In a speech in Washington last Thursday, U.S. President Barack Obama sketched a broad outline that gives a general overview of what we can expect from his administration in its second term in office. The message was clear: There are no eternal wars. He quoted former President James Madison, the nation’s fourth commander in chief (“No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare”) in buttressing his case that the war on terror has reached its end, at least in the manner it has been waged since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
“That’s what history advises,” Obama declared. “That’s what democracy demands.”
The president chose to support his argument by referring to the bombings that rocked the Boston Marathon over a month ago. From his standpoint, terrorism is no longer in Afghanistan or Iraq. It’s right here at home, hence the war must be waged differently.
Obama is not entirely wrong. Jihadist terrorism traverses borders. Nowadays, it is even “Made in the West” (see Britain, France, the riots in Sweden — all this in the span of one month). But the terror “hard drive” — the ideology and the networks — still operates out of the countries where the assembly line began (Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and now Syria as well).
The American president desperately wants to bury the Bush doctrine once and for all, though it seems that he might be forgetting a bit the kind of reality we live in. Perhaps deep within his soul, Obama harbors the wish that his speech will make people forget the Benghazi mishap, in which four Americans, among them the American ambassador to Libya, were killed in an attack on their diplomatic mission in September 2012.
On the other hand, the speech does dovetail nicely with the Obama administration’s position that the Benghazi incident was not a terrorist attack. By this logic, America is certainly dealing the death knell to terrorism that festers in Islamic countries.
In his speech, Obama wanted to demonstrate to the American people — and, by extension, the entire world — that he is not George W. Bush. During his first term in office, the detention center at Guantanamo Bay was not shuttered, and the targeted assassinations of terror suspects carried out by unmanned drones in Yemen and Afghanistan continued. The White House had a difficult time denying the fact that it was employing the same means used by the Bush administration, which was on the receiving end of an avalanche of criticism as it soldiered on to in its war on terrorism.
Obama’s remarks before the National Defense University essentially constituted the president’s road map for national defense policy for the remainder of his White House tenure. Not only did the speech allow him to return to his ideological roots, but it was also designed to deflect as much attention as possible away from three of the most serious scandals currently plaguing his administration: the alleged targeting of Republican groups by the Internal Revenue Service, the wiretapping of journalists and the mismanagement of the terror attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi. It is hard to ignore the proximity of these three scandals on the calendar with the timing of the speech last week.
In essence, Obama is thinking ahead. He is mostly preoccupied with the legacy that he will leave. He doesn’t want to be merely remembered as the 44th president, or the first black president. He wants to leave his mark. So far, he hasn’t been able to do so. Before his election, Obama was looked upon as a messiah. Upon entry into office, he was quickly revealed to be entirely flesh and blood, a very political president who captured the White House twice but also led his party, the Democrats, to minority status in Congress following the mid-election defeat of 2010.
Aiming for the history pages
Obama’s image and record as president is being put to the test, a reality that is undoubtedly prompting him to panic. The commander in chief may have brought the troops home from Iraq and he may have begun to lay the foundations for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan in late 2014. But waging war via remote control, with unmanned aerial vehicles being operated from a base in Nevada, hurt America’s image in the eyes of Obama’s supporters, both at home and abroad.
The routine use of drones, which have proved especially lethal in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Somalia, are perceived by many Obama supporters as illegal. The Human Rights Council in Geneva is quite concerned over the very unclear definition of what is perceived in Washington as an armed combatant. Rights groups claim that under Obama’s stewardship, the number of civilian casualties caused as a result of CIA-operated drones has increased.
According to figures compiled by non-governmental organizations, between 800 and 900 innocent civilians have been killed in drone attacks. There are also those who claim that the use of drones doesn’t adequately address America’s defense needs. On the contrary, it has only increased the number of America’s enemies. Under Bush, at least the lines drawn were much clearer.
One may agree or disagree. Obama, the Nobel laureate, has for all intents and purposes followed in the footsteps of his predecessor, with a few minor adjustments. That is another reason why Obama used his speech last week to reconfigure the framework that governs the use of drones. How ironic that the man who received the Nobel Peace Prize will likely go down in history as the one who did most to promote the use of aerial drones.
Perhaps this is why Obama decided to reassign responsibility for the use of drones from the CIA to the military, which operates under a more stringent set of rules governing warfare. Eager to please his base constituency and live up to his personal belief system, President Obama resolved to raise the threshold of what constitutes “clear and present danger,” the criteria that a terrorist suspect needs to meet before he is considered a target for liquidation. In his speech, Obama also mentioned the need to take more precautionary measures to prevent civilian casualties.
The president spoke to two audiences: the American people who were watching on television, and the military high command that was seated a few feet away. Yet it was plainly obvious that Obama had the annals of history in mind when he gave his speech. He wants people to remember the things he said rather than the things he did.
Obama should have realized by now that after four years in the White House, his very rosy rhetoric hasn’t always corresponded with what is happening on the ground. What a candidate promises doesn’t necessarily define what is required of a U.S. president whose first responsibility is to protect his citizens.
The issue of Guantanamo Bay offers a perfect illustration of the difference between words and reality. During his speech, Obama was interrupted three times by a representative of Code Pink (A women’s group that describes itself as a “grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end U.S. funded wars and occupations, to challenge militarism globally, and to redirect our resources into health care, education, green jobs and other life-affirming activities”). The first instance was when he mentioned Guantanamo. The president had promised to close down the complex and deport the detainees to foreign countries. There was also talk that he would work to build a complex on U.S. soil. Since entering office, however, only seven Guantanamo suspects have been sent abroad.
In fact, ever since the attempted terror attack in Yemen, it was Obama who embargoed the transfer of prisoners. Rights groups have reminded the president that 86 of the 166 Guantanamo suspects were acquitted of all charges three years ago, but are still in detention. Left-wing organizations refer to this as a “Kafkaesque no-man’s land.” Incidentally, as The New York Times reminded its readers, every prisoner held at Guantanamo costs American taxpayers $1 million per year.
“Imagine a future 10 years from now, or 20 years from now, when the United States of America is still holding people who have been charged with no crime on a piece of land that is not a part of our country,” the president said. “Is that the America we want to leave to our children?”
Obama went on to say that Guantanamo has become a symbol of America’s defiance of international law. The president used his speech to demonstrate his expertise in public diplomacy.
“Our allies won’t cooperate with us if they think a terrorist will end up at GTMO,” he said. The president wants to lift the embargo on transferring prisoners out of the complex. He even went so far as to assign the task of repatriating Guantanamo prisoners to an official from the Pentagon and the State Department. This will be made more difficult, however, since he also needs to persuade Congress to approve such a measure. The Republican-controlled Congress is in no rush to make Obama’s life easier.
Congress has effectively blocked the president from following through on his pledge to shut down Guantanamo Bay. The complexity of the issue has been compounded by the judicial system’s failure to come up with a legal definition of these very unconventional prisoners. On the other hand, Obama has had enough time to deal with this issue. He should have found an alternate location for these prisoners to be tried. In the meantime, he is repeating an old promise he made long ago and never fulfilled.
A Bush clone
For Obama supporters, and there are many, particularly among the punditry, this was another masterful speech by the president. In order for it to be a really grand speech, obviously there needs to be follow-through. The president needs to realize that to make his speech a reality, not only will he have to deal with a Republican Congress that is hostile to his policies, he will also need to wrestle with a reality that hardly correspondents to his remarks. In the meantime, Obama, who has always been a big champion of wishful thinking, is nothing more than a Bush clone — not in words, but certainly in deeds.
The Nobel Peace laureate is working hard to justify his award. “We cannot use force everywhere that a radical ideology takes root,” he said. According to the president, the war on terror will continue. It will just have a different feel. Continual war, he said, offers no hope.
Obama is once again seeking to bolster America’s image in the eyes of the world, particularly the Muslim world, where his efforts to win admirers has failed. He still doesn’t understand the extent to which hatred of America is rooted among various sects that he has tried to woo during his four years in office.
Obama wasn’t just looking to make obscure historical references in his speech (Madison), he also used a more current term coined by American sociologist C. Wright Mills, who spoke of “permanent war” in expressing his opposition to America’s military and diplomatic policies abroad. Mills is one of those “preachers” revered by many of the same progressives who voted for Obama.
In order to win the 2012 election, Obama needed more than just votes from progressives. That is why he waited until after he captured a second term to unveil the speech that he delivered last week.
Before the election, he chose to play up the killing of Osama bin Laden because the president was more concerned with bolstering his sagging popularity than with adhering to his ideology. Before the election, Obama also made a point of highlighting the administration’s “hit list.” Now the time has come for greater humility. Obama, as we all know, is a peacetime president, not a wartime president. One should also assume that it wasn’t just questions of morality that guided his speech, but also the realization of the heavy economic toll that wars have taken on his country.
Al-Qaida is still here
As expected, the Republicans didn’t wait long to assail the president’s speech. This past Sunday, three days after the speech, Republican officials were eager to remind the public that the threat from al-Qaida remains clear and present. Lindsey Graham, the senator from South Carolina, also wanted the public to remain cognizant of the threat emanating from Iran.
“At a time when we need resolve the most, we’re sounding retreat,” Graham told Fox News. “We show this lack of resolve, talking about the war being over,” Graham said. “What do you think the Iranians are thinking? At the end of the day, this is the most tone-deaf president I ever could imagine.”
John McCain, the Arizona senator who lost to Obama in his bid for the White House in 2008, also reacted to Obama’s speech. He said the war against al-Qaida was far from over. According to McCain, Obama’s remarks were unrealistic since the threats to America from abroad were still alive and kicking. The threats from home have only compounded the situation, according to McCain.
The Arizona senator even paid a surprise visit to Syria, where he could get a firsthand look as to how terrorism really is alive and kicking. In fact, it is threatening to overtake yet another Arab country.
We have no choice but to acknowledge that Obama is the president of the world’s pre-eminent superpower. It is a job whose responsibility extends far beyond the boundaries of mainland America. In order to run a country and win re-election, it didn’t hurt to be a clone of George W. Bush. From Obama’s standpoint, this is just about the worst thing anyone could say about him.
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