U.S. President Barack Obama in Austin, Texas, Thursday, July 10. WASHINGTON – When U.S. President Barack Obama came to power in 2008, it wasn’t just a ritualistic passing of the torch. It was the sheathing of a sword that had led America into two major wars that ultimately scarred its credibility and international reputation.
The era of Obama was supposed to be a time of healing, a time of soft power, a refreshed Pax Americana.
In the last few months, however, signs are everywhere that Obama’s foreign policy is crumbling. Far from being a leader of world events, Obama has become a captive.
Just as the U.S. begins its final troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, disputed elections risk civil war. In Iraq, the Sunni terrorist group ISIL has plunged the population into sectarian conflict sparking fears of another terrorist haven requiring renewed western involvement. The failed Israeli/Palestinian peace talks have led to a new cycle of violence. Libya and Yemen remain in crisis. A strongman is back in power in Egypt.
In Europe, Obama is tangled in the Russia/Ukraine standoff and German Chancellor Angela Merkel this week bid auf Wiedersehen to the Berlin CIA chief for spying on her government. In Asia, China’s aggression in the South China Sea continues to threaten U.S. power and its allies.
Instead of building for a future of international cooperation, Obama is tasked with dousing fires. Some are new. Others are flare-ups from the smoldering remains of the Bush administration. But whatever the origins, they all are signs that Obama is caught in a foreign policy squeeze.
Take the case of Afghanistan. The country’s elections are mired in allegations of fraud as the U.S. approaches the final stage of its troop withdrawal. Given the deep tribal conflicts that characterize Afghan politics and the eternal Taliban threat, the crisis poses the very real danger that the country’s first democratic transfer of power could dissolve into civil war.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Kabul Friday to try to resolve the differences between the two political candidates for the presidency.
“We are at a very, very critical moment for Afghanistan,” Kerry said before meeting with the candidates. “The election legitimacy hangs in the balance. The future potential of a transition hangs in the balance.”
Preliminary results from Afghanistan’s most recent runoff election indicate that Ashraf Ghani, a former finance minister and World Bank executive, leads with 56 per cent of the vote. His rival Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister in the government of President Hamid Karzai, has 43 per cent.
The Independent Election Commission has confirmed widespread fraud. Indeed, between the first round of voting and the runoff, Ghani miraculously increased his support from 32 per cent to 56 per cent. The United Nations is attempting to work out a procedure for auditing the vote, but the terms have not been finalized. Meanwhile, both candidates claim victory and Abdullah has threatened to establish a parallel government if Ghani is declared the winner.
The U.S. exercises foreign policy primarily through foreign aid backed by the most powerful military in the world. Unless the two sides settle their differences, the U.S. has threatened to reduce its aid, which last year totalled $10 billion.
Yet the aid card is a tough play. The reality is the West cannot allow Afghanistan to return to the dark ages of Taliban rule. Terrorism’s global threat makes regional conflicts international.
ISIL’s lightening seizure of northern and western Iraq is a case in point. Already, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant has declared a Sunni state and is using the Internet to incite global terrorism and mass murder. Most of its fighters are from outside Iraq.
“It’s a threat to every stabilized country on earth and it’s a threat to us,” U.S. Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said.
Conflict is a magnet to extremists, which is why the U.S. worries about the sudden escalation of violence between Israel and Palestinians, and the potential for new outbreaks in North Africa where the Arab Spring has failed to bring democratic reforms and stability.
Equally worrisome is China’s continued territorial claims to most of the vital commercial waters of the South China Sea, sparking disputes with Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam.
While the U.S. is battling China over the cyber theft of American corporate secrets, China’s naval expansion confronts U.S. dominance of the western Pacific. The U.S. has countered with aerial surveillance and naval shows of force, but to little avail.
“The rise of China as a challenger is the most significant strategic challenge for the U.S.,” Hal Brands, a historian at Duke University, said last month at a strategy forum on how to counter Chinese military ambitions.
After the terror attacks of 9/11, the U.S. went looking for trouble. Now trouble stalks the U.S.
wmarsden@postmedia.com
twitter/ marsdenw
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