A Failed Administration or a State on Its Way to Failure?

Perhaps U.S. President Barack Obama did not realize it in the years of his first term or in those that have passed since his second term began until now — despite reports from his intelligence and spy agencies, despite warnings and advice from friends of his country, many of whom are Arabs. Maybe he has not realized it, but the United States’ international status, in its long history and extensive life, has never reached the decline, waning and stunting, it has come to in his inauspicious era. Indeed, its image has never been so globally marred and shaken up, on the level of peoples or regimes, as it has been in the last five years!

Even in the times of George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, the United States did not come to the decline and disgrace it has now reached. It remained the largest and greatest power the world over, and as the leader of this world — economically, politically, in military and intelligence — it was calling the shots for the entire world. Russia, even with Europe’s backing, was not able to hold its head high and dictate its conditions on any international issue, for Washington and the U.S. had the last word.

When Barack Obama, this young black man, came to power, he was received on the wager that he would do what none of those who preceded him did, including Eisenhower, who in his courageous stance during the famous Suez crisis of 1956 fortified U.S. status in the Middle East and the Arab world and weakened European influence in the region to the point of disappearance. But soon this bet itself began to fade to the extent that normal people — not only in our Middle Eastern region, but all over the world — have become firmly convinced that the Obama administration is absolutely the worst U.S. administration. They have become convinced that if the administration does not go about setting matters in order quickly, the giant country that is the United States may become a hesitant and failing state even in the eyes of its friends. After losing its place as the main factor in the international equation, the U.S. has continued to maliciously lure, with its foolish policies, competitive and hostile countries in order to pounce on them and force them to retreat.

Before Barack Obama came to the White House, Russia’s weight in the international “game” was not much more than that of one of the so-called “banana republics” hidden in a dark corner of Latin America. Despite its economic launch that resembles an arrow shot from a taught bow, China would make a thousand calculations before speaking up in the Security Council or other forums of global decision-making. All of Eastern Europe, most, if not all, African countries, and many of the Muslim former Soviet states were in the United States’ sphere. And the countries of the European Union, especially Germany, Britain and France, merely constituted small bodies orbiting the United States, which truly became number one in the international equation at the beginning of the nineties of the last century and the collapse of the Soviet system.

It is true that some of the U.S. presidents that preceded Barack Obama made big mistakes — including Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon — but these mistakes were not fatal. In the end, the United States’ lot generally remained on a continuous upswing; its image was never as shaken up as it has now become, even after the abominable U.S. defeat in Vietnam, the failure of its miserable invasion of Cuba in 1961 or the Lut Desert military disaster — that devastating failure to rescue the American hostages imprisoned in their country’s embassy in Tehran directly after the victory of Khomeini’s revolution.

Thus, the first of the fatal mistakes that Barack Obama made was that he set out to arbitrarily withdraw from Iraq, which time proved was on the level of the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam after that historically “strategic,” sweeping and truly back-breaking defeat. Time proved that he left a country — constituting one of the main links in the Middle Eastern chain — open to expansion by Iran and its intelligence agencies, to all of this violence, ruin and tearing apart, and to this dirty and now-intensifying sectarian war. This was at a time when he was able to refuse to undertake a hasty withdrawal, which has proven to be worse than defeat. He should have bided his time until the Iraqi state was standing on its own two feet and had purged Iranian infiltration throughout the country, which is the current state of affairs. As it stands now, Mesopotamia has become a stepping stone for the Ayatollahs, with their expansionist aspirations, to neighboring countries and far beyond.

It was in Obama’s ability not to insist on a hasty military, political and security withdrawal from Iraq, leaving it to Iranian dominance, as is the current state in this country, with its strategic dimensions and capabilities. He should have at least kept some military presence in the Kurdistan region as an advance base and front-line watchtower to prevent the Iranians from doing what they are now doing and to hinder their arrival in Syria and subsequent march to expand out to the whole Middle East.

But Obama, weak, confused and — in hindsight — without strategic vision, did not do this. Rather, due to his failure to realize Syria’s stature and the importance of its role in the region, he has dealt with the Syrian crisis in a way that raises questions and provokes doubts. The continual hesitation regarding this crisis is what has brought it to the state it is in today and what has put Russia in the position of being able to call all the shots, whether in the Middle East or in the rest of the world. This hesitation made the Europeans more daring in their drift away from the United States, helped the rise of Vladimir Putin’s star and allowed the BRICS alliance — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — to hijack the U.N. Security Council and become a more influential factor than the United States in the international equation.

Barack Obama and his administration have devastatingly failed to achieve any progress regarding the Palestinian issue, for which he promised an acceptable solution in his famous speech at Cairo University in 2009. He and his administration have also failed in Latin America, Africa and the world’s other regional spots of tension. All of this has made many ask and wonder whether it is the Obama administration that is failing or whether the United States, under the mandate of this weak and hesitant president who lacks a long-term strategic vision, has stepped out onto the path of failure. It has made many wonder whether this massive country, if there is not a rapid awakening, will go down the same path as the Soviet Union and Britain (that empire on which the sun never set) and, in the end, become a failed state.

This is what Obama has done and what his administration has done. Despite attempts by this administration recently to “patch things up,” Americans themselves, including Democrats, have come not only to feel, but also to admit that [the administration] is a failure. What strengthens this conclusion is this miserable way in which the U.S. president is still dealing with the Egyptian crisis, for it is well-known that although he is now desperately defending ousted President Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, he was appearing several times a day to demand that Hosni Mubarak — in a commanding, not pleading tone — immediately step down and leave.

Indeed, Barack Obama, in all of his exaggerated care for Mohammed Morsi and the presidential election that brought him to power, probably does not know that Adolf Hitler came first to the Reich and then to the presidency of the German state through elections that were surely fairer than the Egyptian elections that empowered the Muslim Brotherhood. Indeed, the U.S. president probably does not know that his secretary of state, John Kerry, said in his last visit to Cairo that it was the actions of the army that prevented a coup against Egyptian democracy.