When Obama got it right
by Serge Halimi
Was Barack Obama, then
just an Illinois state senator, wrong back in 2002 when he thought that an
invasion of Iraq would only “fan the flames of the Middle East and encourage
the worst, rather than the best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the
recruitment arm of Al-Qaida”? Did vice-president Richard Cheney see things more
clearly when he promised that US troops would be “welcomed as liberators”? Yet
now it is Cheney who dares to accuse Obama of being a traitor and a fool in
Iraq, concluding without shame: “Rarely has a US president been so wrong about
so much, at the expense of so many” (1).
Obama currently rules out
sending US troops to fight against the jihadist forces that control part of
Iraq (see Iraq Special Report, pages 1-4). But
he has already agreed to dispatch 300 military “advisers” to the Baghdad
regime, while suggesting that the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, should
be replaced. The US has provided an autocratic and corrupt regime with
“military advisers” before: Ngô Đình Diệm’s regime in Vietnam nearly 60 years ago. Exasperated by
his ineptitude, the US let him be (or had him) killed. What followed — military
escalation, region-wide violence, millions dead — may explain the American
people’s reluctance to follow the warmongers this time.
Intervention by western
powers has had catastrophic effects in the Arab world, too. The West has been
tight-fisted over contributing to the economic and social development of
Tunisia and Egypt by cancelling their debts, but spared no expense in
destroying the latest enemy on “humanitarian grounds” — never invoked for US
protégés such as Israel, Qatar or Saudi Arabia (2).
Obama suggested on
13 June that Iraq itself, laid waste by the US, was responsible for its
current tragedy: “Over the past decade American troops have made extraordinary
sacrifices to give Iraqis an opportunity to claim their own future.” This type
of self-serving reconstruction of history can only embolden neoconservatives
who believe that Washington’s failure to act anywhere automatically hastens the
decline of US power, and the advent of universal chaos.
The Iraq war was “won”
before Obama took office, Republican senator John McCain tells us. He believes
any international crisis can be resolved by bombing the place and sending in
the marines. On 15 March McCain had called for US troops to be dispatched
to Ukraine and, on 13 May, for military intervention in Nigeria. Obama did
not want to “fan the flames of the Middle East” in 2002. Will he be as wise
now?
Serge
Halimi is president of Le
Monde diplomatique.
(1) Dick and Liz Cheney, “The Collapsing Obama Doctrine”, The Wall Street Journal, New York, 18 June 2014.
(2) See Serge Halimi, “Saudi
Arabia’s free pass”, Le
Monde diplomatique, English
edition, March 2012. In Qatar, tens of thousands of foreign workers employed in
the workshops preparing for the 2022 World Cup are working under near-slave
conditions.
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