What can one learn about America’s future direction from President Barack Obama’s choice of security advisers? As has been widely reported, he has reshuffled his team, thereby consolidating his own position as the final arbiter of American foreign and security policy.
Obama’s authority received a considerable boost from the recent killing of Al-Qaida’s leader, Osama Bin Laden — America’s number one enemy. The successful operation consecrated the President in American public opinion as the uncontested Commander-in-Chief. It is expected that his position will now be further strengthened by the reshuffle of his advisers.
Obama’s first term has been marked by his having to cope with formidable challenges: He has wrestled with a financial crisis unprecedented in modern times, with a soaring deficit, with persistent unemployment, with the fall-out from the severe setback at mid-term elections suffered by his Democratic Party, and much else besides. But he is now beginning to look more confident.
In the absence — so far at least — of a credible Republican opponent, Obama seems well positioned to win a second presidential term at next year’s elections. He has already begun campaigning and has watched his approval ratings climb in the polls.
Defence Secretary Robert Gates, 68, a powerful veteran of defence and intelligence matters, is shortly to retire. Having been appointed to the job in 2006, when he replaced Donald Rumsfeld in George W Bush’s administration, Gates has been something of a law unto himself. He spent 26 years at the National Security Council and the CIA, where he served as Director under President George H W Bush. It is thought that his departure will give Obama a freer hand, especially in dealing with the contentious issue of trimming the Pentagon’s titanic budget.
Gates is to be replaced as head of the Defence Department by Leon Panetta, 73, Director of the CIA since 2009. The son of Italian immigrants who used to own a restaurant, Panetta has had a long career as a Democratic politician, lawyer and professor. He served as chief of staff in Bill Clinton’s White House from 1994 to 1997. Washington insiders say that he will serve Obama faithfully and will not challenge the President’s policy choices.
In what looks like a game of musical chairs, Panetta is to be replaced as head of the CIA by General David Petraeus, 59, at present commander of the 140,000-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. Before leading the fight against the Taliban, Petraeus was head of the U.S. Central Command in 2008-2010 and, before that, commanding-general in 2007-2008 of the Multinational Force in Iraq, where his ‘surge’ was credited with turning the tide against the insurgents. With a PhD in international affairs from Princeton, he is considered one of the most intellectual soldiers in the U.S. army.
There has been much speculation about whether Petraeus has presidential ambitions. He denies it. At any rate, he will have his hands full at the CIA. He will face no competition from his nominal superior, James Clapper, 70, a retired Air Force lieutenant-general who, as Director of National Intelligence for the past year, has surprised observers by some apparently ill-informed comments on Arab affairs.
Tom Donilon, 56, remains the President’s National Security Adviser, a job he was given less than a year ago. A former lawyer and lobbyist, his career has been largely spent helping Democratic candidates get elected. He has little or no military experience, and is not thought to be a heavy-weight.
Admiral Mike Mullen, 65, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is due to leave his post next October and is expected to be replaced by his number two, General James Cartwright, 62, who is regarded as a highly intelligent and thoughtful officer. And as Robert Mueller, 67, ends his ten-year term as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) on September 4, Obama may ask him to serve further, or fill the post with a man of his choice.
These then are Obama’s key security advisers. There seems to be no-one among them who might overshadow the President or contest his views. The question being asked in European capitals is whether his stronger position might encourage the President to confront Republican and other hawks and make bold decisions in line with what were thought to be his instincts.
Will he now pull all U.S. forces out of Iraq, rather than leave a substantial number behind in different roles? Will he use the pretext of Osama bin Laden’s death to promote negotiations with the Taliban and speed up the withdrawal of allied forces from Afghanistan? Will he seek to conciliate opinion in Pakistan and Yemen by calling a halt to the inflammatory, and often counter-productive, missile strikes by drones? Will he at last close Guantánamo? Will he seek to reverse the militarisation of American foreign policy which has been such a feature of recent decades?
Above all, will he dare confront Israel’s right-wing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, and his phalanx of powerful American lobbyists and supporters, and insist, with all the power at his command, on a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
Few observers expect a positive answer to any of these questions. Indeed, a contrary view of Obama’s reshuffle is that it will lead to still further progress towards what has been called the “militarization of intelligence.” Putting a general such as David Petraeus at the head of the CIA suggests precisely some such development. In other words, we are likely to see an increase, rather than a reduction, in covert U.S. operations abroad — in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere — operations in which it is difficult to distinguish between military personnel and intelligence agents.
In late April, the New York Times reported that in September 2009 General Petraeus signed a secret ‘Executive Order’ authorizing U.S. Special Operations troops to carry out reconnaissance missions and build up intelligence networks throughout the Middle East and Central Asia to “penetrate, disrupt, defeat and destroy” militant groups and “prepare the environment” for future U.S. military attacks.
What does this mean? Obama has often claimed that the United States is not at war with Islam, and will never be. It is a pledge he has often made but which has yet to be translated into action. Indeed, rather than setting the U.S. on a conciliatory path towards the Arab and Muslim world, it looks as if Obama may have been won over to a more robust approach — of which the killing of Osama bin Laden is a striking example.
Is it surprising that some observers now see little difference between Barack Obama’s Middle East policy and that of George W Bush?
Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East. His latest book is The Struggle for Arab Independence: Riad el-Solh and the Makers of the Modern Middle East (Cambridge University Press).
Copyright © 2011 Patrick Seale – distributed by Agence Global
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Released: 17 May 2011
Word Count: 1,107
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