Ignatius: US must re-prioritize foreign policy objectives to assure ‘Arab Spring’ transforms the region

“If the transition in Egypt is successful, it will change the face of the Arab world,” Washington Post columnist David Ignatius said in a Future of Diplomacy interview, in which he reflected on the impact of the ‘Arab Spring’ on American Foreign Policy. Ignatius was a Fisher Family Fellow with the project from April 11 - 15, 2011.

Egypt has enormous possibilities for American foreign policy, he said. The President would have to be clear about American interests – both for domestic audiences and those abroad. “I would love to see him go to the region, I’d love to see him make a second Cairo speech, not to go in the way of the Arab people, but as a man who has raised hopes in the Arab world and around the world, (..) It is time for the President to go back to that.”

US foreign policy efforts in Egypt should focus on stabilizing the economy and on supporting the training of police officers, for instance. If the US government was indeed able to assist the Egyptian people to ensure a successful transition, it might change the face of the Arab world. However, developments in US domestic policy might have a hampering effect: “The budget situation forces you to make choices you wouldn’t otherwise make,” he said, pointing to lawmakers’ decisions to curtail the spending of the State Department and USAID.

“Spending 100 billion dollars in Afghanistan, however logical from a historical perspective, must be reexamined,” he said, particularly with regard to other priorities such as Pakistan. That country is “in terrible trouble,” he noted. In order to tie the spending to foreign policy priorities, the mix would have to change.
The shift away from ground troops to the debated use of drone attacks in Afghanistan, is “a new way of combating Al Qaida,” and thinking about different tactics in US military and foreign policy.

Asked about the relationship between principles and interests and US foreign policy towards other parts of the Arab world, including Bahrain and Yemen, Ignatius acknowledged the differences in political approach: “We have to operate within (..) limits, which does not mean we abandon principles, but to make principles and interests fit together as part of a coordinated national security strategy.”

With regard to the challenge of balancing short term and long term interests of U.S. foreign policy, particularly with regard to the long term strategy vis-à-vis China and South Asia and the immediate crises in North Africa, the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ignatius concludes “The political awakening in the Middle East will spread to China; there is no way to hold this back indefinitely.”

Note: David Ignatius spoke to the Future of Diplomacy Project in April 2011, before the raid in Abbottabad and the US presidential speech on the future of the Middle East on May 19, 2011.