A question for Romney and Obama about liberalism in American foreign policy

President Obama, Governor Romney, is liberalism dead as the defining and galvanizing principle of American (and American-led Western) foreign policy?

Vladimir Putin accuses the American-led West of acting in dangerous short-sighted opposition to corrupt and brutal but also stabilizing autocratic governments (re Syria) to achieve regime change, but without effectively advancing a viable liberal substitute (re Afghanistan). Rather, Putin says the US, by acting in opposition to autocrats without liberal substitution, is effectively empowering the competing 3rd party in the conflict, Islamist radical revolutionaries. Perhaps Putin is also making an implied comparison of our actions in Syria to the eventual fall-out of American arms-length opposition to the Soviet Union's efforts in 1980s Afghanistan in the conflict that empowered al Qaeda for their modern transnational revolution.

As painful as it is to concede, Putin has a point. In the 'Arab Spring' countries, the liberal activists who appealed to the West have been pushed aside in the regime changes. Without sufficient support, such as we eventually provided Iraq, the region's liberals simply aren't powerful enough to compete for dominance.

President Obama, Governor Romney, is America still the 'Leader of the Free World' that actively champions and affirms a liberal world order? Do American leaders still believe liberalism is viable and worth competing for as an international organizing principle? If we are not and you do not, then acting to tear down the existing order in a country without empowering a viable acceptably liberal substitute carries the danger of empowering an aggressive, opportunistic 3rd party - such as al Qaeda and their fellow travelers - to fill the vacuum with an equally or more intolerable organizing principle.

“In the century we're leaving, America has often made the difference between chaos and community; fear and hope. Now, in a new century, we'll have a remarkable opportunity to shape a future more peaceful than the past -- but only if we stand strong against the enemies of peace.”
-- President William J. Clinton announcing Operation Desert Fox, December 16, 1998

07SEP12 Add: ABC's Richard Engel provides a thumbnail sketch of the anti-liberal course of the Middle East since the Arab Spring and concludes, "What happens if the [sic] Washington continues to watch from afar?" However, Engel undermines his question by sidestepping a thoughtful exploration of the hard choices we face there. Engel only implies the bad-or-worse nature of our options in the Middle East with his premise that the liberal promises of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the Arab Spring have drowned in the region's religious tribal contests. Engel also warns that al Qaeda has been damaged but not defeated, which means the al Qaeda cancer remains dangerous. He refers to the American tactical victory over al Qaeda in Iraq and our broader tactical success combating al Qaeda, but then warns of the dangers of alienating Sunnis and al Qaeda's intelligent 'shifting antigen' adaptive capability. Engel argues local American commitment hurts al Qaeda, while American absence allows openings for al Qaeda to make inroads with the anti-government forces, such as the reformed tactics al Qaeda is now employing in Syria.

Eric