Obama’s new war on terror just like the old one
May 27, 2013 7:10PM
President Barack Obama’s first major speech of his second term on counterterrorism sounded good, like all his speeches, but in the end promised little real change.
The president said Thursday that the U.S. war on terrorist groups, “like all wars, must end. That’s what history advises. It’s what our democracy demands.” Al-Qaida, he said, is “on the path to defeat.”
That seemed to be a somewhat ambiguous reformulation of the late Vermont Sen. George Aiken’s plan for ending the Vietnam War: Call it a victory and go home.
But Obama prefaced his remark by saying, “Our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue.”
If there is a policy change in there, it is difficult to discern.
Obama said “America is at a crossroads” on how it chooses to continue combating international terrorism. The fact is, America was at a crossroads and Obama took, and continues to take, the right direction.
In 2011, he refused to intervene in the 10-month Libyan civil war, other than in a supporting role, leaving Britain and France to fight in support of the rebels. He refused at the outset to intervene directly in Syria’s civil war, which has dragged on since January 2011, other than providing financial and nonlethal logistical aid to the rebels fighting to oust another vile dictator, Bashar al-Assad. He has refused to be goaded into bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Given the number of anti-U.S. Islamic radicals running loose in Saharan Africa, including an offshoot of al-Qaida, Obama might not always be able to keep his hands so clean. But if it comes to that, his preference is for tightly targeted strikes rather than the large-scale military intervention favored by his predecessor.
The president said the use of drones is a legal, effective and necessary anti-terrorism measure. But under new White House guidelines promising more transparency and openness, the drones will be used only if a terrorist suspect represents “an imminent threat” and can’t be captured.
The fact that more than 3,000 Pakistanis have died in drone strikes suggests the previous guidelines were too flexible. Much of the drone targeting is being turned over from the CIA to the presumably more disciplined military.
The president once again promised to close the military-run Guantanamo Bay prison, that continuing stain on America’s reputation, and return to Congress some of the war-making powers it ceded to the executive in a post-9/11 law on the use of military force.
These will be real changes in policy only if he can convince an extremely reluctant Congress to go along. Somehow, we’re right back where we started on those two issues.
Scripps Howard News Service
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