By Mona Charen
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
If there was one thing the left was certain about in 2008
it was this: George W. Bush had catastrophically undermined America's world
reputation with his unprovoked aggression and use of torture. The advent of
Obama would reverse the damage. As Andrew Sullivan wrote in 2007, among best
assets Obama brought to the "rebranding" of America was "his
face." The election of Obama and his friendly approach to the Muslim world
would make the United States safer as well as more just.
No one believed this tale more fervently than Obama
himself. His first official act was to direct the closing of Guantanamo Bay
within one year and the elimination of harsh interrogation techniques. The
"message we are sending around the world," he intoned, "is that
the United States intends to prosecute the ongoing struggle ... in a manner
that is consistent with our values and our ideals." In Cairo a few months
later, he declared, "a new beginning" of relations between America
and the Muslim world.
Obama participated in erecting a Bush straw man -- a Bush
who disdained and caricatured Muslims in general and committed war crimes in
the name of national security. In fact, Bush had gone to great pains, within
hours of the 9/11 attacks, to appear with imams and to stress that Islam was a
"religion of peace."
Because Iraq had been Bush's war, as Obama saw it, he
squandered the hard-won victory by failing to obtain an agreement that would
have kept a stabilizing American force on the ground, electing instead to
withdraw completely. And because Afghanistan was the war that Bush allegedly
neglected, Obama sent 33,000 more troops (fewer than the generals requested) --
a surge that, unlike Bush's in Iraq -- failed, but not before causing 70
percent of the American deaths in that conflict.
Most of all, the Obama administration fled from the
concept of a struggle against Islamic terrorism as if fighting jihadis (the
smalls subset of Muslims who've declared war on us) were equivalent to warring
against all Muslims. Orwellian language flowed. The war on terror became
"overseas contingency operations." When Major Nidal Hassan gunned
down his fellow soldiers shouting "Allahu Akbar!" the president
warned against jumping to conclusions (a caution he failed to show himself in
the Trayvon Martin and Henry Louis Gates cases). His administration later
dubbed Hassan's attack "workplace violence" rather than jihadism or
terrorism.
When Faisal Shahzad attempted to explode a car bomb in
Times Square, the administration at first declared it to be a lone wolf attack,
only later reluctantly conceding that the Pakistani Taliban had been culpable.
When the consulate in Benghazi was attacked (undermining the administration
narrative that al-Qaida had died with bin Laden), the administration conducted
a prolonged disinformation campaign designed to deny the obvious.
Tiptoeing through language after the Boston bombings, the
administration at first declined to use the word "terror," perhaps
fearing that to use the word would imply a Muslim connection. "You use
those words and it means something very specific in people's minds,"
explained David Axelrod. Besides, he continued, the president suspected
"tax day" protesters.
What has this excruciating torture of the language and
elaborate "rebranding" achieved? The U.S. is not safer. Terror
attacks have been attempted at the same rate as during the Bush years (and have
been thwarted slightly less successfully). As for U.S. standing in the Muslim
world, the Guardian reports that a 2011 poll found favorability ratings for the
U.S. have plummeted. "In most countries they are lower than at the end of
the Bush administration, and lower than Iran's favorable ratings." A 2012
Pew poll of six predominantly Muslim nations -- Turkey, Lebanon, Tunisia,
Egypt, Jordan and Pakistan -- found U.S. approval ratings below those during
the Bush Administration and well under the popularity of China.
It's one thing to create a bogeyman for political
purposes. Obama did it to Bush in 2008 (for use against McCain), and he did it
to Romney in 2012. It's quite another to believe your own propaganda and make
policy in response. Bush was no anti-Muslim bigot. If he erred, it was in
believing too credulously in the readiness for western-style democracy in the
Arab world.
As for Obama, his doubletalk about the nature of our
enemies -- jihadis -- has achieved neither greater safety for Americans nor
improved popularity in the Muslim world. He's 0 for 2.
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