President Barack Obama made recently some significant improvements in his both domestic and foreign policy strategy. It seems that he is running out of time and that he would like to start scoring points before Republicans take control over the congress in its both chambers in 2015.
Afghanistan, to begin with; Obama decided to extend the US troops presence there to avoid repeating the same mistake he did in Iraq and to ensure a direct role in healing the wounds of the country that was ravaged by war.
This step came after the breakdown of his strategy in Iraq and the emergence of the Islamic State group, and it seems that he finally found out that withdrawing from Iraq when the country was absolutely fractured and unstable-in terms of military, security and political coherence-was an extreme bad idea. Therefore, it looks like he doesn’t want to repeat the same scenario in Afghanistan if the US troops withdrew by the end of 2016.
Immigration reform is another example, President Obama announced his plan to save over four million undocumented immigrants living in the US. It seems that he felt the urgency of presenting a serious amendment that can boost a little bit his popularity and bring back the confidence in the American people of his party, after they expressed their outrageous anger of his domestic and foreign policy in the last congressional elections in November 2014.
Another important factor that demonstrates Obama’s partial awakening is appointing Ashton Carter as a new Secretary of Defense who is well-known of his bipartisan praise, his disagreement with Obama on withdrawing combat troops from Iraq in 2011 and his disagreement on the rapprochement from Iran .
So Obama has partially woke up from his isolation, however, there is still so many pending issues, most importantly are, his strategy towards the middle east especially Syria and his strategy to defeat IS. We all understand that due to the bad experiences of the US army in both Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama acts carefully in taking any military action on Syria, however, IS threat is becoming bigger, not in terms of intimidating the US national security only but in terms of popular and congressional anger over Obama and the Democratic party.
It should be noted that dissociating Bashar al-Assad’s elimination from defeating IS, could be Obama’s strategy! because he wants to please Iran and have the least clashes possible with its leaders in order to end the twelve year standoff between both countries as well as putting an end to its nuclear capabilities.
In the same context, despite all the criticism and the challenges that Obama is facing from his closest circle whether in the white house’s administration or in the congress and especially when it comes to the IS’ strategy and the Iranian deal, however, he is insisting on his strategy assuming that this is the best way possible to degrade and ultimately destroy IS and maintain peace in the region.
This was the main reason why Mr. Chuck Hagel, the Secretary of Defense, stepped down or got fired-it does not matter-on Monday, 24 November 2014. Hagel was the only republican leader who opposed George Bush’s intervention in Iraq and calls for a timid military interference of the US in the world.
Despite all the childish acts that conservative republicans are doing, the lack of agenda and the division that is grunting their party, however, they are obviously united to wage war on Obama to weaken him and his party more.
This in return will help Democrats in the presidential elections in 2016, because people monitors every little and/or big step both parties take, therefore Democrats will still have the opportunity to show their unity and coherence to win the presidency.
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Sarah
12 September 2014
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