Justin Amash is a good public servant with honorable motives. But his foreign policy vision finds too much easy comfort with too many.
Much like the neoconservative ideology it so opposes, Amash’s vision is far too simplistic to grapple with the world as it is. It fails to recognize the defining lessons of history and the complex realities of international relations.
Take Amash’s position on Iraq. Amash prides himself on his long-standing support for getting out of Iraq. He presents that imperative as a choice between perpetual war and putting American interests first. But this is a false choice that ignores two truths: first, that the U.S. military’s limited presence in Iraq centers on logistical, intelligence, and training missions rather than combat operations, and second, that this presence helps sustain Iraq’s fragile democracy against Iranian efforts to destroy it and then use it as a terrorist outpost.
For all the blood and treasure we have given in Iraq, Amash’s approach would sacrifice that nation’s future and our security interests at the altar of Iranian imperialism. And for what? A simplistic tweet?
This simplicity speaks to the broader reality of Amash’s foreign policy vision. His position on Russia is simply naive. He rejected the summer 2017 sanctions bill that imposed costs on Russia for its attacks on the 2016 election and its hostile intelligence activity. Amash suggested the bill would unnecessarily escalate tensions with Moscow. Vladimir Putin ended that delusion less than 12 months later by spreading an exceptionally high-toxicity nerve agent around Britain. One innocent British citizen was murdered, and three others were made seriously ill.
That cuts to a key point here.
I get that many of Amash’s supporters would say that such allied concerns don’t matter to America — or at least that they should not drive our foreign policy in significant ways. But they are wrong. The global peace and prosperity we enjoy and the trade we benefit from are sustained both by American power and our allies’ support for our international order. Yes, some Americans have lost out with free trade. But the vast majority have benefited from access to more goods and services at ever-cheaper price points.
But the list of Amash’s foreign policy fulminations is longer.
He opposed President Barack Obama’s airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria because they came without what he considered a sufficient plan. But Obama’s plan, as insufficiently resourced as it was, denied ISIS the ability to turn the Middle East into a total war zone. It also helped prevent some of the follow-on terrorist attacks that ISIS planned against the West.
More recently, Amash condemned the strike against terrorist leader Qassem Soleimani — not because Soleimani didn’t have it coming but on the grounds that the strike was outside of President Trump’s authority. (It wasn’t.)
Amash’s opposition to the Saudi war in Yemen is even odder. It’s not because that war has fostered a humanitarian catastrophe or because the Saudis didn’t have a credible plan (both of which are true). It’s that al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is a Saudi subsidiary. I’m sorry — Saudi Arabia has many problems, but Riyadh’s recent counterterrorism record against AQAP has been exceptional and has saved American lives.
The top line here is that when Amash adopts positions on a critical security issue, he nearly always seems to be hedging on technical grounds rather than offering clear justifications. He stakes out bold positions but then argues from excuses — Congress hasn’t been given enough of a say, this bill doesn’t do quite what it claims to do, or even just that he wants to hear more. This narrative strategy sounds good, allowing Amash to present himself as a thoughtful statesman who retains an open mind. But in practice, it is hypocritical casuistry that obstructs policy and command decisions.
That’s not something we should want from a president.
