By Crispin Hull

A well-known Irish joke tells of about a tourist in Ireland who asks one of the locals for directions to Dublin. The Irishman replies: ‘Well, if I were you, I wouldn’t start from here’.

I don’t think it is as anti-Irish as seems at first blush. There is wisdom in it. If you want to go somewhere it is a good idea to start from a place where your goal is achievable.

The Dublin joke is extremely apposite to US foreign policy, particularly that of President Barack Obama.

His aim in the almost seven years since his election has been to reduce US military engagement overseas and to reduce terrorism in the world.

Well, if you had that aim you would not want to start from the position left by the worst president in US history who sent in the military to topple two national governments – the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein’s in Iraq – and did nothing to replace them with governments that could at least keep law and order, whether or not they were shining examples of liberty and democracy.

No other president has inherited such appalling foreign-policy settings. Even Richard Nixon’s inheritance of the Vietnam debacle did not have the extra dimension of avoiding terrorism attacks on US soil or against US diplomatic posts and other interests abroad.

So what are we to make of Obama’s foreign policy now? The most salient criticisms that can be made of it are ambivalence and inconsistency.

You can feel sorry for US foreign-policy makers. They are damned if they go in too late (Bosnia). They are damned if they go in and leave too early (Libya). They are damned for going in but not finishing the job (1st Iraq War). They are damned for going in at all (Vietnam and the 2nd Iraq War). And they are damned if they do not go in at all to avert humanitarian disaster (Rwanda).

Rwanda aside, the preponderance of outcomes is that US military intervention ends up in tears and with more harm done than good.

The stories of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan are remarkably consistent.

With the best intentions in the world the US went in to support liberty and democracy over belligerent tyrants. Initially it did well, expelling the tyrants or preventing them from taking over. Their local allies then needed more and more US support to stay in control. The US provided it, but the US public quickly gets sick of casualties and after a time wants out. A staged withdrawal called “peace with honour” or “ending the war responsibly” then results in the return of belligerent tyrants.

So now we are witnessing the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the rise of IS in Iraq and Syria.

By mid-2007, before Obama came to office, majority opinion in the US acknowledged the war in Iraq was a mistake – despite the misguided jingoistic support by 90 per cent of the population when the war began.

In the next couple of years US troops began withdrawing. But the inevitable happened. The Taliban and Al Quaeda became resurgent in Afghanistan. So in February 2009 Obama sent in 17,000 more troops on top of the 36,000 that were there. The surge. But in the next few years as the US withdrew the Taliban became ever stronger.

Meanwhile, in Iraq where all but a handful of US troops had left by the end of 2011, IS began its conquest by terror. By mid-2014 Obama felt the US had to send in the military again, even if only with air support.

So the man who wanted less military involvement added to it in both theatres.
Why does Obama think for a minute that either will be ultimately successful?

Surely, the experience in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq suggests that the only way to keep what the US thinks is an enemy at bay and to keep who thinks are the good guys in power is to keep lots of troops on the ground indefinitely, and even that might not work, as Vietnam suggests.

Militarily, overwhelming force will do the job, but the US public will not stomach overwhelming force for very long.

So why bother?

Ultimately peace and security, of sorts, will only come to the Middle East, Iraq and Afghanistan iwhen they work it out for themselves. 

But do not expect it to be soon. Western democracies took centuries to develop. Democracy is not like a new model mobile phone which you can get of the shelf and work instantly without going through all the stages from operator-connected land lines.

Obama should have acknowledged all this and maintained a consistent policy not to intervene – rather than surge and withdraw. Obama’s problem is that he cannot bear to standby and see the abuses of human rights, especially against women and religious minorities, while he has a powerful military at his disposal. Hence the ambivalence.

His other option would be to let the Russians get on with it. They have more at stake with so many Islamic states on their borders and Islamic movements within them. Moreover, Russian President Vladimir Putin does not have a public to worry about. But, as their experience in Afghanistan showed, they will have as much chance of defeating IS as the Americans. None.

Only a long-term reconciliation and accommodation between the warring religious groups on the ground will bring an end to the violence. It will never be imposed from without.

All this is important for Australia because our policy is to do whatever the US wants or whatever we think the US wants. “Please invite us to your wars and skirmishes.” And we have gone to all of them outside the western hemisphere. But if we were asked, we would probably rock up there, too.

Obama may have wanted to “go to Dublin” – reduce terrorism and avoid US boots on the ground – and he had to “start from here” whether he liked it or not. But it seems that by the end of his presidency he will not have got there and will have lost a lot of blood and treasure on the way.

We can only hope that the next president just withdraws from the whole costly intractable enterprise of being the world’s policeman, including being arms supplier to Israel. All it has done is beget more violence, more refugees and more misery at home and abroad.

Forget “not starting from here” just go there.