Obama’s War

It’s not an easy job being a Democratic president in a country at war, especially when one is on the eve of a reelection campaign. George W. Bush certainly started two huge conflicts, but President Barack Obama has killed more hierarchs and further perturbed the al-Qaida network than his manly predecessors. Even when his commandos settled his account with Osama bin Laden in person just a year ago, his adversary Mitt Romney couldn’t stop himself, at the risk of tripping into the absurd, to bring to the table the memory of the most mocked Democratic presidency in history: “Even Jimmy Carter would have given that order,” dared Romney, a candidate who had, however, repeatedly criticized the risks and the uselessness of searching for the Sept. 11 mastermind.

The Republicans will stop at nothing to exploit the old cliche that Democrats are pacifists, incapable of assuring national defense and are ready to rewrite history (Roosevelt, Kennedy and Johnson). Hillary Clinton, present in the White House’s Situation Room during the attack on bin Laden’s residence seemed, for an instant, to be reliving Carter’s humiliation when she learned that the first helicopter was crushed in the building’s courtyard. This lack of warlike legitimacy undermines the Democratic elite. But Obama doesn’t miss an occasion to break these stereotypes by a campaign combining his exploits with a new international realism. His secret trip to Afghanistan the other night summed it up perfectly – if he confirmed the end of American engagement [in Afghanistan], his presence at 4 a.m. in a hangar at Bagram base, for a quite meditative walkabout with the troops, also revealed a profound determination and a form of courage.