Lack of strategy and mid-term elections

US President Barack Obama does not seem to have a clear strategy for dealing with serious challenges in various parts of the globe.

Under his leadership, the US appears totally ineffective in dealing with the crises that erupted over the last few years, the Ukrainian and Syrian in particular. 

Foreign policy is increasingly capturing the national attention now that the US is gearing up for congressional mid-term elections.

Over the last week, the American administration began mobilising the world to join in an alliance to fight the Islamic State.

To long-time observers of American politics, IS’ gains exposed Obama and forced him to admit that he has yet to come up with an effective strategy. 

Last Wednesday, Obama outlined an open-ended campaign to fight IS. He said that his country will join “our friends and allies to degrade, and ultimately destroy the terrorist group”.

That being said, Obama is having a hard time overcoming two obstacles. First, the American public is not keen on another foreign entanglement. The lessons of both Afghanistan and Iraq are still vivid in American memory. Therefore, Obama will not put boots on the ground.

This creates the second obstacle, which has to do with the utility of air strikes and the support of American allies who would do the proper fighting.

Since Obama did not make good on his pledge to bomb the official Syrian troops after the use of the chemical weapons, a year ago, close American allies in the region lost trust in the administration.

Obama’s “strategy” of leading from behind did not impress American officials (for instance, former American ambassador to Syria Robert Ford), much less the Arab allies.

This makes one wonder whether Obama could sway the American public to support more than air strike and whether his Arab allies would fight an uncertain battle without an American strategy to achieve victory over both IS and the Syrian regime.

Over the last week or so, Obama has come under fire from critics from both main US parties for failing to formulate a strategy to respond to the IS threats. But the administration is most likely to act in weeks to come in a decisive way.

It is not an easy job for Obama, especially when the Iraqis are still wrangling over the new “inclusive” government. 

Thus far, Obama has come up with words that, if translated into a strategy, would mark a shift to an offensive against terrorist groups in both Iraq and Syria.

Nearly six years into Obama’s presidency — during which he has been adamant about ending the American wars in the Arab and Muslim world — he is now forced to cast aside the limited-intervention approach, which has been the hallmark of his presidency.

After IS beheaded James Foley and Steven Sotloff, Obama had to do something. But Obama’s line, “we don’t have a strategy”, will not help the Democratic Party in the coming elections. Therefore, Wednesday’s speech could be seen as meaning to boost the morale and chances of the Democratic Party.

Yet, short of coming up with a powerful strategy to deal with IS and Ukraine, Obama runs the risk of allowing foreign policy to derail his legacy, not to mention the fact that his party will suffer in the mid-term elections, scheduled by the end of the year.

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