WarSclerotic

U.S. President Barack Obama probably wanted to avoid the annals of his presidency last week. Indeed, his job approval rating reached an all-time low of about 40 percent, which comes mostly against the backdrop of the Iraqi government’s precipitous demise.

The great irony here is that Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, suffered similarly dismal approval ratings at the tail end of his second term. But while Bush was the architect of U.S. intervention in Iraq, believing with all his heart that removing Saddam Hussein’s oppressive regime would usher in an age of pluralistic democracy between the Tigris and Euphrates, Obama has actually championed American disengagement from the vale of tears that is Iraq. Nevertheless, the current president has been suffering biting criticism — outside party lines — over Iraq, despite his putative vow to complete the U.S. withdrawal.

The origin of this paradox lies in the widespread public concern over the challenge posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) to the Nouri al-Maliki government. That concern is accompanied by a sense that the 44th president failed to fulfill his explicit duty to the American people, namely, having the Iraqi saga off the American agenda by the end of 2011. Indeed, two and half years after the last soldier left Iraq, Baghdad’s new political order — which was inspired by Washington — is unraveling fast. Not only that, but the president’s decision to send some 300 intelligence and security “advisers” (by air cover, which also poses the threat of escalation) conjures up yet another American tragedy: the Vietnam War.

Many in the U.S. can still recall the failures and shortcomings of the past, which drove the Kennedy and Johnson administrations deep into Vietnam’s boundless heart of darkness. That U.S. national trauma began with Washington’s decision to send several hundred advisers to South Vietnam in 1960.

Despite Obama’s wholehearted reluctance to use force, the U.S. president has nevertheless been subject to intense scrutiny over what the public perceives to be the buildup to a sequel of Vietnam. They see the U.S. slowly and tragically being sucked into the bog, at a high human and economic cost.

In addition to the vestiges of Vietnam, the latest opinion polls indicate that the public feels as though Obama is lumbering down the same foolish road as his predecessor, and that the U.S. president actually believes that through his “Iraqization” policy U.S. troops will be able to leave the arena without threat of chaos, anarchy or bloodshed. The problem is that this concept will meet the same fate that Nixon’s notorious “Vietnamization” policy met before.

In other words, when a society is split along ethnic, religious and ideological lines, not even the largest amounts of military and economic aid or investment in training and advising an army loyal to the government can redress a situation of minimal political stability, which is exemplified by the struggles in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Without widespread legitimacy or support from the ground up for political order in Iraq, which teeters on the U.S. bayonet and al-Maliki’s wholly unreliable leadership, American attempts to remotely assist, back or support the Iraqi government are futile.

The next few days and weeks will show us whether Uncle Sam can sober up from his delusions, or whether he’ll continue on the stuporous march toward the inevitable expiration of the American era.