Ambassador Killed

The killing of the American ambassador in Libya represents a significant setback, ethically and politically, for the American role in Libya after Gadhafi. If this action were premeditated and deliberate, then those who planned it must have had a good grasp on the American psyche. They must have realized that the U.S. does not take action that directly depends on American prestige and dignity, which constitutes one of the most important determining factors of American foreign policy. When the U.S. is subjected to an experience like this one, then the reaction is usually quite strong — at times in the extreme. The U.S. withdrew from Somalia, not because of strategic interests in this African nation, or because the Horn of Africa had changed, but because its international reputation had received a humiliating blow.

The killing of a U.S. ambassador in a modern country, free of U.S. aid, is not an easy situation. It’s an historic event with a great many implications for American strategy. There is no point in saying that American strategy isn’t affected by the killing of this person: Ambassadors are primarily associated with international prestige, which the U.S. can’t run the risk of losing. Prestige, as Morgenthau considered it, is one of the most important elements in the strategy of great powers.

This action raises many lines of inquiry on the fate of the Arab Spring, to which the U.S. has provided a great deal of support, whether in Egypt, Libya, Yemen and now in Syria. It doesn’t appear that the winds of this Spring are blowing in the direction the American ships want. For the extreme fundamentalist Salafis, the U.S. has been a direct target, at least since 9/11. If the killing of the American ambassador may be considered an indicator of the future of this Spring, then it seems that this “Spring” will be unfriendly to the U.S. Even some who were able to exploit the opportunity afforded to them now insult Arabs and Islam itself, despite the fact that they act in the name of Islam.

Arabs and Muslims, for example, do not kill ambassadors. They incite sectarian polarization in the region rather than establishing mutually beneficial democracies and cooperating with each other. They have simply returned the region to the Middle Ages — or, more accurately expressed, to the days of the Crusades — warring between Arabs and Crusaders as well as between Arabs themselves.

If Americans looked at this event from this angle, then the American mindset wouldn’t be so casual. Perhaps the American reaction would be very negative, as was the effect of its defeat in Vietnam, which made a deep impression on the American political landscape.

Some believe that the U.S. and its friends only reap what they have sown in the region; they point out that the support that the Americans offer, directly or indirectly, to certain forces, is the same that is now hijacking the Arab Spring and foiling plans for democracy in the region.

If this claim is true, then it means that the U.S. must endure this setback — and that it may be far greater than it appears on the surface.