Once praised for his inspirational hope-filled messages, the American President comes across like a shadow of his former self. His recycled rhetoric elicits little but yawns. His promises are received with more than a pinch of salt. According to a recent Gallup poll, just 38 percent of American respondents still approve of his job performance. Americans from all sides of the political spectrum are disappointed in this leader who rode to the White House on the slogan ‘Yes, we can’. But the man dubbed the Ditherer-in-Chief is under fire at home for leading from behind at a time when the planet is fraught with unprecedented dangers. Indeed, he’s emerged as the poster child for the old adage ‘He who hesitates is lost’.
At a time when a band of bloodthirsty extremists is rampaging over Syria and Iraq, threatening Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt, and disseminating their ideology to western capitals, Obama has failed to recognize how dire this threat truly is. He has ruled out putting boots on the ground, saying we can shrink the influence of ISIS where they are to a manageable problem. That is hardly a statement guaranteed to instill fear in the hearts of those willing to blow themselves up for the sake of their ‘Caliphate’.
Republican lawmaker Jason Chaffetz was confused by the word ‘manageable’. “That’s when you are closing a lane on a freeway and you have to go down the freeway with three lanes, instead of four, then you manage it. But this is ISIS. They want death and destruction to the United States of America,” he said.
Vice-President Joe Biden went off script with his message to the Islamic State. “They should know we will follow them to the gates of hell until they are brought to justice”. But as long as his hand is not on the rudder, his words ring hollow; indeed, US troops in Iraq have questioned how they can follow through on that threat when they’re confined to their barracks.
The media savaged Obama for his admission that he has no strategy to deal with ISIS in Syria. That’s not what anyone wants to hear from the supposed Leader of the Free World. If he’s baffled, that’s understandable. Any US-led bombing campaign there would require a green light and possible cooperation from President Bashar Al-Assad, who the Obama administration deems an enemy.
Failing some kind of détente with Assad, the US military would need to launch an invasion to distinguish the good guys from the bad. Fighting alongside regime forces is not the kind of PR Obama seeks and neither he nor the American public has any appetite for yet another full scale war in the Middle East, given the high price the US paid for its earlier blunders.
The White House’s policy on Syria is partly to blame for the proliferation of decapitators. The US encouraged the anti-regime popular uprising, pledged funding and support for the Free Syrian Army and then failed to deliver, opening the door for religious extremists to make their entrance, which lent grist to Assad’s mill that he was simply defending his country from terrorists all along. Obama also turned a deaf ear to serial pleas from the Iraqi government to assist in ousting ISIS.
Permitting the situation in Syria and Iraq to fester was one of Obama’s greatest errors. For one thing, success has been the Islamic State’s prime recruiting tool; for another, America’s deterrence has been gravely undermined. It took the heads of American journalists to roll before the US president took his own out of the sand. Even then, he is not willing for US Forces to go it alone. he has co-opted nine US allies to form a coalition. Former US Vice-President Dick Cheney weighed-in characterizing Obama as “the weakest president in my lifetime”.
President Obama’s performance related to other foreign policy issues has been equally lackluster. He championed Ukraine’s pivot to the EU but, apart from a string of toothless anti-Russian sanctions, he’s failed to prevent Moscow from filching Crimea, arming pro-Russian separatists in the east or hurtling Kiev into economic wilderness. In fact, the only thing he’s achieved is re-establishing a bi-polar world with a consequent reduction of US geopolitical influence. The New Yorker reports Obama’s frustration that his calls to President Putin are going to voicemail.
His stance on Israel’s onslaught of Gaza was just as lamentable switching between condemnations of Israel’s disproportionate response to assertions of Israel’s right to defend itself. America’s traditional role as mediator was handed to Egypt with US officials present as observers. And while we are on the subject of Egypt, Obama’s cuddling of the Muslim Brotherhood has thrust Cairo into Russia’s arms.
For sure, Barack Obama inability to take decisions and stick to them combined with his laundry list of broken promises will go down in history as his Achilles’ heel; his successor will be left to pick up his legacy of broken pieces. For many in the US and around the world that day can’t come soon enough.
Linda S. Heard is a specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She can be contacted at lheard@gulfnews.com
