Obama the Smooth Talker

In an ironic move, the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the U.S. president whose administration has systematized the selective assassination of enemies of the state.

Barack Obama himself authorized the strikes, at the other end of the world, on unsuspecting, sometimes innocent, targets and against the wishes of the primary countries concerned: Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen — countries that were considered “allies.” The strikes featured state of the art devices, the name of which has become an entire program: “drones,” those terrifying unmanned fighter planes, guided by CIA agents glued to their screens in air-conditioned Midwestern offices.

Adding to the extrajudicial execution of bin Laden in May 2011 and to the ongoing scandal of the Guantanamo prison — which, at least, Obama has been “against” since the beginning of his presidency — the ultracontroversial use of drones gave the president material last Thursday for one of those theoretical speeches at which, as a former lawyer, he has always excelled.

But was he convincing? Did his legal-moral reflections on the merits of the war on terror and selective assassination represent a change in U.S. policy?

Nothing is less certain.

Obama does not have the ignorance nor the arrogance of George W. Bush, who, full of certainty, boldly announced his policies for the war on terror, giving the U.S. the right to strike whom they want, where they want and what they want, without giving any thought to discussing these decisions for even a second.

The doctrine of “preemptive self-defense,” which allegedly needs no justification, was a conceptual atrocity. It is a monster issued from Sept. 11, from which all the excesses of this horrible decade sprang: the invasion of Iraq on false premises; the imprisonment, without process or rights, of some real terrorists and many innocent people at Guantanamo; and, starting in 2004, these unmanned and — for the attacker — risk-free strikes, which from 10,000 kilometers away kill the terrorist — but sometimes also his son or his mother, who happens to be passing nearby, or even an innocent person targeted due to erroneous information.

Obama does not deny the moral, legal or operational dilemmas. He even affirms them. In this sense, intellectually, at least, he is the anti-Bush that we all know and love.

For the first time, the president admitted that, just because a technology is “efficient and legal” does not mean that it is ipso facto “moral or always necessary.”* For the first time, he recognized that innocent people have been killed by drones: “These deaths will haunt us as long as we live.” In terms of America’s image, these maneuvers come at a high cost. For the first time, he promised that the rules of engagement for targeting foreign nationals will be the same as those for U.S. targets, such as Anwar al-Awlaki, the jihadi who held a U.S. passport and was killed by a drone in Yemen in September 2011.

All this makes for beautiful analysis, beautiful theory and beautiful rhetoric. But what did Mr. Obama really say? That he wants to abolish America’s right to decide for itself who its enemies are and what means it should use to target them? That the U.S. should comply with international law and listen to the U.N. and large nongovernmental organizations, which have denounced the use of drones? Not at all.

He said that we must limit this right and make limited use of drones. In fact, drone strikes have declined significantly over the past year. We can legislate — but only in a strictly American context, to give Congress a degree of control. Or we can move control of the drones from the CIA to the Pentagon. As for closing Guantanamo? Well, he wants to …

Unlike George W. Bush, Barack Obama does not believe in the concept of a “perpetual war on terror.” He does not have the blind ardor of his predecessor. He recognizes the complexity of these issues and understands the concept of self-restraint. But he will never, never, never question the right of the U.S. to play arbitrator, to decide what’s right and wrong and, if absolutely necessary, to carry out its version of justice around the world.

* Editor’s Note: This quote, while accurately translated, could not be verified.