by Kim Ghattas
The conflict in Syria dragged on, the death toll growing more rapidly as the rebels stepped up their attack and the regime’s fight for survival became increasingly brutal. The United States, after holding out for months, stepped up its support for the rebels in the summer of 2012, helping to coordinate the supply of arms reaching them without actually supplying any weapons, and providing with them with communication equipment. Eager to avoid being dragged into another war or being associated too closely with the conflict, Obama tried as much as possible to avoid speaking about Syria during 2012. His political opponents were not wading into the Syrian debate either, a sign of just how intricate and complicated the conflict was—everybody understood that. The Obama administration was also wary about the growing number of radical Islamist Salafist fighters and worried that providing anything more than communications equipment or nonlethal assistance to the rebels could empower Salafists to take over Syria. But the radicals were getting weapons anyway, mainly from wealthy Gulf funders, and moderate rebels, frustrated by the lack of Western support, were joining their ranks. Clinton’s hesitations stemmed from her desire to protect the country’s minorities, namely the Christians, and ensure their survival in a post-Assad Syria, but the majority was paying the price. Many expected that Obama would take more decisive action if he were reelected, but even after November 6 there were still no good options, no clear vision for a post-Assad Syria. Unlike Libya, it was too big a minefield for other countries to take bold steps alone—without U.S. leadership there would be no decisive action. Frustration with the Syrian opposition was growing though, and in mid-November the United States finally banged heads together to help give birth to a more credible and representative opposition coalition. Administration officials admitted the push could have come earlier and that perhaps their eagerness not to put an American stamp on a popular movement had been taken to the extreme. Soon the United States and others would also recognize the Syrian opposition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, mirroring the Libya scenario. But the cost of direct military intervention remained too high and the onus was on the opposition outside and on the rebels and Local Coordination Committees inside Syria to unseat Assad with quiet American backing. At the time of writing, Assad remained in power.
* * *
Jake had a hard time living with the inconsistencies of U.S. foreign policy. He had a linear mind—the world had to make sense; everything had to fit. Why had they intervened in Libya but could not find the tools to do so in Syria? Why had the administration come out in support of protestors in Egypt but were cautious on Bahrain? Why was Pakistan getting U.S. aid when its intelligence agency was helping militants fighting U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan?
Hillary had lived a complex life with many inconsistencies—the details were sometimes jarring, but the overall picture made sense to her. She applied the same approach to her work as secretary of state.
She was deeply troubled by the violence in Syria. She felt she had failed the protestors in Bahrain. She wanted her country to do the right thing, but she was candid about the choices America had to make.
“Americans believe that the desire for dignity and self-determination is universal—and we do try to act on that belief around the world. Americans have fought and died for these ideals. And when freedom gains ground anywhere, Americans are inspired,” she said in one of her speeches about changes in the Middle East. But America, she added, also had short-term interests that it had to pursue, not just values to defend.
“There will be times when not all of our interests align. We work to align them, but that is just reality.”
I had never heard an American leader speak so candidly about the balancing act that was required in the exercise of American power. American leaders usually spoke publicly about higher ideals and the pursuit of more noble goals, keeping the discussion about special interests for private diplomacy, at the risk of making America look like a hypocrite whenever it failed or refused to help oppressed people anywhere. But there was no grandstanding here, just a simple and candid statement. People could be upset or feel disappointed, but it was hard to argue with such a statement. “I get that,” I thought. I was slowly reaching the end of my own journey.
CONCLUSION
One thing worse than an America that is too strong, the world will learn, is an America that is too weak.
—Michael Mandelbaum, Frugal Superpower
When I came to this job in 2008 and when I decided to write this book, I never imagined how intense and emotional the journey would be. Up to that point, I had rarely, if ever, spoken, let alone written, about living through war in Lebanon, but it was a necessary journey back in time as I explored American power, looking for the answers to the questions that troubled me as a teenager and a young adult in Lebanon, while observing the exercise of American power today. Over the last few years, I have struggled often with my thoughts, questioned my conclusions, even my convictions, about what the United States represented or stood for, what I believed in, and what kind of world I wanted to live in.
I did not always settle on definitive answers because the world consists of shades of gray. But there was one event in my life that I could still only see in black and white. What had really happened on that October day in 1990, when Syrian troops invaded Lebanon? Was it true, as many Lebanese believed, that in exchange for contributing thousands of troops to the coalition to liberate Kuwait from Saddam Hussein’s troops, Syria had been given the green light to occupy Lebanon?
Access to information was limited at the time; we relied mostly on local newspapers and local television and though Lebanon’s media were the most open in the region, fear of the Syrian occupation prevented in-depth reporting of what had happened. I had also accepted the narrative of America selling us out for cheap to Syria and moving on. I found it hard to look back to a day that had been the scariest of my young life, even after years of war. But, mostly, it is often difficult to look at a painful event other than through the very narrow prism of personal experience. So for years I had neatly tucked away my memories, my pain and my anger, and hung on to the tidy explanation of a deal between Washington and Damascus.
But I had now looked as deeply as possible inside the American foreign policy machine and had not found the plot; the closest thing was the Book, but its contents were wonky and benign. Now, for every fantastical scenario, for every irrational fear, I had an explanation to give to people who asked me what America was up to and why it acted this or that way. The time had come to unpack my own version of the plot.
I looked up old articles and found that most of the focus around that time was on Iraq’s invasion and occupation of Kuwait, with very little written about my country. In fact, the narrative of a deal at the expense of Lebanon dominated most of the literature that I found. Many of the newspaper reports focused on efforts by then Secretary of State James Baker to get President Hafez al-Assad to sign up to the anti-Saddam coalition. Syria was designated as a state sponsor of terror by the United States, so Baker was heavily criticized when he decided to visit Damascus in September 1990 to discuss the coalition. As I prodded further, the outlines of what had happened emerged.
The administration of George H. W. Bush had been working for some time to engage Assad, a cunning adversary. During his visit to Damascus, Baker was also hoping for a breakthrough in the hostage crisis in Lebanon, in which thirteen Western hostages were being held, including six Americans. President Assad had been a close ally of Iran since the Islamic revolution of 1979. Iran and Syria, thanks to the radical militant groups they promoted, such as Hezbollah and some Palestinian organizations, held the fate of the hostages in their hands. I was also reminded that Michel Aoun had asked the United States to recognize him as the legitimate government in Lebanon, but Washington had refused. A rival president, Elias Hrawi, had been elected in West Beirut, backed by the Syrians, and Lebanon’s already complex politics had become even more incomprehensible. Crucially, Aoun was receiving arms fr
om Saddam Hussein, America’s new enemy number one. Saddam was hoping to build his own front against the United States with the quixotic Aoun in Beirut and President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen.
I went to see Brent Scowcroft, who was the national security advisor for George H. W. Bush at the time. I asked him how and why the United States had given away Lebanon to Syria. Scowcroft, now in his eighties but still as sharp as ever, looked at me in silence. I explained why I was asking and wondered whether he was perhaps feeling remorse at a decision made all these years ago or whether he just didn’t want to tell me. But Scowcroft couldn’t instantly remember the exact series of events that had led to the Syrian invasion. All his memories from that period were dominated by the efforts to oust Saddam from Kuwait and the White House’s desire to build a broad, U.S.-led coalition that would signal a new kind of international cooperation in the post–Cold War world.
I was crestfallen. I could not fathom that a day that had left such an indelible mark on me and had been such a turning point for Lebanon was not a vivid memory for one of the men who had been at the heart of the decision making in the White House at the time. As a reporter in Beirut, I knew that Lebanon was not on the minds of all officials in Washington at all times. Since arriving in the United States I had written about countries being just a page in the Book and sat in the briefing room listening to a spokesperson answer questions about country after country, like a pop quiz. And yet I felt hurt. I knocked on more doors, asking former officials from the Bush administration, but no one remembered much.
I looked up old transcripts of the State Department’s daily press briefing. Margaret Tutwiler, the State Department spokesperson at the time, was asked to comment on October 15, 1990. On the day of the invasion, a Saturday, the Bush administration had only issued a short statement. Tutwiler had nothing to add, so she just read out the statement.
“The United States government hopes that all the Lebanese people will support President Hrawi, the legitimate government, and the reunited army.… The United States regrets the loss of life in the October 13 event. We hope that this ends a sad chapter of Lebanon’s history, and that the Lebanese people can now move toward reconciliation and the rebirth of a united, sovereign and independent Lebanon.”
We really had been a blip on the radar. The ferocious assault by Syrian troops, the looting, raping, ransacking, and summary executions of soldiers and men of fighting age had all just been an “event.” The United States had moved on while we found ourselves under the boots of our masters in Damascus. Baker, Tutwiler, and other American officials were questioned in public about why they had agreed to Syria’s invasion. They insisted there hadn’t been a green light.
I continued my search for answers and finally found someone with a vivid memory of that day. Edward Djerian, the U.S. ambassador to Syria at the time, explained in detail how and why the United States had been trying to engage Assad. There was the coalition against Saddam and the American hostages in Beirut, who were freed within a few years. Djerjian was also negotiating with Assad to allow Syria’s four thousand Jews to travel out of the country. They faced severe restrictions and were often described as hostages. They were finally granted permission to leave in 1992. But the real prize was a Middle East peace conference. In 1991 in Madrid, Israeli and Arab leaders met for the first time in more than forty years of open conflict. Assad was there too, and his presence was key, because Israel occupied Syria’s Golan Heights and the two countries were still at war. For the Bush administration, engaging Assad had been a success, Djerjian explained, and progress had been made on many fronts. The fighting had also ended in Lebanon, which, after fifteen years of strife, was a positive development. Reluctantly, I nodded that I understood. I could see Washington’s rationale.
But had there been a green light? No, Djerjian said adamantly. Even when Baker had met Assad in September 1990, there had been no nods or winks to any invasion. But there had not been a red light either. Assad and Saddam were longtime foes, and Washington knew that the Syrian president would not tolerate the flow of weapons from Iraq to Aoun’s Christian statelet for long. And because Aoun was Saddam’s ally, no one in Washington felt the need to protect the rebel general. There were no attempts to preempt any move by Assad or inquire about exactly what he might do and when.
On October 13, 1990, Djerjian was woken around six in the morning in Damascus by two low-flying Syrian fighter jets, a very unusual occurrence. Startled, he turned to his wife and said, “He’s going after Aoun.” Moments later, the same jets woke me in Lebanon as they flew by our house and started their bombing campaign. Eight hours later, it was all over—and I was left feeling betrayed by the United States.
* * *
Two decades later, I found myself on the inside of the American foreign policy machine, or as close as an outsider can get. After traveling more than 300,000 miles with Clinton around the world and interviewing her more than fifteen times, I had a new understanding of the United States and of the woman who had given me a ride home on her plane in the spring of 2009. By now, America and Hillary Clinton had blended into one for me. No longer a politician, but the face—and the heart—of American power.
Clinton’s willingness to answer any question, to explain what she was thinking and why the United States was doing what it was doing, whether on the record in front of the cameras or off the record in private, helped me as I matured and refined my analysis of the world and my views about America. Whether or not I disagreed with positions taken by Clinton or the administration, I was no longer mystified by the reasoning. Knowledge in this case truly was power.
I was also very much aware that my access to someone at the heart of American power put me in a unique position. On a quiet Friday morning in the summer of 2012, while I sat in the secretary’s outer office on the seventh floor, I prodded her some about what she thought the United States stood for. Why should I believe in the United States as a benevolent force when it had also done much harm around the world, I asked.
“I see America as predominantly a force for good over the course of our history,” she said without a hesitation. “But I’m also well aware of our flaws and shortcomings, of bad decisions, of misjudgments. We started off as a country that inspired more love of freedom and more opportunity for more people than any other human enterprise in the history of the world, but we still had slaves and we didn’t let women vote. So in our own history, there is a continuing striving for that more perfect union.”
I pressed further. How could the United States be a force for good when I had been shelled by a U.S. battleship, when the United States had been responsible for bloody coups in Latin America, for the debacle in Iraq? I expected her to say what she often said when confronted with the past: that instead of looking back at all the mistakes the United States had made, I should be willing to look forward and do my part, however small, in making sure it didn’t happen again. But Clinton’s answer startled me.
“Look at the way we rounded up Japanese Americans and put them in camps. It made sense to decision makers at the time, including one of our greatest presidents, but in retrospect it’s something we are not proud of; in fact, we are ashamed of.… But we also make mistakes. And so I would ask that people look at us the way I look at us, which is that name any other society or nation that has done more to help lead the world toward the pursuit of happiness for every individual, for human freedom and dignity, but which, like all human enterprises, is flawed.”
I had never looked at domestic U.S. history to put in context American excesses of power abroad. Knowing that American leaders looked back in horror at some of the decisions of their countrymen, as well as knowing that misguided, ill-advised decisions had caused harm to Americans at home, contributed further to dispelling my old belief that the United States was somehow intent on causing harm abroad to serve its wider goals. This did not, of course, absolve the United States of its mistakes, but it cast American power in a more benign light.
This Wh
ite House did not flinch from using the darker tools of American power: the cold and calculated warfare of drone attacks with its chilling kill lists, unilateral military operations to catch America’s most wanted on foreign soil, Internet worms that ate away at the computers at the heart of the Iranian nuclear program. But it did not pursue obscure objectives or a singular goal, or try to fix the facts around an ideology. Despite failures and unfinished business, the Obama foreign policy was seen by many as flexible and pragmatic and allowed the United States to reposition itself in a changing global landscape. And, of course, the United States will continue to weigh values and interests at every turn—but in a more transparent way, if only because of the spotlight of the media.
* * *
On the evening of April 25, 2012, Jake was halfway through dinner at his sister’s house when his phone rang. Kurt Campbell, the Building’s Asia hand, was on the other end, warning Jake he was going to speak in code—this was big, it was urgent, it couldn’t wait until they were on a secure line or face-to-face. A very important man from the world’s second biggest economy was seeking to come in, Kurt said. Jake tried to visualize the situation—come in to where? The United States? Kurt alluded to an incident two weeks prior when the vice mayor of Chongqing, in Sichuan Province, had sought refuge briefly in a local U.S. consulate. But that was an internal political scandal that the Obama administration had wanted nothing to do with and the official left the consulate after a day. So the man was seeking to get into a diplomatic mission. Jake prodded further. Was the mission in the same city? The capital, came the reply. He has won a prize, Kurt added. Jake was stunned. “THE prize?” He was thinking of the Nobel Prize winner Liu Xiaobo. Kurt suggested the image of Ray Charles.