Although differences between the Bush administration’s foreign policy and the views of candidate Barack Obama defined the presidential campaign of 2008, it is difficult to see much difference between the two now that Obama is in charge.
Particularly with regard to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; 10 months into the new administration ,there has been little change. President Obama is drawing down forces in Iraq, but that policy had been put in place before he took office. Despite a growing sense that the war in Afghanistan is going nowhere, there are no signs the new president intends to withdraw U.S. troops there — in fact — it appears he plans to increase troop levels as part of his campaign promise to finish the job.
Slowly, the new administration is moving toward closing the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba that has been used since Sept. 11 to hold detainees captured during the Bush war on terror. As it turns out, there is no easy answer to where to put the prisoners held there. They are trapped in a zone that puts them between the civilian criminal justice system and the standards applied to prisoners of war. There is no rush to settle the matter.
While Obama’s honeymoon on domestic policy issues ended several months ago, he is fully exploiting an extended honeymoon in the area of defense policy. In some cases, he has actually been more aggressive than Bush in executing the previous administration’s policies.
In addition to the troop build up in Afghanistan, the president has quietly, but frequently authorized drone attacks on terrorist targets in Pakistan. During the summer, he authorized a U.S. Navy rescue of a cargo ship captain being held by pirates.
The most dramatic expression of the Obama military policy came in mid-September when U.S. special forces, operating off of navy ships, staged a helicopter ambush on a senior al-Qaeda leader in Somalia. Several helicopters attacked a convoy of armed vehicles, destroyed them, killed the primary target, landed on the road, collected the body for identification and seized two surviving members of the group for questioning. Reports said several days of tracking took place before the successful mission.
It is hard not to read this intense military activity as anything but an escalation of the strategies first put in place by the Bush administration. Even though the number of U.S. causalities in Afghanistan has increased in the last 10 months, the American people seem comfortable with the overall policy. As the president campaigns for his domestic agenda the military campaigns move forward quietly — out of plain view.
There has been no effort by the Obama administration to harvest political points from its battlefield advances. As an extension of his personality, Obama seems to believe being tough, without flaunting it, sends a more potent message to our adversaries than landing a jet on an aircraft carrier, or taking some other form of victory lap.
Obama has signaled his respect for the professionalism of the armed forces through his willingness to authorize the strategic use of force and his resistance to the need to take credit when all goes well.
The similarity between the Bush war on terror and Obama’s approach remains. It leaves you to wonder what Obama has learned since taking office about the nature of the threats against this country. What has he seen, or learned, that has led him to conclude President Bush had few options to choose from? And what has led Obama to make the same choices. For now, the major military difference between the two presidents is style, not substance.
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Dean Pagani is a former gubernatorial advisor. He is vice president of public affairs for Cashman and Katz Integrated Communications in Glastonbury.
