Guantanamo Endgame

At the time Bowe Bergdahl was kidnapped in Afghanistan, America had just gotten a brand new president by the name of Barack Obama. He promised Americans he would reconcile the nation and return it to constitutional principles. Right from the start, for example, he vowed to close the controversial Guantanamo prison camp.

Now, after being held captive by the Taliban for five years, Bergdahl is returning home. He’ll find a strange land compared to the one he left. Guantanamo is still operating, and in Washington nobody seems in the mood to celebrate the return of a war prisoner. Instead, the Republicans blame Obama for not only swapping five captured Taliban leaders for Bergdahl, but for keeping a low profile in the White House instead of turning this delicate problem over to Congress, as required by law.

The atmosphere in America is toxic right now, and threatening to become even worse as the next great squabble begins; namely, how to play the Guantanamo endgame. Both the president and Congress claim jurisdiction over what will happen to the last of the Guantanamo prisoners captured in the war on terror. They fight over who gives the orders at Guantanamo and who will have the last say about the legacy of the Bush years. Obama has given up the attempt to reconcile America with itself on the issue of Guantanamo. But he stays fixed on another goal: Closing the prison camp.

Obama wants the Cuban compound closed at any cost.

Guantanamo’s fate is closely entwined with Obama’s credibility. Early on, he described the camp by saying it represented constitutional malfeasance and executive overreach. He wanted to relocate the prisoners to the continental U.S. and put them on trial. But Congress refused to go along with that: Many Republicans still regard Guantanamo as an island stronghold and a symbol of unswerving anti-terrorism. Because the president and Congress are at loggerheads, numerous prisoners remain captive there, where George W. Bush originally put them. Many have been there for a decade, without trial and with no prospect of any change in their status.

In six months, the United States will disengage militarily in Afghanistan. When wars end, war prisoners must be sent home. Obama knows that: He has often said that it would be impossible to justify keeping Taliban prisoners captured on the battlefields of Afghanistan in Guantanamo after 2015 and beyond. The president may therefore soon have new reason to send at least those prisoners home.

If Obama isn’t successful in closing this hated Caribbean camp altogether, he at least would like to severely restrict operations there by sending as many inmates as possible back to their homelands or to third-party nations willing to accept them. According to one press release, Washington is currently engaged in preparing for the release of a considerable number of prisoners. Negotiations with nations to accept the inmates are currently underway, including one prisoner destined for Germany.

Congress saw this alternative strategy coming and passed laws requiring the president to announce such transactions in advance. Obama considers this an illegal usurpation of executive powers, which is why he seeks to circumvent those in Congress who oppose him. In response, Republicans threatened to bring articles of impeachment against him should he release Guantanamo prisoners unilaterally.

Obama may accept this test of power. He is already increasingly ignoring populist moods, opinion polls and elections. He is driven by his legacy, that for which history will remember him. One example is his new push for environmental protection — broadly unpopular in many regions, but Obama is doing it because he’s convinced it’s the right thing to do. He also wants to be remembered as the leader who ended the failed experiment at Guantanamo.