Obama Buries 9/11 Ideology

Published on May 27, the National Security Strategy is a political document of the utmost importance because it determines the strategic orientation of the United States regarding international political matters. The Bush administration published the previous version in 2002, just after the attack on the World Trade Center. The Obama administration has just published a new one. To summarize the newness of this text in one sentence, its central objective is to make a break with the ideology of September 11, to which the Bush administration attached its name for almost eight years.

Certainly, the traumatic value of September 11 is no longer discussed. However, the Bush administration’s manipulation of the event went far beyond a rebuff of al-Qaida’s terrorism. In the end, the administration’s excesses rebounded against the United States. The ideology of September 11 transformed a fight against Islamist terrorists into something that a large part of the Muslim world interpreted as an anti-Muslim crusade. Through its brutality and schematics, it radicalized the Islamists — just what they were looking for — and alienated almost all of Muslim public opinion, despite the general Muslim revulsion of terrorism.

The ideology of September 11 had two other corollaries. The first rested on the principle of preventative war, while the second spoke of exporting democracy, even by force. The result was a particularly worrying militarization of American politics, a militarization whose dangers and limits the American secretary of defense recently recognized. The Obama administration has not embraced this approach, not only because it has degraded the United States’ image, but also because it has produced so few results. We know now that the war in Iraq has reduced the operational efficiency of the Americans in Afghanistan.

The most significant divergence Obama has introduced relates to abandoning the rhetoric of the “war on terror,” presented as a fight between good and evil. This voluntary omission, which was nevertheless already present in his inaugural speech in January 2009, is confirmed in NSS2010, which speaks of “violent extremists” but avoids the phrase “Islamic terrorists.” On the eve of the report’s publication, Obama’s deputy national security adviser for Homeland Security and counterterrorism confirmed the profundity of this rupture by proposing what would have been unimaginable for almost three years: “Our enemy is not ‘terrorism’ because terrorism is but a tactic. Our enemy is not ‘terror’ because terror is a state of mind and as Americans we refuse to live in fear.”

This inflection-sensitive rhetoric has already provoked a furor among neoconservatives and those who think, deep down, that containing the Muslim world and Russia should be the West’s two priorities. However, a careful reading of this document reveals no sign of wishful thinking. In reality, Obama is trying to think globally in a political rather than ideological way. He pragmatically evaluates the use of force to work out a solution that is favorable to American interests, all the while knowing that it is impossible to triumph without accounting for the interests of America’s partners.

Obama knows that it will be impossible to involve the Pakistanis in resolving the Afghanistan situation without accounting for Pakistan’s interests in the region, while the Bush administration deliberately chose to play the Indian card. He knows that it will be difficult to build an international consensus against Iran without somehow addressing the denuclearization of the entire Middle East. Hence, Obama just gave his support, albeit measured, to the final declaration of the conference on the non-proliferation treaty, which calls for a conference on the denuclearization of the Middle East, including Israel.

Though a speech may constitute a strong action, it does not resolve the formidable operational constraints that American strategy is confronting in the field. While it is probable that the new tone of American discourse will reduce hostility toward American policy from Morocco to Pakistan, we should not expect miracles, especially if the stagnation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues. For the moment, Obama seems exasperated by Mr. Netanyahu’s intransigence, and the incredible blunder in Gaza will not help. Nevertheless, he has not yet found the winning political move that would allow him to act effectively in this conflict, considering, notably, the strength of support for Israel within American popular opinion and Congress.

However, though there are few examples of alliances as strong as the Israeli-American alliance, neither is there a historical example of an intangible close relationship. As Kissinger once expressed, the great powers never commit suicide for their allies. Without a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the new American language is likely to be empty rhetoric. It is even more likely when we consider that this conflict is not the only one in the region. Radical Islamism adds fuel to the fundamentally anti-democratic character of almost all Arab regimes. In addition, the latter have no interest in domestic political reform. To believe they would embrace democracy if the Palestinian problem were resolved demonstrates disarming naiveté. Add Tehran’s weak interest in finding a resolution to the nuclear issue, despite Washington’s overtures in October, and clearly, the Obama administration faces many difficulties.