Obama and the "War on Terror"

I think Barack Obama and his campaign have a lot of promise to do some of the things I argue are necessary in Heads in the Sand in terms of mounting a meaningful challenge to the big ideas that have dominated policymaking in the United States since 9/11. And beyond showing promise, he's taken a number of very worthwhile concrete steps. But there have also been disappointments. Michael Hirsch, for example, has a good column about how Obama ought to ditch the "war on terror." The argument that this conceptual framework needs to be done away with has been made very persuasively by my colleague James Fallows before his exile to China, among others. And as Hirsch says at this point it's Obama or nobody:

It is a debate that only Obama can start. McCain won't bring it up. Nor will Hillary Clinton. Apart from being on the verge of oblivion politically, she is too fully vested in the war on terror, having voted in 2002 to authorize the war in Iraq as part of it. And if that debate doesn't start, we as a country will be effectively doomed to a "war" that has no prospect of ending. Bush has gradually expanded his definition of the war on terror to include all Islamic "extremists"—among them Hezbollah, Hamas, and other radical political groups that have no ties to Al Qaeda, ideological or otherwise. In doing so the president has plainly condemned us to a permanent war, for the simple reason that we will never be rid of all the terrorists. It is also a war that we will wage by ourselves, since no other nation agrees on such a broadly defined enemy. As Princeton scholar G. John Ikenberry has written, "It is perhaps a paradox—and one that is fitting for the strangeness of our current age—that we will need to end the war against terrorism because we cannot end terrorism."

The trouble is that months ago, all the Democratic candidates were given an opportunity to launch this debate and only John Edwards was willing to "go there." If Obama didn't want to do it when facing pressure from his left, it's hard to imagine him doing it now.

Comments

I'm sympathetic, but is this really a winning campaign issue? To me it seems more like a policy direction that you take once in office rather and perhaps hint at in a campaign, but I don't think it's center piece or anything.

Posted by Kurzbein | February 22, 2008 8:45 AM

Have you ever heard Obama talking about "the war on terror" on the stump or in interviews? I sure haven't. This seems like a total non-issue.

Posted by Hatch | February 22, 2008 8:48 AM

Obama: "I don't just want to end the war, I want to end the mindset that got us there in the first place."

Posted by Lucy | February 22, 2008 8:48 AM

Samantha Power, one of Obama's top foreign policy advisors, has argued repeatedly that the next administration must quit lumping together all of these groups as "terrorists" and put them in their proper historical/social/geopolitical context. this seems to be the necessary first step in the direction you're advocating here.

"So what you do is you meet in order to achieve things. You meet in order to know your foe, if it's a foe. You meet in order to get international wind at your back so that America is not seen as the problem -- [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad is the problem. You meet because you want to stop lumping together the unlike -- al-Qaida, Hamas, Iran, Iraq."

-Samantha Power, in Salon

Posted by BA | February 22, 2008 8:58 AM

I'm not sure he can "go there." He's going to be painted as liberal and Muslim and the like; he's already got all the anti-war votes by default - why bring up something which plays to McCain's perceived strengths.

The best way to end it would be to ignore it as much as possible in the campaign, and then ditch it completely in office.

Posted by James | February 22, 2008 9:00 AM

Edwards? Oh yeah, the guy with the haircut who led the way on criticizing the war in Iraq (now, not in 2002) and the war on terror and who was first out of the gate with challenging and aggressive proposals on health care, climate change, and economic stimulus. Oh well.

On this issue, I agree with MY. Whether or not in the short run it's a winning campaign issue, the wingnuts have so totally framed this issue in their terms that we need to push back if we want to change the debate. Doing a Kerry and saying that we're for The War On Terror, But With Extra Competence (And Vitamins!), isn't going to be either effective against McCain in the campaign (who has the courage of his insane convictions of conquest) or against our tendency to waste random foreigners every time we feel insecure or threatened. Let's start talking about this during the campaign and (to the extent we can in the lowly intertubes) force Obama and Clinton to talk about it.

Posted by scott | February 22, 2008 9:05 AM

Americans by and large are a smoldering horde of anti-intellectual xenophobes, homophobes and misogynists. Misogynists? Yes, because the 30-40% that identify themselves as religious or cultural conservatives don't like women even if they're a woman. Ergo, we're going to be locked into a full throated bloodlust desire to kill Muslims and other brown people for many decades to come. What's left of the world's ever dwindling oil supply is beneath Arabs/Middle Easterners or someone in South America (another area of the planet we don't mind raping and killing people for whatever we want to steal). Obama can't hold back the tides. Nor can he plausibly suggest ways he'll recruit people to help him do it. Americans are killers going way back. Ask the Native Americans what happens when you get between Yankees and land, oil or minerals.

Posted by steve duncan | February 22, 2008 9:08 AM

Months ago, Obama was the underdog trying to compete with Hillary for the nomination. It wouldn't have made sense for him to do this, given that he wanted to minimize policy differences between himself and Hillary and campaign on generic "change."

One can imagine that will be a bit different in the general election or even the White House.

Posted by TW Andrews | February 22, 2008 9:36 AM

I just want to support what has already been said. The American public is invested in the phrase "war on terror" even if it is a stupid phrase which tends to allow for lumping together of disparate groups.

Trying to change that viewpoint in the middle of a campaign would be next to impossible. I think Obama knows this so he is not doing the "WoT is a bumpersticker" type of statement as Edwards did, but neither is he making it the centerpiece of his campaign, which is of course the only thing Republicans have to fall back on at this time.

Once in office, I think he can, simply by avoiding the phrase, and instead talking about say the fight against al Qaeda he can change the mindset.

Posted by John | February 22, 2008 9:43 AM

The way to approach this politically is not to make a big ostentatious point about "ditching" the war on terror. Rather it is to focus on one's positive agenda, organized around a new central theme, and just let the "war on terror" recede gracefully into a natural retirement as the key important organizing concept for US foreign policy.

Posted by Dan Kervick | February 22, 2008 9:43 AM

Dan Kervick, I can see that working, but I can also see a smarter conservative, especially one smarter and younger than McCain, giving "war on terror" more life through reasonable-sounding if misguided arguments. It will probably make more political sense to use the bully pulpit of the presidency to push the point because it gives an automatic sense of respectability when a president, especially a new, popular president, to push that framework. With that said, I gained a lot of respect for Edwards when he called bullshit on the whole framework.

Posted by Reality Man | February 22, 2008 10:15 AM

Didn't Bush/Rumsfeld themselves try to rebrand this a few years ago? I remember a brief effort to call it the "Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism" (GSAVE).

Posted by Alex | February 22, 2008 10:55 AM

Why have "terrorism" and "the war on terror" disappeared from the concerns expressed by Americans in polls? Are they really not concerned any more, or are the polls not asking? I never see this in the primary exit polls, for instance.

Posted by Steve Roth | February 22, 2008 10:56 AM

...we're going to be locked into a full throated bloodlust desire to kill Muslims and other brown people for many decades to come. What's left of the world's ever dwindling oil supply is beneath Arabs/Middle Easterners or someone in South America... Ask the Native Americans what happens when you get between Yankees and land, oil or minerals.
-- steve duncan

Even if Barack Obama or Hilary Clinton wanted to continue looting the world’s resources, they couldn’t do it.

One of the two most debilitating circumstances created by Cheney / Bush is the state of America’s economy. We have a $10 Trillion-dollar National Debt (nearly half of it created in the past seven years). It isn’t financially possible for the United States to dominate the world’s petroleum resources, or anything else, by military force. That would require a continuation of the same Perle - Podhoretz - Kristol theories, which fueled an invasion based on lies and fabricated intelligence and have put us where we are today, in Iraq, Afghanistan, and at home.

We can’t pay for more of that. We can’t afford the war to dominate the Middle East’s oil and politics which we already have. Aging southern Republicans can call for a return to God’s law and America’s greatness, and sputter that we “teach Hugo Chavez a lesson”, but rhetoric is all we can pay for any longer. And, as we continue to lose over 200 years of goodwill in the eyes of the world, other nations will be unwilling to allow us to smash and grab what we want without real penalties.

Of course, any future administrations could continue to ‘Stay The Course’, no matter what the financial and moral cost, and engage in even more desperate displays of force and dwindling power to try and convince – somebody – to believe that America is master of the world. That would be a worse form of hubris than any we’ve experienced at the hands our present ‘leaders’.

We can’t afford the kind of government pushed in our faces by Cheney / Bush any longer. Do a cost-benefit analysis of the six-plus years after September 11th, the hundreds of billions spent; what have the shareholders of the United States – The People -- gotten for our investment?

Bin Laden, Al-Zwahiri, both still at large; Al-Qaeda and the Taliban resurgent; Iraq -- still destabilized, broken; Afghanistan, where our promises to Karzai to rebuild the country and create a stable government after 2002 were broken in the rush to invade Iraq. Our military has been broken by the failure of the post-9/11 investment, in more ways than one. Our international prestige has been squandered -- much of the world doesn’t respect us any longer; they fear us, because of the financial and military weight we can still swing.

Cheney / Bush and their ‘administration’ claimed they could manage risk. Instead, they exacerbated it -- exponentially, willfully. They’ve created a series of interlocking failures, the damage from which will literally take generations to repair.

None of this is surprising, given that every business Bush ever put his hand to ended in miserable failure. Now, like a number of recently-broken companies and their CEOs in the news, America is just one more failed venture Bush will walk away from, having first looked after what he calls “my base – the haves, and the have-mores”... If the United States were a business, we’d be under investigation and in line for a takeover bid by now.

Posted by Jemand von Niemand | February 22, 2008 11:25 AM

Ask the Native Americans what happens when you get between Yankees and land, oil or minerals.
Posted by steve duncan | February 22, 2008 9:08 AM

Steve,
Western fertility rates are too low to support the kind of genocidal warefare you are predicting. It is much more probable that the reverse will happen. A former third world nation with a massive population will attempt to conquer a depopulated first world nation. Most likely not in our lifetimes, but within the next 200 years. China into Russian Siberia is obvious. Indonesia into Australia, North Africa into Italy or Spain are more speculative, but like an apple in a tree the physics is in place.

Posted by Northern Observer | February 22, 2008 11:26 AM

I guess it's nearly unanimous--Hirsh's is a remarkably stupid suggestion. All pain, no gain.

I'm pretty confident that once in office, Obama will use much better rhetorical constructions, but at this point there is no conceivable advantage in playing to the Republicans' stereotypes.

A bigger problem in my view is the extent to which he's painted himself into a corner with the ol' "they took their eye off the ball, I'd double down in Afghanistan" rap. I know he needs to balance his "end the war in Iraq" promise with something that makes him look tough, but replicating the Soviet strategy in Afghanistan is likely to produce the same results they got--lots of extra casualties and an eventual defeat.

It's long past time to declare victory in both the War on Terror and the War on Drugs. But that doesn't mean Obama wouldn't be foolish to say so now.

Posted by Robert Powell | February 22, 2008 11:31 AM

No, it's a war that -- nightmarishly -- generates its own enemy combatants, imaginary and real.

Posted by M | February 22, 2008 11:40 AM

Does anyone else find Drudge's current headline story utterly bizarre?

Posted by M | February 22, 2008 11:55 AM

Didn't Kerry "go there" in 2004? I don't remember it helping him particularly. Then again, we are now four years further removed from 9/11 and the subsequent madness.

Posted by Trieu | February 22, 2008 12:03 PM

I haven't heard Obama say anything about winning a "war on terror". I've only heard him argue for a more vigorous pursuit of al-Queda and renewed energy in Afghanistan, which make a lot of sense. He voted against the bill to label Iran's Revolutionary Guard a "terrorist group", while Clinton voted for, indicating a more measured view of how expansive our "war on terror" should be.

I'm pretty comfortable that Obama "gets" Mr. Hirsch's argument more than the other candidates.

Posted by TH | February 22, 2008 12:07 PM

A general comment on foreign policy and the future:

One of the things that Mitt Romney said, which has stuck with me, is that he doesn't want the U.S. to become "the France of the 21st century". He referred to France as being "still a great nation", but not one that is at the top of global affairs and which holds a dominant position in the world.

My immediate reaction was that "we should be so lucky".

The fact is that the demographics of the globe ensure that the U.S. will not be the sole superpower indefinitely. Within my lifetime, China will certainly become the most significant economic force in the world. Whether or not they become the dominant military and diplomatic force will depend on their own priorities and proclivity toward engagement vs. isolationism (China is traditionally an insular nation). There are other countries and regions whose power will grow dramatically as their populations and economies continue to expand faster than those of the West.

Given the inevitability of this future, I would much rather America be looked on as a friend and partner, rather than a former bully and antagonist. The last thing anybody who loves this country should want is a situation in which 50 years from now, the world seeks to harm us for our past misdeeds and has the power to do so.

Posted by TH | February 22, 2008 12:15 PM

The last thing anybody who loves this country should want is a situation in which 50 years from now, the world seeks to harm us for our past misdeeds and has the power to do so.

Posted by TH | February 22, 2008 12:15 PM
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Too late for that. Lots of grievances needing settled and people have long memories. Do you think Armenians are in the mood to cut Turkey a break over their massacres? Nah. Our victims will be no less charitable. Ward knew Eddie Haskell for the asshole he was even when Eddie was on his best behavior. Suddenly being nice to the Mrs. Cleavers of the world won't cut it.

Posted by steve duncan | February 22, 2008 12:35 PM

From Time re: last night's debate: Obama focused on how he would do the job ahead: "My number one job as president will be to keep the American people safe. I will do whatever is required to accomplish that. I will not hesitate to act against those that would do America harm. Now, that involves maintaining the strongest military on earth, which means that we are training our troops properly and equipping them properly, and putting them on proper rotations."

Doesn't sound like someone who is too willing to stop the direction and control the military industrial complex has on our country.

Posted by Julene | February 22, 2008 12:42 PM

There's nothing wrong with maintaining a strong military. The problem is the saber-rattling rhetoric of the Bush administration and the use of that military as some sort of global police force, a role that an army is simply not suited for, and through unilateral actions that actually undermine our security.

Posted by TH | February 22, 2008 12:50 PM

I think 2 years of a Dem Congress/Pres will go a long way to kill the War on Terror rhetoric. What will Republicans do to keep the media talking about? They can't introduce any bills or set any executive policy. If we can make it a full 4 years w/ no Republicans in power the War on Terror framing will be dead.

Posted by mpowell | February 22, 2008 1:10 PM

The way to approach this politically is not to make a big ostentatious point about "ditching" the war on terror. Rather it is to focus on one's positive agenda, organized around a new central theme, and just let the "war on terror" recede gracefully into a natural retirement as the key important organizing concept for US foreign policy.

That might work to try and bury the issue--right up until the next terrorist attack, which will forcefully remind people of just how important the war on terror is.

Posted by Mixner | February 22, 2008 1:15 PM

Steve Duncan,

Americans by and large are a smoldering horde of anti-intellectual xenophobes, homophobes and misogynists.

If Noam Chomsky isn't hiring, you should apply for a speechwriting job with the Obama campaign. No, really. You're a natural.

Posted by Mixner | February 22, 2008 1:20 PM

Mixner, most importantly I'm correct. Question (for which there's likely no provable answer): What percentage of the public has read a nonfiction book cover to cover in the previous year? 2%? 3%? Those guesses might be high.

Posted by steve duncan | February 22, 2008 1:28 PM

That might work to try and bury the issue--right up until the next terrorist attack, which will forcefully remind people of just how important the war on terror is.

Mixner, does it not disturb you that your defense of the "war on terror" leaves you in the unenviable position of wanting a "next terrorist attack" to actually occur. Think about it. Do you or do you not look forward to the time when a death cult fanatic like, say, Mohammed Atta or Timothy McVeigh, decides to blow shit up in an American city?

Posted by fnook | February 22, 2008 1:42 PM

E.J. Dionne made the pointed suggestion the other day to Obama that he needs to challenge McCain's Liebermania that "Radical Islam" was "The transcendent challenge of our time." It's a tricky proposition, but as it's the entire raison d'etre of McCain's putative National Security prowess- I think if Obama could expose it as the anti-American Big Lie it is conforming to Israel's National Security interests- it would marginalize McCain effectively. Of course, a good case could be made for Obama to be circumspect and discrete about this just chipping away at the hidebound premise.

Posted by Trevor | February 22, 2008 1:56 PM

Do you or do you not look forward to the time when a death cult fanatic like, say, Mohammed Atta or Timothy McVeigh, decides to blow shit up in an American city?

Posted by fnook | February 22, 2008 1:42 PM

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fnook, The Right cannot afford to depend on actual terrorists causing mayhem. Too much is at stake, too much Republican chicanery can be discovered with a Democrat in the White House. I'm convinced Republican strategists believe the election is a slam dunk for them if a properly timed "attack" were to occur in September or October. I for one would be leery of tall buildings, flying or congregating in large crowds come this fall.

Posted by steve duncan | February 22, 2008 1:57 PM

Mixner, does it not disturb you that your defense of the "war on terror" leaves you in the unenviable position of wanting a "next terrorist attack" to actually occur.

It might if your premise were actually true, rather than absurd.

Posted by Mixner | February 22, 2008 1:59 PM

Although I agree this should be an issue of discussion during the campaign, it's far more likely that this is a policy change implemented once Obama is in power.

I could easily see a Gordon Brown-style situation in which administration spokespersons and the president simply stop using the term "war on terror," without ever making a public announcement.

Posted by Andrew | February 22, 2008 2:12 PM

Mixner, does it not disturb you that your defense of the "war on terror" leaves you in the unenviable position of wanting a "next terrorist attack" to actually occur.

It might if your premise were actually true, rather than absurd.

Posted by Mixner | February 22, 2008 1:59 PM

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I concur, Mixner, our government committing an absurd succession of hideous, criminal acts against an innocent group of its own citizens is incomprehensible. Say, like deliberately infecting African-American men with syphilis and then monitoring the ravages of the disease all the while steering them away from treatment and hiding what they'd done.

Posted by steve duncan | February 22, 2008 2:30 PM

M-It's Dallas. haha.

Posted by Mike | February 22, 2008 2:38 PM

Barak Obama is pushing a plan to increase our infantry forces, Army and Marines, by 96,000 personnel. If his top priority is to get out of Iraq, what do people think he wants them for?

Posted by Robert Powell | February 22, 2008 3:08 PM

Bush has gradually expanded his definition of the war on terror

Not really. It was ridiculous from the get-go: "We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them." (So shouldn't we be at war with Pakistan?)

That's from Bush's September 11, 2001 speech vowing to "win the war against terrorism."

Posted by croatoan | February 22, 2008 5:46 PM

"We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them." (So shouldn't we be at war with Pakistan?)

No, not necessarily. Is "Pakistan" "harboring" the terrorists in question?

Posted by Mixner | February 22, 2008 5:53 PM

Barak Obama is pushing a plan to increase our infantry forces, Army and Marines, by 96,000 personnel. If his top priority is to get out of Iraq, what do people think he wants them for?

Getting out of Iraq clearly isn't a priority for Obama at all. His Iraq "plan" stipulates only the withdrawal of our combat brigades, which comprise only around half of our troops in Iraq, and he explicitly says he wants to leave an unspecified number of troops in Iraq, for an indefinite duration, for both combat and defensive purposes.

Posted by Mixner | February 22, 2008 5:58 PM

Is "Pakistan" "harboring" the terrorists in question?

Yes.

Posted by David Tomlin | February 23, 2008 1:05 AM

I think the best route politically is: not necessarily dropping the phrase "war on terror," but to seize its definition.

It always has been a hazily defined idea, and using it in your own terms can move it where it needs to go without pulling the rug out from under those who have been sold on it by Bush.

I think this is what Obama is trying to do.

To Robert Powell ("Barak Obama is pushing a plan to increase our infantry forces, Army and Marines, by 96,000 personnel. If his top priority is to get out of Iraq, what do people think he wants them for?"):

I think this goes toward the issue of the nature of the future military. If there is some unforeseen future need that will require a big military effort, will it call for the big toys or boots on the ground? I don't know, but I think Obama's team is thinking that future engagements are not going to be industrialized nation vs. industrialized nation.

I'm not saying this has anything to do with missions he secretly wants to do, it's just a preparedness issue. Who knows if in 10 years we decide to intervene in a new Darfur-type situation, we would like to have sufficient troop levels that can be properly rotated without 3 and 4 tours of duty.

Posted by Jeff Morgan | February 24, 2008 9:10 AM

Why isn't anyone holding elected officials to a stricter definition of what a "war" is considering its impact on lives and its cost? Historically, war is an all-out last-ditch struggle between nations declared by Congress to be ended with a treaty between nations.

President Johnson and Humphrey's "War on Poverty" started all this nonsense and the public let them get away with it. But, now "wars" on drugs, terrorism, etc. have been used as Congressional funding ploys to wreck havoc with our Constitution the economy and the law. Bush has taken this ploy to a ridiculous exteme by invading a sovereign nation. Someone needs to say ENOUGH! Why not Obama, or Clinton? One of them is probably facing up-coming debates with McCain, or someone like him where they should declare that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are not wars, rather they are invasions followed by occupations. How do you win occupations? You fix what you can and leave. It is that simple to demonstrate real leadership in defining the problem and the solution. And in the future we should make certain that elected officials understand what the word SOVERIEGNTY means.

The War on Terrorism needs to be re-defined as an international battle against revolutionaries acting against people in sovereign nations. This same battle against religious revolutionaries needs to include international business criminals who act outside the national laws that are meant to protect consumers. For example, This New World Order of the 1980's has led to the Foreclosure Crisis we now face in the U.S. where unscrupulous lenders were able to write loans without documentation and sell them to unprotected funding sources around the world thereby duping the borrower, the lender and the public in general. These "hedge fund brokers" should be considered economic terrorist just like the religious fundamentalists. I'm sorry but, Chelsea Clinton and John Edwards probably should be included in this group since they were, or are hedge fund brokers and need to be investigated by an international body. The US needs to get into the fold of International Law again where it belongs.

Posted by Richard Daniels | February 28, 2008 4:27 PM