Another blow to Obama’s leadership
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President Barack Obama’s presidency will be forever marred by the events of Saturday. Precisely at the moment when public opinion polls began to shift in favor of a limited and well-defined punitive strike on Syria (50% said they supported such a move), he got cold feet and made an embarrassing U-turn. He made this decision despite the red lines he had drawn, with no caveats, on the use of chemical weapons and despite him having made no prior mention of pre-authorization from Congress.
After a week in which “all the president’s men” aired combative rhetoric and made clear-cut statements (Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech on Friday was particularly laden with clichés), the brandishing of weapons gave way to a waiting period.
President Bashar Assad’s regime may have brazenly breached the red lines (on multiple occasions), and the incriminating evidence gathered by the intelligence community made for a compelling and unequivocal indictment against him, but Obama decided to hold his fire. Everyone’s gaze was turned on Obama, in the hope that the American eagle would finally fly, but the president proved yet again that he was not cut from the same cloth as many former White House occupants.
His predecessors Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon never hesitated before making tough and unpopular decisions that showed their adherence to American values and an endorsement of the nation’s heritage (be it on domestic affairs or on national security and defense matters). Their decisions showed a commitment to overarching national security objectives.
Obama’s deer-caught-in-the-headlights behavior and his failure to do what he publicly pledged he would do are a consequence of a well-defined ideology that narrowed the spectrum in which the president could operate and think. Obama has found it hard, maybe even impossible, to go back to the George W. Bush era; he wants nothing to do with that war-ridden presidency.
But what was at stake was a “mini-operation” in Syria, not an Iraq- or Afghanistan-like military intervention, Obama was wary of any sort of act that would have cemented the perception that he was Bush’s ideological successor. Not so long ago, there was another Democratic president who did not shy away from taking a punitive measure in Iraq in December 1998. That president was Bill Clinton, and he didn’t even bother seeking congressional approval. Three months later, he orchestrated a NATO-led intervention against Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in Kosovo.
Obama hopes he will not have to fly solo (or at least have a few wingmen) when he intervenes; by obtaining legitimacy for every action, he wants to ensure that he does not overstep his international and national mandate. This behavior further underscores his weakness and reinforces the notion that he is an absentee president and a hegemon who has gone AWOL.
What is leadership if not the ability to chart a path forward in the face of opposition at home and abroad?
The lessons of the past, while instructive, might lead to sweeping generalizations and oversimplified comparisons. That said, there is still the troubling feeling that the decision to delay the moment of truth — on the bizarre pretext that Congress should greenlight such a move — is a sad throwback to the 1930s era of appeasement and the tragic consequences that inevitably followed it.
President Barack Obama’s presidency will be forever marred by the events of Saturday. Precisely at the moment when public opinion polls began to shift in favor of a limited and well-defined punitive strike on Syria (50% said they supported such a move), he got cold feet and made an embarrassing U-turn. He made this decision despite the red lines he had drawn, with no caveats, on the use of chemical weapons and despite him having made no prior mention of pre-authorization from Congress.
After a week in which “all the president’s men” aired combative rhetoric and made clear-cut statements (Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech on Friday was particularly laden with clichés), the brandishing of weapons gave way to a waiting period.
President Bashar Assad’s regime may have brazenly breached the red lines (on multiple occasions), and the incriminating evidence gathered by the intelligence community made for a compelling and unequivocal indictment against him, but Obama decided to hold his fire. Everyone’s gaze was turned on Obama, in the hope that the American eagle would finally fly, but the president proved yet again that he was not cut from the same cloth as many former White House occupants.
His predecessors Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon never hesitated before making tough and unpopular decisions that showed their adherence to American values and an endorsement of the nation’s heritage (be it on domestic affairs or on national security and defense matters). Their decisions showed a commitment to overarching national security objectives.
Obama’s deer-caught-in-the-headlights behavior and his failure to do what he publicly pledged he would do are a consequence of a well-defined ideology that narrowed the spectrum in which the president could operate and think. Obama has found it hard, maybe even impossible, to go back to the George W. Bush era; he wants nothing to do with that war-ridden presidency.
But what was at stake was a “mini-operation” in Syria, not an Iraq- or Afghanistan-like military intervention, Obama was wary of any sort of act that would have cemented the perception that he was Bush’s ideological successor. Not so long ago, there was another Democratic president who did not shy away from taking a punitive measure in Iraq in December 1998. That president was Bill Clinton, and he didn’t even bother seeking congressional approval. Three months later, he orchestrated a NATO-led intervention against Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in Kosovo.
Obama hopes he will not have to fly solo (or at least have a few wingmen) when he intervenes; by obtaining legitimacy for every action, he wants to ensure that he does not overstep his international and national mandate. This behavior further underscores his weakness and reinforces the notion that he is an absentee president and a hegemon who has gone AWOL.
What is leadership if not the ability to chart a path forward in the face of opposition at home and abroad?
The lessons of the past, while instructive, might lead to sweeping generalizations and oversimplified comparisons. That said, there is still the troubling feeling that the decision to delay the moment of truth — on the bizarre pretext that Congress should greenlight such a move — is a sad throwback to the 1930s era of appeasement and the tragic consequences that inevitably followed it.
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