20th century and now the 21st century. That is not the Republican Party that has been willing to stand up for freedom’ for people all over the world.”
Now, Reagan was no angel on foreign policy, but this constant invoking of Reagan as a justification for military overstretch is an absolute fabrication, a disrespect to President Reagan and his legacy.
In June 2010, Peter Beinart of Foreign Policy aptly debunked this modern Reagan myth:
“Today’s conservatives have conjured a mythic Reagan who never compromised with America’s enemies and never shrank from a fight. But the real Reagan did both those things, often. In fact, they were a big part of his success. Sure, Reagan spent boatloads — some $2.8 trillion all told — on the military. And yes, he funneled money and guns to anti-communist rebels like the Nicaraguan Contras and Afghan mujahideen, while lecturing Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down that wall. But on the ultimate test of hawkdom — the willingness to send U.S. troops into harm’s way — Reagan was no bird of prey. He launched exactly one land war, against Grenada, whose army totaled 600 men. It lasted two days. And his only air war — the 1986 bombing of Libya — was even briefer. Compare that with George H.W. Bush, who launched two midsized ground operations, in Panama (1989) and Somalia (1992), and one large war in the Persian Gulf (1991). Or with Bill Clinton, who launched three air campaigns — in Bosnia (1995), Iraq (1998), and Kosovo (1999) — each of which dwarfed Reagan’s Libya bombing in duration and intensity. Do I even need to mention George W. Bush?”
More telling are the words of Ronald Reagan himself in his memoirs, in which he reflected on his decision to station U.S. troops in Beirut in light of the tragic suicide bombing in 1983 that claimed 241 American lives.
“Perhaps we didn’t appreciate fully enough the depth of the hatred and the complexity of the problems that made the Middle East such a jungle. Perhaps the idea of a suicide car bomber committing mass murder to gain instant entry to Paradise was so foreign to our own values and consciousness that it did not create in us the concern for the marines’ safety that it should have.
In the weeks immediately after the bombing, I believe the last thing that we should do was turn tail and leave. Yet the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics forced us to rethink our policy there. If there would be some rethinking of policy before our men die, we would be a lot better off. If that policy had changed towards more of a neutral position and neutrality, those 241 marines would be alive today.”
What’s this? A thoughtful assessment of the intrinsic complexities of Middle Eastern cultural and political norms? A subtle acknowledgement of American ignorance of said norms and the potential for blowback from American actions? Heck, even a desire to be seek a more “neutral position and neutrality”!
Yes, Senator McCain, you are wrong. As is every other neoconservative or Republican that haplessly cites Reagan to convince voters that the path toward bloodshed and death is one that the GOP icon would heartily endorse. Please, step away from the limelight and let the American people dictate how we use our courageous men and women abroad.
Photo Credits: Vivirlatino.com