Human catastrophe raised by the “diplomacy at any price” approach and forgetting morals

The election of Barack Obama brought the promise of paying more attention to the human values of the modern era, in practice, but what happened was the destruction of these values and the rise and strengthening of reactionary, terrorist, and repressive forces in the Middle East. The strategy of multilateralism, the insistence on diplomacy for the sake of diplomacy, the over-reliance on economic relations to punish and encourage international actors, the over-promoting and praise of regional balance, and such stuff I call the “diplomacy at any price” approach.

The strategy of multilateralism, the insistence on diplomacy for the sake of diplomacy, the over-reliance on economic relations to punish and encourage international actors, the over-promoting and praise of regional balance, and such stuff I call the “diplomacy at any price” approach.

Although this approach in the short term, could compensate to some extent the budget deficit, inflation, and economic stagnation, in the long term it led to the growth and development of factors and conditions that are incompatible with human values and humanitarian slogans of the West. It seems that American statesmen have forgotten that values such as freedom, human rights, justice for all, autonomy, and democracy are the main reason for the attraction of the West and especially America for the people of different regions of the world, which can lead to economic prosperity for both sides in the long run.

On the other hand, the foreign policy of the US from the election of Obama until today, i.e., “diplomacy at any price”, caused new players to find the opportunity to be effective in international relations, which would never have been given to them if they had maintained the position of moral foundations.

In this article, I illustrate the choice of the “diplomacy at any price” approach has led to the formation of anti-human and disastrous conditions. The price of this approach is the destruction of people’s lives in different regions of the world. Therefore, to solve this unfortunate situation in the history of human, the world powers are obliged to change their approach from “diplomacy at any price” to “the priority of morals in diplomacy”.

For this purpose, I first briefly mention the foreign policy of the United States in the last two decades then, I introduce a phenomenon called “opportunistic actor” and finally I show the results and effects of this situation and the price paid for it.

The poor hegemon!

The economic crisis that began in 2008, along with harsh criticism of the Bush administration’s foreign policy, provided the necessary ground to justify fundamental changes in American foreign policy. The hegemonic power of the world, which had presented itself as the guarantor of world discipline and security after the collapse of the Soviet Union, suddenly tried to show new roles and priorities with a meaningful turn.

In explaining the national security strategy in 2010, Obama emphasizes that the strength and influence of the United States abroad depends on the steps taken inside this country. He also states that the time of the war against terrorism has passed and should be based on multilateral diplomacy.

In other words, by reducing the burden of foreign activities and turning to multilateralism to solve international problems, a type of economic contraction to eliminate inflation and economic stagnation was proposed as the new priority of the US. In this regard, Obama tried to move the policy of active balance towards the balance of regional powers around the world. In other words, he sought to take America out of power interactions in each region to save economic costs.

In addition to the above measures, it is also possible to point out the turning away from the Middle East and more attention and focus on the East Asian region. As if the Middle East was nothing but war and wasteful expenses for Obama, East Asia was considered a source of wealth, production, and employment.

Opportunistic actor

The results of Obama’s foreign policy turn showed themselves very soon. On the one hand, the weakening of freedom movements, including in Syria and Iran (Green Movement), and on the other hand, the formation of terrorist forces such as ISIS were the first signs of this change.

But with the passage of more than a decade and the occurrence of successive problems, a deeper understanding of the results of this American political turn can be obtained. The recent policy of the United States is one of the pillars of the “diplomacy at any price” approach. Another pillar of this approach is the emergence of new actors in international interactions who have found a suitable opportunity to pursue their interests.

I show a case study that can be extended to many more cases. This case is the international act of the Qatari government.

Vast territory, high population, and military power are the physical factors of ensuring the security of a country. A country like Qatar has none. But Qatar is rich. Due to its access to abundant oil and gas resources, Qatar is considered a significant economic competitor for powers such as Russia and Iran. During the past two decades, Qatar has tried to present itself as a new actor and play a key role in regional issues.

The government of Qatar is trying to somehow show itself as independent from regional powers, and by choosing the position of mediation in regional conflicts, it appears as a reliable extra-regional actor. It should be emphasized that neutrality alone cannot guarantee this role. Some countries in the region always take a neutral position on various issues.

Such an actor must convince the parties and high-level institutions that he influences various groups and actors, including official governments and terrorist groups. In other words, the mediation of such governments is dependent on guaranteeing the existence of relations between these small countries and groups with whom other governments of the world are mostly not connected.

During the last two decades, Qatar has tried to establish, maintain, and reproduce such relations. Providing housing and security for the fugitives of the Muslim Brotherhood (Al-Ikhwan Al-Muslimin), the establishment of political offices of Islamist groups such as the Taliban and Hamas, as well as the investment and launch of the Al Jazeera TV channel, which somehow shows itself to be close to Islamist groups, including Qatar’s activities to maintain relations with terrorist groups and These are autocratic governments that many countries cannot bear to see.

The “diplomacy at any price” approach is a good opportunity for Qatar, which enters into political and economic interactions with them regardless of the nature and results of the actions of terrorist groups and autocratic governments. For this reason, Qatar can be called an “opportunistic actor”. Since the presence of the “opportunistic actor” in the “diplomacy at any price” approach is dependent on relations with terrorist groups and autocratic governments, it will always try to ensure that such groups and governments remain sustainable.

The continued existence of such groups and governments will lead to the destruction of more people’s lives in the world. It seems that the destruction of people’s lives and the anti-human disaster resulting from the existence of terrorist groups and autocratic governments is the price that must be paid for the “diplomacy at any price” approach. To understand how to pay the price of this approach, two examples are mentioned.

After the attack of Hamas (a friend of Qatar) on Israel in October 2023 and the brutal killing of civilians, it was clear that Israel would react very strongly and would not stop its deadly attacks until the destruction of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

However, the leaders of Hamas have settled in Qatar and have a good economic situation. It is evident from the evidence that Qatar is not willing to limit the activities of Hamas in this country under any circumstances, and it constantly asserts that it is willing to act as a mediator for the exchange of prisoners. It is obvious that with the destruction of Hamas, there will be no more opportunity for Qatar to act in the role of mediator, so it should not be expected that Qatar will take a step towards the destruction of Hamas.

This is where the process of paying the price shows its “diplomacy at any price” approach: on the one hand, Qatar, America’s favorite actor, insists on the continued existence of Hamas. On the other hand, Israel continues to kill civilians in Gaza under the pretext of disarming and destroying Hamas. In the meantime, the hegemonic power expected that the current events would not put economic pressure on The US government [1]. That is what means “diplomacy at any price”. The price of continuing this diplomacy is the killing of children and civilians in that area.

Another case of paying the price was seen in Afghanistan. Strengthening and securing the security of the Taliban and having the opportunity to bargain and act for Qatar, which finally reached the Doha agreement between this Islamist group and the US government, the price paid for this diplomatic approach was the destruction of the lives of several generations of Afghan people.

The Diplomacy at any price or The Priority Morals in Diplomacy

In the above lines, the interconnected relationships from the choice of the “diplomacy at any price” approach to the human disaster and the destruction of people’s lives caused by this approach were shown. In the following, an attempt is made to propose an alternative approach under the title of “the priority of morals in diplomacy”. In this approach, moral principles will be the basis for the beginning of the diplomatic process.

Adherence to these principles will lead to actors entering the field of diplomacy who will adhere to moral obligations. It is expected that the result of the actions of such actors will lead to the creation of conditions and a platform that will allow the growth and development of human rights, freedom, and justice for everyone. Obviously, in such an approach, the opportunistic actor has no place, and the will to continue the existence of terrorist groups and autocratic governments will be less. These two approaches can be compared as follows:

The statesmen of the United States, and all Western governments, know very well what the results of choosing a “diplomacy at any price” approach and forgetting moral principles have been for the people of the world. Therefore, they try to free themselves from the burden of diplomatic moral commitment by issuing a statement, holding a news conference, tweeting, or any other means, just by expressing condemnation and a few moral sentences, by every action of terrorist groups and autocratic governments. No one knows the absurdity and insignificance of such statements and condemnations better than the people of the Middle East.

Especial thanks to Immanuel Kant

PS:

1. The interesting stuff to note is that although the choice of the “diplomacy at any price” approach is intended to save economic costs for the American government, in the long term, it can be seen that this approach will incur very high costs. Today, we see that the US is forced to allocate a significant military budget to support Israel and end the Palestinian Anomalies in October 2023. The same thing can be seen in Ukraine.

Resources used:

• Soroush, Hamid. Ahmadi, Hossein. Basiri, Mohammad Ali. (2022). Investigating Qatar’s role in the Persian Gulf with an emphasis on Qatar-US relations. International Relations Research, 11(4), 193-212. [In Persian].

doi: 10.22034/irr.2022.330632.2143

• Salehi, Abbas. Daneshvar, Sadegh. Turabi, Qasim. (2021). The effects of Qatar’s Brotherhood discourse on the developments of the Arab world during the years 2010 to 2018. Iranian Political Sociology Monthly, 4(2), 283-294. [In Persian]

 doi: 10.30510/psi.2021.258963.1357

• Pourahmadi, Hossein. Mansourian, Asghar. (2013). US foreign policy changes and developments in the Middle East. Strategic Studies Quarterly, 17(66), 103-128.[In Persian]