Obama shifts from militancy to diplomacy
About two weeks ago, President Barack Obama announced that his foreign policy, especially in respect of the fight against terrorism, was to be concentrated on diplomacy as against militancy.
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"We must broaden our tools to include diplomacy and development; sanctions and isolation; appeals to international law and — if just and necessary, and effective — multilateral military action."
Addressing fresh military graduates at West Point, Obama held the view that, "a strategy that involves invading every country that harbours terrorist networks is naive and unsustainable."
The American President did not wake up suddenly one morning to come to the realisation that his country is losing ground in the eyes of many global watchers, especially about its pursuit of the agenda against so-called terrorist networks and for the defence of democracy.
The decision on the shift in foreign policy direction may have come after a long and hard reflection on events since September 11, 2001 up to the present.
When Obama entered the Oval Office in the White House in 2009, he inherited two major military operations from President George W. Bush Jnr. These were the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In 2001, President Bush ordered military operations against the Taliban administration in Afghanistan with the excuse that Osama bin Ladin, the man believed to be the brain behind the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and other facilities in the US, had support from the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The US managed to convince its military allies in Europe and other places to join the war which had devastating consequences for the countries involved without the expected remedies except for the claim that Osama bin Ladin had been killed in a special operation in Pakistan.
Incidentally, the US had severely criticised the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan in 1980 and for 10 years or more, supported the Mujahedeen, the local group which resisted the Soviet invasion.
In 2003, the US, without any UN mandate and contrary to world opinion, led a coalition of its allies to invade Iraq under the guise that it was after President Hussein Saddam and his government for stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.
Saddam has been eliminated, his government replaced but the real objectives or at least those made public have never been achieved because no weapons of mass destruction were ever discovered. The Iraqis themselves are beginning to suspect that they were better before than now after the country has been fragmented into numerous sects all trying to outdo one another in violence.
Apart from these cases, the long arms of the US have been seen in the internal upheavals in other places such as Libya, Egypt and Syria. But it is to the credit of the Obama administration that it avoided a direct military intervention in Syria and Iran.
That would have amounted to ending two wars and starting two new ones. While the hawks may be enjoying the militancy of America's foreign policy, there are many others, probably the majority, who feel that enough is enough and that America's superpower status could be exploited more for world peace and progress rather than wars and regional conflicts at the least opportunity.
To this less vocal majority, Obama's promise of a new US foreign policy based on "collective action" with allies abroad is the best for their country, at least, for the moment.
There is a widely held opinion that Obama's victory in the 2008 presidential polls had a lot to do with the determination of Americans to avoid wars, many of which, at the end of the day, do not serve their national interest. Obama may not be standing alone in his shift of policy to give diplomacy a chance.
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