Obama’s Doctrine: A Change?

Zaki Laïdi, research director at Sciences Po, wonders if the new, less supremacist American strategic approach will be applied on the field, in particular in the Middle East.

The Bush doctrine was based on “the war on terror,” the principle of preventive war and the legitimacy of using force to change regimes believed to be undemocratic and especially derogatory to U.S. strategic interests. With the publication of the 2010 National Security Strategy (which succeeds the 2002 National Security Strategy), we now have elements that prove there is a change, although this change is one of style versus content.

The Obama administration’s new vision for the world is based on a central idea: the rejection of the 9/11 ideology that led the Bush administration to transform the struggle against terrorism into a crusade, to assert American supremacy (Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense, had even spoken of the militarization of U.S. policy), and to see unilateralism as a privileged instrument for international action.

Naturally, it would be naive to believe that U.S. policy will change completely. Any country, especially the most powerful one, has core interests that remain stable over time. Its bureaucracy also has its own interests: Congress has a say and it’s no myth that the lobbies are extremely influential, even in foreign policy. Nevertheless, Obama’s doctrine presents an undeniable change in direction.

The most fundamental of these changes is the relinquishment of antiterrorist speeches that were based on an ideological view of the problem and which in fact led to a representation of the world based on a model of conflict between civilizations.

Of course, the Bush administration differentiated between “Islamic terrorism” and Islam. In fact, though, U.S. policy has been built around a deep distrust of the Muslim world, whose hostility toward the United States has never been stronger, even among the most moderate who are persistent opponents of Islamic terrorism. The Bush administration utterly failed to win the sympathy of Muslim opinion needed to isolate the extremist movements.

The most striking example of American failure in this region of the world can be found in the overwhelming shift of Turkish public opinion. Strongly opposed to the 2003 intervention in Iraq, the Turkish authorities, supported by public opinion, have since initiated a profound movement of emancipation from the United States. In fact, Turkish opinion is now strongly allied with the Palestinian cause, and obviously the incredible blunder in Gaza will only reinforce this.

On terrorism, the National Security Strategy is ambiguous: it no longer speaks of Islamic terrorism but of violent extremists. To some, this change of tone may appear purely artificial. However, from Casablanca to Karachi, the change of tone will certainly be well received even if the extremists will not disarm.

On this note, it should be remembered that the United States was the only one to speak of “war on terror.” The Europeans have always rejected this formula even though they have had to fight against terrorism during a time when Americans were not concerned with the subject at all.

This willingness to break with the direction of 9/11 ideology leads naturally enough to the search for a more balanced position toward the conflict between Israel and Palestine. The Bush administration argued that the war in Iraq would help lead to a settlement of this conflict, similar to how the first Gulf War facilitated the Madrid Conference. However, unlike the Bush Sr. administration which exerted extreme pressure and forced Israel’s government to attend a peace conference, Bush Jr.’s only fueled the intransigence of the Israeli authorities.

The Obama administration is aware that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will not resolve all the problems in the Middle East. It knows that without resolving this conflict, the region will always be in crisis and susceptible to instability and chaos.

The administration also knows that, without its regulations, the United States may find itself in a permanent and unbearable position which would lead it to either intervene, increasing the risk of fueling terrorism and hostility directed toward the country, or withdraw, taking the risk of jeopardizing their considerable interests in the region. The only solution is to engage strongly in favor of a balanced settlement, in which the condition remains that Israel withdraw from occupied territories.

For the first time, U.S. officials are using the name Jerusalem/Al Quds to refer to Jerusalem; Al Quds is the Arabic name for the city. This semantic innovation means that the U.S. formally considers Palestinian claims to Jerusalem to be as legitimate as those of the Israelis.

At the recent Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, the U.S. exhibited this same spirit by agreeing to the idea of another conference that would discuss the denuclearization of the Middle East. This will inevitably lead to the question of Israeli nuclear activity in the region. Subsequently, the American president has regretted the excessive focus on the Israeli nuclear program.

By not opposing in principle the idea of a conference on the denuclearization of the Middle East, the United States has softened its attitude with respect to the Arabic view. We have yet to know the outcome of this change, but the tragedy of the fleet in Gaza will no doubt offer the Obama administration the opportunity to move from theory to practice.