A little under two years since President Barack Obama won re-election in November of 2012, he finds himself embroiled in a series of global confrontations that he must hardly have bargained for on the day of his inauguration in January of 2013. Not too long ago, Ukraine was the major preoccupation, and now it has been followed by new confrontations in the Middle East.
True, Obama had, in the course of his first term realized that any hope that he had for making policy on the basis of consensus between his party and the Republicans was unlikely to come to pass. And indeed, in the course of the last few years, the Republicans have hardened their frequent refusal to operate in a bipartisan manner whether in domestic or foreign affairs.
As time has gone on, the Republicans have painted him as unwilling to be decisive in foreign relations, whether in Europe or the Middle East. They have asserted that his famous Arab Spring speech in Cairo, in May 2011, was a misreading of events in the Middle East, and that radical forces really read it as a form of support for warring against existing governments, many of whom have been autocratic. For them, that Arab Spring speech, given in Cairo, has seen democracy come and go in Egypt itself, and the American government cosying up to a government cast in a garb of a military dominated electoral process.
The Republicans were, of course, annoyed at candidate Obama’s severe criticism of George W Bush’s invasion of Iraq, and the removal of Saddam Hussein that has created a maelstrom of disorder in Iraq. In the view of some this is what has led to a heightening of a Sunni-Shia muted conflict that has now been extended into the widened arena of IS-dominated disorder in the Middle Eastern region.
From that perspective, they, and other Obama critics, make another jump. For they see Obama’s unwillingness to take what they thought should be a more active policy interest in the behaviour of the Iraqi Shia-dominated government, as emboldening non-Shia forces in other parts of the Middle East opposed to Shia domination.
From the critics’ perspective, Obama’s failure to take a stance in relation to the functioning of the Syrian Shia President has also caused a gradual shift in policy among Sunni-dominated regimes, in particular Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, seen as longtime allies of the United States in the Middle East.
These regimes first took much offence at the decision of the US and the Nato powers to seek to find a road to rapprochement with the Shia regime in Iran, whom the Sunni governments have perceived as enemy No 1, since that regime came to power. And secondly, given their perspective, they can be said to feel that the US has not taken their own feelings and advice into account, while Obama and the Nato powers concentrated their minds on finding a solution to keeping nuclear weapons out of the Iranians’ grasp.
Here, in a sense, it can be said that a certain symmetry of view, even given their political distance, developed between the Israelis and the Saudis and other Sunni-led governments, and it is not surprising that there was a certain tolerance of the recent Israeli confrontation with Hamas, as the Israelis went on the rampage against that Palestinian faction.
This perception seems to have gained some credence as, in effect, the Egyptian government seemed to seized the initiative from the Americans in consolidating a ceasefire in Gaza. The Egyptians, who had already cut off certain passageways from their country to Hamas- dominated areas, seemed to find some empathy with the Israelis – at least enough to be accepted by Netanyahu and his government as, in the phrase of the diplomatists, interlocuteurs valables (trustworthy negotiating intermediaries or go-betweens).
It would, then, seem to be the case, that even as the Nato powers have decided to intervene against IS (though not in man-to-man battle, maintaining Obama’s insistence on not sending ground troops to the area), it is unclear what their real objective is, since they cannot be sure that the sides they are supporting, in particular the Iraqis, have the will or cohesion to play an effective part in a ground battle against IS.
In addition, the Americans’ recent half-hearted relationship with the government of Turkey, a member of Nato since 1952, cannot allow them to be sure, at least so far, that the Turkish President Erdogan, recently, though for different reasons, not on very good terms with the United States, will feel himself able to give the kind of support to the Kurdish people that they need from a de facto neighbour.
This kind of situation in the Middle East would appear to be giving Obama’s domestic opponents a field day for criticism, as the mid-term Congressional elections, slated for November, draw near. The Republicans are criticising the President for giving what, in effect, may be an advantage to the IS, by telegraphing them his unwillingness to commit ground troops to the Middle East. This is, of course, an electioneering tactic, since they themselves can easily now read the negative American public sentiment on this issue.
On the other hand, it is obviously now difficult for Obama to play the game of shielding some of his strategies, in particular that of committing the necessary might of American military strength to the battle against IS, even as a ruse, to raise doubts in the minds of the IS forces as to what limits the US and indeed Nato will go in order to protect their allies and their interests in the region.
In the back of Obama’s mind there would seem to have been, before he became President, and in the light of the George W Bush effort in Iraq, a fairly firm belief that American ground forces should not be used to legitimise one or other faction wishing to dominate in a political conflict. This would appear, in some measure, to provide space for risk-taking on the part of the combatants whom America would not like to see prevail.
Up to now, that commitment of non-engagement of military forces, has served Obama well politically. But at a time when historically firm allies, like the Saudis, are at odds with the US, in terms of political objectives, it appears to be the case that the IS is utilising this to press its advantage as far as it can, and create geopolitical facts on the ground which may be difficult to remove.
Whether, in this political and diplomatic maelstrom, the President can find ways of consolidating his support at home, even if this means breaking his longtime vow, or even the threat of it, to keep his ground troops at home, is left to be seen. But in the meantime, IS seems to feel that it can ignore the Nato challenge.
