As the country goes to the polls again, let us consider how the world might be different if Barack Obama had been President when 9/11 happened and George W. Bush had succeeded him.
In his address to Congress shortly after 9/11, a speech that was seen and heard in all corners of the globe, Bush could have built on the empathy for the United States expressed by people and nations all over the world. He could have called upon the world to help identify and locate the surviving perpetrators, and aid in bringing them to justice before a court of law. That would have elevated the rule of law and helped the world move toward a higher level of civilization. Further, Bush could have used the circumstances to build partnerships in the Middle East and elsewhere. In that vein, it is worth bearing in mind that Muslims living in the Middle East have by far been the most numerous victims of radical Islam.
Instead, Bush chose not the rule of law but the law of the jungle. In the long run the driver of great civilizations is the former, not the latter. Mighty as our military is, we have greater influence as a beacon than as a combatant -- though we may have squandered that advantage. By invading Iraq without making a clear case that it had had any involvement in 9/11, Bush undercut our many supporters throughout the Middle East and perhaps elsewhere; the full scope of the consequences needs not be cited here.
In making these comments, I wish to take nothing away from our military. Quite the opposite. Up and down the ranks they have done a magnificent job and deserve our respect and gratitude. My comments have more to do with wishing that the conditions under which they served could have exposed them to less risk and required fewer men, women, and other resources to achieve American objectives.
Obama’s Cairo speech in June 2009 expressed empathy for many of our friends in the Middle East. Had he been President in 2001 and given that very speech, the odds are that the picture in the Middle East would look much better than it does now. No doubt there still would have been radical Islamists willing to commit acts of terrorism, and there might still have been some need for military action, perhaps by Delta Force or using drones, on very specific targets. However, we would be in a position to do so with substantially more friends in the region and the benefit of extensive human intelligence from locals.
Yet Obama eschewed military action even when it was called for. First he pulled most of our military out of Iraq in 2009 just as the surge had , at great cost, achieved some success. Given an opening, the Islamic State reverse our gains, and now we are back fighting to regain what we abandoned, though with a vastly smaller troop count.
Second, with minimal consultation from advisers or from Congress, Obama drew his now infamous red line, saying that the United States would intervene in Syria if Damascus deployed chemical weapons. (His doing so caught some of his top advisers by surprise, including Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, and ran counter to the counsel of some, including Vice President Joe Biden). Obama failed to follow through. Drawing such red line and then ignoring it frightened other countries in the region and caused them to lose both respect for Obama and trust in American leadership. The decision also gave Russia its opening to engage in Syria, and Moscow has been a thorn in our side ever since. Had Bush drawn a red line in Syria and seen it crossed, the odds are that he would not have hesitated to respond militarily, such as by disabling Syrian airfields and knocking out its planes and helicopters. Among other benefits, the barrel bombing that has cost so many Syrian lives would probably not have happened.
Neither Bush nor Obama is known for seeking out or listening to points of view that don’t correspond with their thinking, even in situations involving countries and situations about which they have minimal knowledge or experience; their communications have largely been outbound only. That has resulted in decisions that have cost this country and the world dearly and resulted in a vastly diminished U.S. standing and a loss of credibility.
The next president will face major challenges in the Middle East and very possibly in the South China Sea, in Ukraine, and elsewhere. These may call for different kinds of responses depending on the circumstances. We need a president who will be able to bear the olive branch or the sword ,depending on which is needed.
We should hope that the next president has the skills to read each situation well and to think wisely and strategically enough to use whichever approach is called for in any given situation. A key to doing that will be to have top-notch advisers and to listen carefully to, and interactively with them. If our next president can do so, and thus combine the best rather than the worst of what Bush and Obama each brought to the presidency, our chances of navigating the next four years successfully will increase materially.