Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel and former Florida House Rep. Allen West spoke to an audience of about 150 students, faculty, and locals Thursday evening on the topic of “ISIS, Russia, and Syria: American Foreign Policy in the 21st Century.”
For roughly forty minutes, West delivered an account of the current foreign policy challenges facing the country, the origin of these crises, how they have been mishandled by current and previous administrations, and solutions going forward. The speech was notably saturated in historical information and examples, with West impressively recalling and speaking of obscure historical events, battles, treaties, and modern day peoples, organizations, and events.
West began his lecture with the memory of his freshman year of college at the University of Tennessee. He recalled hearing in the news about the Soviet Union invading Afghanistan, but admitted to not knowing where or what Afghanistan was back then. He then fast-forwarded 25 years to the day he set foot in Afghanistan as an experienced soldier, having already fought in the Gulf War in 1991. According to West, it is impossible to know where a country or an individual will end up in the future, but is necessary for the country’s leader to have a “visionary perspective” when it comes to setting foreign policy.
West defined his foreign policy paradigm as the “21st Century Battlefield,” wherein the U.S. faces both non-state, non-uniformed actors like Al Qaeda, traditional nation-state actors like Russia, and groups in between like ISIS.
West’s speech was so extensive it would be an injustice to attempt to summarize it here. I’ll simply touch on a few points he made, and when video of the event is available I’ll post it on the website.
Some key points from the speech:
– The Obama administration totally misread the Arab Spring and allowed the chaos to be co-opted by the Muslim Brotherhood whom we allied with. West said, “[We trusted the] granddaddy of Islamic terrorism.”
– ISIS is a reincarnate of Al Qaeda’s Iraq wing, and its goal is to replace secular leadership in the Middle East and surrounding regions with a caliphate. West said that U.S. efforts against ISIS are clearly failing because it is still able to make offensive operations, evidenced weekly by reports of massacres, mass beheadings, and military gains across the region.
– West blamed the modern U.S. military’s tendency to prematurely pull-out of hostile situations, citing Mogadishu and Beirut, which encourages radicals elsewhere to challenge the U.S. Furthermore, West criticized “nation-building” as a military strategy, saying it cripples U.S. military effectiveness and is not what armies are supposed to be used for.
– West identified Iran as the regions’s most dangerous state player, followed by Qatar, whom he said was the number one funding source for ISIS and other terrorist organizations in the Middle East. Iran, according to West, is not deterred by mutually assured destruction in its pursuit of nuclear warheads, and has been at war with the U.S. in one way or another since the Iranian Revolution in 1979.
– Egypt, Jordan, Israel, and the Kurds are the only allies the U.S. has in the Middle East. The U.S. should support Kurdish statehood, West said.
– West made a long analogy between Adolf Hitler and Vladmir Putin effectively to the point that Putin’s rise to power, his personage in Russia, and his recent military aggression are no different from Hitler’s in the early to mid-1930s. West said that the U.S. should not take military action against Russia, but that it’s unwillingness to show a strong resolve against the country will encourage its further aggression. He specifically cited the cancellation of the U.S.’s missile defense system in Eastern Europe.
– West capped off his speech with a three-part solution to improve the country’s foreign policy and standing in the world. Its pillars are economic, energy, and national security.
This paltry summation of West’s speech does it little justice. However, I hope readers get the gist of it. Video will come soon.
