Abstract
This chapter covers Barack Obama’s foreign policy in the Eastern Mediterranean and in particular in three main cases of the Arab Spring: Egypt, Libya, and Syria. There are many reasons why I have decided to dive into the stygian depths of the Arab Spring. On first look, this sociopolitical phenomenon still continues to deeply influence the Eastern Mediterranean by questioning the established status quo of the Arab states. And more importantly, the Arab Spring proved to be the most serious foreign policy test for Barack Obama and for the American establishment in the MENA region. Perhaps, for the first time during the US presence in the Eastern Mediterranean, Washington failed to produce positive results for American national interests and for the status quo of the region, playing the graceless role of a distant observer in many cases. This failure, as it has already been labeled in the theoretical analysis of the wider Arab Spring phenomenon, is utterly interesting and at the same time crucially important, since it sets the foundations for the next day in the Eastern Mediterranean. Additionally, the study of Barack Obama’s foreign policy in the region has another point of interest: to comprehend how such a talented and charismatic politician of high global caliber failed not only to minimize the negative aspects of the Arab Spring in the Eastern Mediterranean but also to protect the American status in a region of high importance for US foreign policy. Was it a matter of a systemic breakdown of the American antennae? Was the Arab Spring a more complex and durable phenomenon, both in context and substance, than the Western world in general thought it to be? Was Barack Obama perhaps unwilling, unable, or unprepared to first accept the responsibility of preserving the US foreign policy in the Eastern Mediterranean, and to do so with the same skill as his predecessors managed during previous times of high global political tensions? All these questions led me to the writing of this chapter, one of the most interesting moments for the US foreign policy in the twenty-first century, beyond a doubt. In addition, this chapter provides a second and a third image analysis regarding the origins of the Arab Spring, as well as a conceptual approach regarding this multidimensional phenomenon that still affects a large part of the sociopolitical and ideological developments in the Eastern Mediterranean, including the US foreign policy in the region.
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Notes
- 1.
The second image analysis, developed by Kenneth Waltz (1959: Chap. 4), may be used as a variable in explaining the foreign policy of a state by focusing on the internal ingredients that form the ontology of a state.
- 2.
The third image analysis according to Kenneth Waltz (1959: Chap. 6) may be used as a variable in explaining the foreign policy of a state by focusing on the structural ontology of the international system.
- 3.
The only historical reference that is being associated with Sidi Bouzid is the battle that occurred there in 1943 between the German 10th and 21st Panzer Divisions and the U.S. first Armored Division and 168th Infantry and it was the opening act of the famous Battle of Kasserine Pass.
- 4.
Ben Ali, a former military officer, was appointed as a Prime Minister of Tunisia in 1987 and few months later through a coup d’état organized by himself he declared himself President of the state. A charismatic politician that tried to liberalize the Tunisian political system up to a certain extent, however he did little to tackle state corruption or to establish a social mobility system in Tunisia that would have had given the opportunity to the youth to have a better prospect for its own future. In general Ben Ali was not a blood-thirsty tyrant to the caliber of Gaddafi or of Bashar al-Assad. Yet, he proved to be unable to control the social tsunami that Bouazizi’s self-immolation had created. For more regarding Ben Ali’s governing in pre-Arab Spring times see Murphy (1999) and Borowiec (1998).
- 5.
According to Kenneth Waltz, the father of the three image analyses, every political event and most of all every war that is the most complicated political event in the conceptual pyramid of international theory can be analyzed by probing the decision-making process of a state under the influence of the human nature and in particular through the role, negative or positive, of the individual leaders (first level), by scrutinizing the character, institutional, political, and ideological, of the state or the states that are involved in the construction of the phenomenon (second image), and last but certainly not least by thoroughly studying the structure of the international system during the period that the phenomenon begins, matures, and completes its orbit (third level). For more see Waltz (1954), Suganami (2009), Wilmer (2002: 1–24), and Wagner (2007).
- 6.
The most characteristic stasis is the so-called Nika Riot or the Stasis of Nika that occurred in January 532 CE at Constantinople during the reign of the Emperor Justinian. The two main factions of that time, the Blues and the Greens, that were constantly competing each other in the popular chariot races surprisingly formed a pact against the Byzantine Emperor and occupied the streets of the capital asking for the overthrow of Justinian. The end of the Stasis of Nika occurred when the loyal to the Emperor generals, Velisarios and Mundros, entered the city slaughtering 30,000 people, a number that represented 10% of the total population of Constantinople during that time (Evans 2005: 15–20).
- 7.
Characteristically, in the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index 2017, 19 of 21 Arab states score below 50 in the capturing levels of corruption in the public sector (Fatafta 2018). In addition, the global report on multidimensional poverty by UNDP and OPHI in 2018 suggests that nearly one-fifth of the Arab region’s population, i.e., 65 million people, are extremely poor (Abu-Ismail and Al-Kiswani 2018). Last but not least, the Arab world is being penetrated with one of the highest rates of nepotism and at the same time the highest global percentage of gender discrimination that refers to the downgraded status of the female populations inside the Arab states (Sidani and Thornberry 2013; Manea 2014).
- 8.
The Baathist ideology was one of the prevailing political doctrines in the postcolonial Arab world. Strongly believing in Arab unity, the awakening of the masses, Arab socialism, and one-party system would have had been able to lead the masses towards progress and economic prosperity. Anti-Western in principle and approaching Islam as a revolutionary idea rather than a religion the Baathist ideology was established in Iraq and Syria, despite the fact that it enjoyed great collective support in other Arab states as well since it had been regarded as the vehicle that was to lead Arab societies to a modernizing phase of constructive transformation and empowerment. Theoretical founding fathers of the Baathist ideology were the Syrian Zaki al-Arsuzi and the Syrian Michael Aflaq. For more see Brooker (1997: 171–174) and Devlin (1991).
- 9.
No one can really say why Bouazizi’s death was the sparkle that created a still-burning wildfire not only in Tunisia but also in general in the Arab world. This rhetorical question becomes even more engaging by the following fact that refers to Tunisia again. Mohamed Bouazizi was not the first Tunisian who self-immolated. Few months before Bouazizi’s tragic incident, in March, in the town of Monastir at Sahel another Tunisian citizen Abdesslem Trimech, a street vendor too, self-immolated (Ryan 2011). However, the result of his death was not the same as Bouazizi’s.
- 10.
Old Japanese saying, meaning that even the most skilled ones are making grave mistakes.
- 11.
The Democratic Peace Theory argues that democratic states are not fighting each other. The theoretical concept of this approach belongs to the criminologist Dean Babst, while International Relations Theorists such as Michael W. Doyle, J. David Singer, and Rudolph J. Rummel or historians such as Melvin Small contributed to the qualitative conceptual analysis of the theory. Democratic Peace Theory was mainly used by Bill Clinton and also by George W. Bush in order to justify the U.S. foreign policy in the Balkans during the Yugoslav Civil War and in the Iraqi War of 2003. For more about this see Ish-Shalom (2013), Bass (2006), and Hill (2011).
- 12.
- 13.
Φοβος /Phobos [fear] in Ancient Greek mythology was the son of Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty, and Aris, the god of war. Before major battles warlords offered sacrifices to Phobos in order to visit the opponents and make them flee the battleground.
- 14.
Muhammad Hosni Said Mubarak became the Egyptian Vice President in 1975 and after President Anwar el-Sadat’s assassination in 1981 rose to the position of the President of the state. He played a positive role in establishing a peaceful modus vivendi with Israel and he was one of the most pro-Western Arab leaders in the MENA region; however his domestic policies were not as notable as his diplomatic initiatives. He failed to liberalize the Egyptian political system mainly because he did not want to share power; the Egyptian economy remained underdeveloped, insisting on an anachronistic agrarian growth model with mediocre touristic services; he failed in neutralizing the various jihadist elements that were operating within the state and especially in the Sinai Peninsula.
- 15.
One of the main succession battles of Islam after the demise of Prophet Muhammad that took place at Basra, Iraq, in 656 CE.
- 16.
A Sunni Islamist organization that was founded in Egypt by Hassan al-Banna in 1928, combining an anti-Western stance with radical religious ideas. One of the fundamental principles of the Brotherhood is hizbiyya, the belief that parliamentary procedures were anti-Islamic manifestations of a pro-colonial stance, while the organization had a paramilitary unit, the al-Jihaz al-Sirri, that operated inside Egypt as a jihadist group and as a base of Islamist volunteers operating against British and Jewish targets in Palestine. Sayyid Qutb, one of the leading members of Muslim Brothers, is one of the most famous theoreticians of modern Jihadism. For more see Tadros (2012) and Al-Anani (2016).
- 17.
The Retrenchment Doctrine was one of the main policies that Barack Obama introduced during his administration. According to this, the U.S. implements policies at a lower cost than the ones that his predecessors were activating, without however changing the main goals of the nation’s policies in the international arena. These financial adaptations are necessary, due to the rise of a multipolar international reality (Wosniak 2015).
- 18.
Misrata, situated in the northwestern part of the country, is the third largest city of Libya that passed under the control of the anti-government forces on February 19, 2011.
- 19.
On February 5, 2004, Libya complied with the Chemical Weapons Convention, destroying under the supervision of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons the largest part of its reserves. Gaddafi had hidden parts of chemical weapons from the OPCW; however after the beginning of the revolt the regime did not have access to those hideouts.
- 20.
In 2005 UN World Summit all member states had unanimously endorsed the principle of the Responsibility to Protect. According to this, every member state has the right to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. In case national governments cannot fulfill their obligations, then the United Nations through collective action must accept responsibility and act accordingly (Glanville 2014; Henderson 2018: 153–162).
- 21.
Berlin did not participate in the Odyssey Dawn Operation and limited its support to financial aid and to diplomatic backup.
- 22.
T.E. Lawrence became known for his role during the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire during WWI. He assisted King Faisal developing a coherent military strategy against the Ottoman Armed Forces, while he functioned as the liaison between London and the Arab side throughout the Great War.
- 23.
The Umayyad Caliphate was the second Caliphate in the Islamic world after the death of Prophet Muhammad. Syria became the Caliphate’s power base and Damascus the thriving capital of it. The reign of the Umayyads lasted for 89 years (661–750 CE) and during their reign Islam was expanded to the Iberian Peninsula.
- 24.
Just after the beginning of the Syrian Civil War Mustafa Khalifa (2013), a Syrian novelist, published a study in the Arab Reform Initiative think tank arguing that Syrian Arabs constituted 80–85% of the total Syrian population, with 10% of Kurds.
- 25.
According to Euripides’ Greek tragedy Iphigenia, Agamemnon’s daughter was summoned to Aulis where the Greek fleet anticipated for favorable winds in order to begin the campaign against Troy. In order for these winds to be unleashed by the gods Agamemnon was being instructed by the seer Calchas to sacrifice his daughter in the name of goddess Artemis.
- 26.
In the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, in the Six-Day War in 1967, and in the Yom Kippur War in 1973.
- 27.
Hafez al-Assad comes from north-west Syria, the stronghold of Alawite doctrine in Syria, from a family of local warlords that remained known for their physical strength and skills, qualities that gave them the name “Assad” that in Arabic means the “Lion.” He was born in 1930 in the village Qardaha. Because his family was not a rich one, he could subsidize his studies at the university; after high-school graduation he joined the Army in 1950 and within few months the flying school in Aleppo. He rose in the Army ranks not because of his leadership skills but because he was skillful enough to combine his military career with politics. He had joined the Baath Party since his school days but as an officer he became one of the most prominent representatives of Baathism within the Syrian Army. As a consequence, after all politics always helps a military career; in 1964 he was named Chief of Staff of the Syrian Air Force and was promoted to the rank of Major General. He participated in the 1966 coup d’état and was appointed Minister of Defense. Eventually, in 1970 he self-promoted himself by organizing a successful coup d’état that changed completely the fate of Syria and of its people. For more regarding the life of Hafez al-Assad see MacFarquhar (2000) and Seale (1988).
- 28.
Alawites belong to the Shia Islam. The basic doctrine is the deification of Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of Prophet Muhammad and the fourth caliph of Islam. Alawites do not practice the duties deriving from the five pillars of Islam and they celebrate an eclectic number of Islamic and Christian holidays (Olson 1998).
- 29.
The Mediterranean Sea in the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible.
- 30.
Operation Inherent Resolve is active since August 2016 by the U.S. Army XVIII Airborne Corps against ISIS, including campaign both in Iraq and in Syria together with the Iraqi Security Forces and the Syrian Democratic Forces.
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Litsas, S.N. (2020). Obama’s Foreign Policy and the Arab Spring: The Cases of Egypt, Libya, and Syria. In: US Foreign Policy in the Eastern Mediterranean. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36895-1_3
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