Human Spirit should drive US Foreign Policy

 

            American foreign policy is hypocritical.  It needs to change. 

 

            American foreign policy has been based on the proposition that America will do anything as long as it is in the national security interest of America.  This is a wrong and abused foreign policy that only leads to hypocrisy.

 

            If one country can invade another country based on its perceived notion of national security, then why can’t every country use the same national security argument to do whatever it thinks it should in the world?

 

In the past 40 years America has invaded country after country.  In 1983 America went into Granada at will; in 1989 the US went into Panama to capture its President Manuel Noriega from his home; in 1990 US led coalition invaded Iraq during the first Gulf War; in 2001 the US invaded Afghanistan after 9/11; and then in 2003 the US reinvaded Iraq again.   All this, we are told, was done in the national security interest of the US.  Before the last invasion of Iraq, President George W. Bush administration told the world at the United Nations that Iraq was stock piling weapons of mass destructions--which were never found.

 

Also in the last 40 years, the US opposed the 1980 invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union; opposed the Libyan incursions into its neighbor Chad during the 1980s; and in 1989 opposed the occupation of Kuwait by Iraq.  

 

The hypocrisy is that the US allows itself to use the national security argument for its own specific needs but opposes that same argument to be used by any other country except Apartheid Israel.  The obvious flaw in a foreign policy that is based on the national security argument is that every other nation can also use the same argument to the detriment of world peace.  Why couldn’t the Soviet Union invade Afghanistan to protect its own national security interest?  Why couldn’t Iraq occupy Kuwait for its own national security interest?  Why can’t Israel continue the occupation of Palestinian land? 

 

It is obvious that these questions leads to one to believe that US opposition to “other countries” national security concerns are flawed and are selective.  It is not right for Iraq to occupy Kuwait but it is right for Apartheid Israel to occupy Palestine.  This inconsistency is seen by world public opinion as hypocrisy and as a suppression of the human spirit.  Then the US wonders why the people of the Middle East oppose US foreign policy.

 

Consistent with its inconsistent foreign policy, the US does not understand the Arab Spring revolutions sweeping the Arab world.   For decades, America has supported dictators, military leaders, juntas, presidents-for-life, kings and ruthless thugs who suppress the human spirit to be free.

 

America supported Ferdinand Marcos until the human spirit of the people of the Philippines overthrew him.  

 

America supported the Shaw of Iran until the human spirit of the people of Iran overthrew him and everything associated with the West and the US.

 

America supported the dictator Hosni Mubarak until the human spirit of the Egyptian people forced him out of power.

 

America looked the other way at the atrocities committed in Libya after Muammar Gaddafi renounced Tripoli's weapons of mass destruction programs and welcomed international inspections to verify that he would follow through on the commitment.

 

America continues to ignore the human spirit that yearns to be free.  America has forgotten its own human spirit during the American Revolution.   While Americans espouse the essence of what it means to be free, they fail to understand that this human spirit is in all mankind.

 

Palestinians have that same human spirit to be free.  Yet despite President Obama’s statement that it is in US national security interests to achieve peace between Israel and Palestine, the US cannot get its “staunch ally” to stop the building settlements that succeeding US administrations have stated are “obstacles to peace.”

 

Again, this inconsistency hurts US interests in the Middle East.

 

Foreign policy should be based on the human spirit to be free not on national security.  When America advocates the right of the human spirit to be free anywhere on the earth, America’s foreign policy becomes consistent.   Consequently, a free human spirit would naturally seek a democratic form of government.   Having democratic forms of governments is in the national security of the US.    

American foreign policy needs to support the human spirit to be free. 

(  © Copyright, Fadi Zanayed.  Publication or distribution of this material is allowed provided its content is not altered and the source and its author are cited.)