Obama’s Panic Reaction

After Obama’s visit to Afghanistan, some of the U.S. media see a true commander in chief in him. Republicans are accusing him of misusing the anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden as campaign fodder.

He expects some hypocrisy in politics, E.J. Dionne writes in the Washington Post, but it is still jaw-dropping to him when he had to listen to the Republicans accuse President Obama of shamelessly politicizing the anniversary of the killing of al-Qaida icon Osama bin Laden and misusing it as campaign fodder: “Wasn’t it just eight years ago that the GOP organized an entire presidential campaign around the attacks of September 11, 2001, and George W. Bush’s response to them?” “Obama’s opponents,” continues Dionne, “imagine we have no memories whatsoever.”

Conservative commentators are not bothered at all by comments like these. For example, there is Pat Buchanan, who wanted to become president himself in 1992 and 1996. On Fox News he called Barack Obama’s surprising visit to Afghanistan a panic reaction. When faced with the threat of an election defeat, the president wants to take advantage of the heroic action of the Navy SEALs who killed bin Laden.

But in reality, the preoccupation with the question of whether or not the killing of bin Laden is being misused for party politics is a side issue. For them [the Republicans], the main issues are actually whether or not Obama has shown himself to be capable when it comes to foreign policy, and whether or not the war in Afghanistan is, after more than 10 years, on the path to an end.

The intelligence expert among Washington Post journalists, David Ignatius, comments: Obama has finally shown that he is a true commander in chief. When it comes down to it, the president has in the past “seemed a distant, passionless commander, much more comfortable making decisions in secret about covert action.” But now a different Obama has been shown: “The Afghanistan trip obviously was a preview of arguments Obama will make during the coming presidential campaign: He is the president who ended a decade of expeditionary wars; he is the president who killed Osama bin Laden; he is the president who found a way to leave Afghanistan but also stay.”

Meanwhile, the neoconservative commentator William Kristol is focused on one particular statement of Obama’s in his speech to the nation: “This time of war began in Afghanistan, and this is where it will end.” In this respect, Kristol has a completely different view. Referring to Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen he writes, “We are at war with political Islamism, a movement whose ability to find state sponsors is not limited to just one country or two.” That sounds plausible, at least from the viewpoint of a man who does not want to let go of the idea of the global war on terror.