#dnaEdit: Presidential folly

Even today some would certify Barack Obama as a “reluctant warrior”. Perhaps there’s an element — only an element — of truth in such a perception. After all, Obama in the past did negotiate an agreement to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons rather than invade the country. He also engaged with Iran on the nuclear issue. But he has clearly since had a change of heart. 

The President’s latest sanction to military aggression in combating the surging violence sponsored by the Islamic State of Syria and Iraq (ISIS), has further damaged his already fading “reluctant warrior” image. In fact, Obama’s  military foray only heightens the growing disillusionment with the President, once perceived as a radical in the White House. His decision to fall back on the failed military strategy adopted by his successive predecessors, particularly his immediate predecessor George W Bush, is rightly viewed with scepticism in knowledgeable circles. If only military aggression were a solution to the raging conflicts, the world would surely be a far less dangerous place today. 

This is a worthy moment to recall the backdrop to Obama’s historic ascendance to power; rewind to the disquiet sweeping America when Obama won the presidential mandate five years ago. The endorsement of Americans across the spectrum to their first Black President stemming in part from their disillusionment with Bush’s military invasion of Iraq. Recall the falsehood the disastrous Iraq war was predicated upon: the alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein’s supposed collaboration with al-Qaida terrorists.

The ‘manufactured’ Iraq war catalysed unprecedented violence across West Asia as well as beyond. The continued military pounding of Iraq combined with the country’s violent internal Shia-Sunni strife turned Iraq into less than a shadow of its former self. Far from receding, bloodshed is now in the ascendant in the country. And yet the West continues to adopt the same bloody means to end violence. Obama may have vetoed sending foot soldiers inside Syria. But that is military semantics. The truth is that the on-going air strikes are an outright declaration of war.

Viewing the air strikes with apprehension, foreign policy analysts have  observed that the renewed US aggression is fraught with frightening implications for the entire world. Far from ending the bloody conflict, the air strikes are likely to feed into the cycle of violence, helping it to further spread across the world.   

The ISIS’s chilling brutality has appalled and unified the world in condemnation. But can more military intervention contain the spread of fanatical violence? At the recent UN General Assembly Obama said, “We come together at a crossroads between war and peace; between disorder and integration; between fear and hope.” That statement was a far cry from a vastly different statement made almost a year ago when Obama declared, “The world is more stable than it was five years ago.”

The truth is that the world today is far more prone to violence. Much of the  blame can be attributed to the US and the former Soviet Union which leveraged military aggression through mutual brinkmanship. Not to mention  the brazen supplying of arms to Muslim groups which, going from strength to strength, have now turned on their former benefactors. Till the US begins to explore political mechanisms and the process of addressing the genuine grievances against both the West and Arab governments is set into motion, the violence is likely to continue. Obama’s decision to once again walk the war-path is a recipe for more violence and radicalisation.