PARIS — In proclaiming the elimination of Osama bin Laden a victory for “the greatness” of America (and by obvious extension that of his own leadership), Barack Obama hopes to create an image of forcefulness for his foreign policy — and at the same time assure his re-election next year.
Consider this language: Killing Bin Laden “is a testament to the greatness of our country and the determination of the American people.” And, “As a nation, there is nothing we can’t do.”
Add to that, “We will never tolerate our security being threatened.” Plus, “We will be true to the values that make us who we are” and “relentless in the defense of our citizens and our friends and allies.”
Call it a presidential volley of star-spangled rhetoric, including 10 I’s, a me and a my in Sunday night’s 11-minute got-him announcement, followed up by a trip Thursday to New York and the ground zero of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on America.
While that sounds a lot like flag-wrapped, and probably effective, pre-campaign politicking, the raid leading to Bin Laden’s death takes a stone off the country’s heart. Mr. Obama, with seemingly justified pride and moral legitimacy, could well say (and did) — although the International Federation for Human Rights in Paris finds the operation’s legality open to question — “Justice has been done.”
But this is also a long way from the diction of a candidate who ran for the White House in 2008 with the phrase “we’re no longer about bluster and unilateralism and ideology,” and the suggestion that the United States’ potential for worldwide reach and military commitment has ever-increasing limits.
Now, Mr. Obama is pitching We’re No. 1 to a country that, as Bill Clinton said, “hires you to win” — its Iraq intervention being regarded mostly as a fiasco, but one where the 2007-8 U.S. military surge avoided a dishonorable departure.
Yet this America has no other victories in sight that would rid North Africa of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, or Afghanistan of the Taliban, and everyone else of the departed terrorist-in-chief’s globally dispersed followers.
That’s a contradiction likely to become more evident without changes in American caveats on the extent of U.S. intervention in Libya — a rebel military spokesman said on Monday, “We want America to do the same to Qaddafi” that it did to Bin Laden — or a modification of the Obama administration plan for a troop drawdown this year in Afghanistan.
Just how does the administration and the president’s America of Victory handle the realities of an “Arab Spring” including a Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, likely to share power in a new government, agreeing with Iran this week that Bin Laden’s death means the United States of America has no more excuses for the presence of its troops in the Middle East?
Or the implications of a future Palestinian state, based on the recent reconciliation between the Palestine Liberation Organization government and Hamas, whose prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, reacting to the American raid on Bin Laden’s hide-out, said: “We condemn the assassination of an Arab holy warrior. We regard this as a continuation of the American policy based on oppression and the shedding of Muslim and Arab blood.”
Could the administration argue, while trumpeting an American triumph under Mr. Obama’s command, that it expects, through patience and great understanding, to win sudden moderation from interlocutors whose identity (and appeal) continues to be based on contempt for America’s goals and its support of Israel?
In terms of political tactics, Mr. Obama seems to be trying to replicate a successful element of his 2008 election campaign. Back then, after basing his message early in the year on calls for withdrawal from Iraq, he moved increasingly from left to center on foreign policy as Hillary Rodham Clinton’s candidacy gained strength. After his nomination, the tougher line was maintained through November.
In a final television debate, looking at a flabbergasted John McCain, Mr. Obama described the military surge in Iraq of 20,000 additional troops — which he had opposed — as “succeeding beyond our wildest dreams.” During the same period, he called the specter of Iran achieving nuclear weapons capability “unacceptable,” and said he would do “everything, everything” (get it, get it?) to stop it as president.
Once in the Oval Office, Mr. Obama instead extended America’s open hand to Iran without any palpable success. He made a major speech in Cairo, read by some as an apology by the United States to Muslims for Bush administration policy rather than a call for the Arab world’s democratization. It was followed by a second major address in Moscow, seen by critics as portraying the Cold War as a neutral event and ignoring America and its European friends’ victory over the Soviet Union.
Late last year, readers of Bob Woodward’s “Obama’s Wars” were struck by a response from the president to the author’s question, concerning Afghanistan, if he could tolerate losing a war. Mr. Obama’s answer was, “I think about it not so much in the classic [manner], do you lose a war on my watch?”
Getting the president’s slant on how America can or should come out a winner in relation to the Arab world’s turmoil has not been easy.
According to the Woodward book, after the president’s Muslim outreach speech in Cairo, Gen. James L. Jones, who has since resigned as Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, set the writer straight — while totally contradicting his boss — on the reality of the fight against international terrorism. General Jones said: “It’s certainly a clash of civilizations. It’s a clash of religions. It’s a clash of almost how to live.”
Now, although not in relation to the price of gas in the United States, or to the country’s wobbling economic recovery, Mr. Obama has found an event he wants to make his presidency’s hallmark of American resolve.
But that’s hard. Considering the possibility of new terrorist atrocities, Mr. Obama’s choice to make a tough-minded American success his own key to re-election might not have more than a few weeks or months of shelf life.
If a victory’s proclamation brings vast satisfaction, America’s feat in taking down Osama bin Laden comes with little clarity about how the Obama administration plans to achieve new strategic triumphs.
