When talking to friends before the presidential election in 2012, I repeatedly stated that if Barack Obama had character and proper self-awareness, he would resign. He would declare to his people that he found out that he was totally in over his head during his first tenure and realized his utter incapability to carry out the most powerful job in the world. While the option for him to resign is still on the table, albeit with minuscule probability, I ascribed his reelection to colossal political illiteracy on the part of the majority of American people.
It demonstrated that irrational ideological prejudice and preconceived notions of politics control Americans' minds. The seed of liberal socialization and the lunacy of political correctness yield their fruits and cloud, if not incapacitate, sound political judgment.
Yet, not even I, in my deep cultural pessimism about the decline of the Western world, was able to anticipate the utter disaster the Obama presidency, quite often not only supported by his party but rather by equally misguided politicians from the other side of the aisle, was going to bring about. I've been commenting on the blunder of Obama policies in domestic affairs (e.g., immigration, healthcare, same-sex marriage) and foreign affairs (e.g., Egypt, Libya, Syria, Ukraine) in previous blogs. While I am not happy that the catastrophes that unfolded inside and outside the U.S. proved me right, I shall not repeat myself. But the hope lives on that readers will scroll down and read expositions that can usually neither find in mainstream media nor high school and college education, for that matter.
Here I focus on international relations and elaborate on another most destructive effect yielded by the Obama regime's failed policies. An outcome that moves into the limelight of international politics, especially after the Caucasus and the Middle East have become engulfed by raging conflagrations far beyond warfare's usual stakes.
The encouragement and even unconditional military support and armament of the opposition forces at first in Libya, then in Syria, the childish announcement of "Assad must go" by Obama and his silly drawing of a red line regarding chemical weapons has caused irreversible damage. It brought the war back to Iraq and more or less nullified the progress achieved there in the past decade. But it also generated a new kind of asymmetrical threat, one that is far worse than the asymmetrical warfare against global terrorism we have become used to ever since September 11, 2001. The Obama administration has radicalized smoldering conflicts by taking out established regimes or politically emboldening and militarily strengthening dubious insurgent forces. They removed or significantly weakened regionally pacifying governments and political administrations that usually contain armed conflict or at least keep it within certain bounds and on a politically controllable level.
The emergence of the I.S. - the Islamic State, a terrorist group that initially appeared on the scene as ISIS/Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) - would not have been possible without the incoherent and misguided foreign policy of the Obama administration. It ushered the Middle East into a new era of asymmetrical warfare that has a direct global impact and should concern the U.S. as well as the entire occidental world.
The I.S. replaced the pinpointed and mostly arbitrary violence of terrorism with the horror of planned persecution of religious, foremost Christian minorities and magnitude and barbarity of killings that include crucifixions and the beheading of children. (For my article on the history of ideas of terrorism, go to the Homeland Security Digital Library at https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=455848). The brutality and destructiveness of I.S.'s operations have even scared away the Iraqi army, who did not put up a decent fight despite superiority in numbers and trained by American instructors.
A self-appointed conglomerate of radical Islamist thugs, using to significant degree weapons sent to Syrian opposition forces by the U.S., made the established and decently trained, organized, and equipped regular Iraq army run. Human atrocities committed by the I.S. are accompanied by targeted vandalism, destruction of churches and other cultural treasures, causing irreversible damage to humankind's cultural heritage. I counted the armament of Syrian rebels as one of the disastrous foreign policy failures in my post of May 10, 2013 (https://www.edwinseditorial.com/2013/05/disastrous-foreign-policy-failures.html).
It is mind-boggling to be aware that almost all of this could have been prevented. Alas, the ignorance of the incumbent political administration is stunning. A strategically overwhelmed president at the helm who has no sound concept of international affairs and cultural interrelations in his mind caused damage whose magnitude is mind-boggling, given the brevity of the few years he has been in office. If ever, it might take generations to correct the committed errors.
However, the fact is that fundamental misconceptions about political (and thus profoundly human) affairs magnify themselves in implementing political ideas. For preventing further damage to global issues, a swift turnaround must bring American (and Transatlantic, for that matter) foreign policy to its senses.
Given Mr. Obama's stubbornness and hubris and conceitedness, there is little hope things will get better in the two years he has left in office. Unless, of course, his ignorance and ideological prejudice will be reined in by the Senate, by Congress, and by a significant majority of the American public.
