Has Obama abandoned the leadership and vision that led to his Nobel Peace Prize?

Barely a year into his presidency, Barack Obama was awarded the most prestigious Nobel Prize for Peace.  In its citation, the Nobel Committee noted that:

Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts.

In a nationally televised address on Sept. 10 – a year and a half into his second term – President Obama has stated unequivocally that he intends to crush ISIL.

“Our objective is clear: we will degrade, and ultimately destroy, ISIL through a comprehensive and sustained counter-terrorism strategy…

First, we will conduct a systematic campaign of airstrikes against these terrorists…I have made it clear that we will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country, wherever they are. That means I will not hesitate to take action against ISIL in Syria, as well as Iraq. This is a core principle of my presidency: if you threaten America, you will find no safe haven…

Second, we will increase our support to forces fighting these terrorists on the ground…

Third, we will continue to draw on our substantial counterterrorism capabilities to prevent ISIL attacks…

Fourth, we will continue providing humanitarian assistance to innocent civilians who have been displaced by this terrorist organization…”

These are fighting words.  And while he has tried to temper these by alluding to coalition partners: “America will lead a broad coalition to roll back this terrorist threat,” it is fairly obvious that the emphasis on “the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play…,” so duly noted by the Nobel Committee as the basis for awarding President Obama the Peace Prize, has been abandoned.  The US is now prepared to do it alone.

This policy shift can most certainly be justified by administration hacks.  ISIL poses a threat to US citizens abroad. Two American journalists who were kidnapped have recently been beheaded by the group. But it is still quite a leap from being a threat to US citizens abroad to being a national security threat.  When President Bush rationalized the invasion of Iraq, he invoked this very same threat to national security to justify his actions.  Yet it was very clear then that Iraq had no intent, nor had the capability to launch attacks against US territory.  Even allegations of possession of weapons of mass destruction proved largely empty, to the later embarrassment of then Secretary of State Colin Powell.

President Obama was emphatic in this policy speech that US combat troops not be involved. This reassurance, in light of past US military involvements, has no purchase.  In any form of US military involvement, there is always the possibility of mission creep; violence begets violence, so military involvement, often based only on limited knowledge of a very complex situation, can easily escalate towards more weaponry and more troops. In recent history, only one US president, President George Bush the Elder, was able to avoid mission creep: once Kuwait had been liberated, and Saudi Arabia’s border with Iraq was relatively secure, President Bush the Elder declared a cease fire.

In the ramp up to the invasion of Iraq, I remember a conversation I had with a colleague.  I was lamenting that we seemed not to have learned anything from Vietnam.  Where upon my colleague responded that “we won’t get stuck in another quagmire like Vietnam. We will get in, get rid of the threat of Saddam, and get out quickly.”  Yeah, right, I quietly said to myself.  Today we are still militarily involved in Iraq, through military aid, and troops under the guise of military trainers and advisers.

I applaud President Obama for his decision to send humanitarian aid to the Yazhidis stranded on Mount Sinjar, and for conducting aerial strikes to avert a humanitarian catastrophe.  And I would also support further efforts to assist the Yazhidis to return to their communities where they have heretofore lived in peace with their neighbors.  But this is primarily a humanitarian mission that necessitates the use of force since these people were invaded and faced the prospect of genocide.  The use of force is in the service of a humanitarian objective.  The decision to crush the ISIL goes beyond this humanitarian goal.

The situation in the Middle East today is clearly complex and thorny.  There are even analysts and historians who argue that the rise of ISIL is in part traceable to the US invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, post 9/11.  What disturbs me about President Obama’s pivot towards the use of military force as the principal aspect of US policy towards the region, is not just the ill advised promise to withhold combat troops from the region when identified enemy clearly holds territory, yet has the resilience of an ideologically motivated organization.  How, exactly, does one hope to “destroy ISIL” ?  Aerial bombardments will at most degrade their capability. Arming a proxy army of soldiers is akin to football’s “Hail Mary pass.”  You hope that they will do what you want them to accomplish.  But with limited training, corruption, and ill-defined political loyalties, such a proxy army could easily morph from liberators to oppressors. In the meantime, even as the ISIL loses territory, it continues to gain recruits, and lives, so to speak, to fight another day.

The use of military force as an instrument of foreign policy is inherently limited in what it can accomplish.  And even when it is used overwhelmingly, as in the case with Iraq, its effects are usually temporary and short term.  The disintegration of Iraq as a nation state, despite the billions of American coin, and thousands of American lives spent towards nation building is an abject lesson on this.

What President Obama needs to do, if he is to establish a lasting legacy in foreign policy, is to return to the leadership vision that led to his Nobel Peace Prize.  Instead of relying on US military might as a principal instrument of foreign policy, Obama needs to place greater emphasis on multilateral diplomacy with a strengthened role for the United Nations.  As a world leader, in a world fraught with factions and divisions often maintained through military force, President Obama, needs to be steadfast in his vision for a peaceful world achieved through multilateral diplomacy, political negotiations, and a strengthened role for the United Nations.  I plead that he not be stampeded into the use of military force, as the hacks and warmongers among us would prefer he do. Yes, American lives will sometimes be lost, in pursuit of diplomatic and political solutions, as has happened in Benghazi, and in the recent execution of two American journalists. But keep in mind the broader picture of American lives being lost to poverty, and to the lack of political will to adopt stronger gun control laws.  More lives are lost to these, for want of a political will to address them.  Yet more coin has been spent abroad on military adventures under the guise of national security.

Let us not pay lip service to the lives of Americans lost to gun violence in the country, while we plot revenge through the use of overwhelming military force abroad, simply because two American journalists have been executed by an ideologically motivated terrorist organization.  My heart goes out to the families of the murdered journalists; but it goes out as well to the friends and families of those who have been killed through gun violence within our shores.

President Obama’s dilemma is akin to the quandary Nelson Mandela faced in trying to move South Africa beyond the legacy of apartheid.  The South Africa of today, despite continuing challenges, is relatively free of racial strife a sterling testament to the effectiveness path he chose, non-violence and reconciliation — this from a person who had earlier advocated the use of violence to break the cycle of racial violence against black South Africans.  Have the courage of your vision, which leadership demands.

I ask that President Obama have the courage of his vision that was affirmed by the Nobel Prize Committee in Oslo:  Multilateral diplomacy with an emphasis on the role of the United Nations should be the cornerstone of US foreign policy now and in the years to come.  As Nelson Mandela did in moving South Africa beyond apartheid, President Obama can move the US beyond exceptionalism into multilateralism.  Our planet is now a global community.  To strengthen it we need to address grievances often rooted in previous historical periods with civility, and cooperation.  In the end, our goal is to socialize everyone to become, good, productive, and peaceful members of this global village.