(Giampiero Venturi)
10/19/16
http://www.difesaonline.it/geopolitica/tempi-venturi/presidenziali-usa-2016-la-catastrofica-eredit%C3%A0-lasciata-da-obama-politica
He sets the Obama era; a phase ends and another begins, on which incumbent projections tend bleak. In a few weeks we will know the name of the next President of the United States and despite the political stature not quite clear of the two candidates, will that name to monopolize the media space worldwide.
Anyone who is the 45th President of the USA, will be many problems to solve in the future but the most difficult to manage legacy will remain on the level of international relations. The figure is not unknown for the first time in at least two decades the bulk of the electoral debate focused on foreign policy.
The theme is back topical for two reasons: the US return to question their role after a quarter-century lived by super cop in the world; the geopolitical balance of the planet are substantially changed.
Regarding the first consideration is blamed global hegemony issue, caught between an ethical and economic. Between subjective and objective assumptions, however, the debate is more than another extension to the States and the world can not help but take notice.
With regard to changes in the geopolitical balance in the world, America is instead to deal with what materialized during the years of the dual mandate of Barack Obama. From active subject it becomes passive and the state of things is not comforting.
Sandwiched between the taxation method that inevitably is inherent in the logic of an imperial superpower and the ideological need to be politically correct, the Obama administration has brought home embarrassing results on the foreign policy plan.
Let's order, trying to outline the geographical area of 8 years product management.
We start from the ally par excellence, Israel. In the general elections of March 2015 Obama sided publicly with Isaac Herzog, leader of the Labour left polls gave safe lead over Netanyahu's Likud. But the overtaking does not occur and the relationship between the new Israeli government and the US will freeze.
The cold truth was begun earlier, when the DEM administration's position on the Palestinian issue was clear it was not in line with the right of Tel Aviv. The bad relations between Democrats and Likud leading US and Israel the largest political distance from the foundation of the Jewish state. Netanyahu also collects the nuclear deal with Iran; It closes like a clam and you will enjoy the end of the mandate of Obama.
In 2010 s'incrinano diplomatic relations between Turkey and Israel. It is the beginning of Erdogan, then still prime minister in Ankara. The support given to the Muslim Brotherhood, very close to Hamas and therefore irreconcilable enemies of Tel Aviv, Turkey had shifted significantly in terms pro Palestine (we delved into the question many times on these pages). The historic alliance between Tel Aviv and Ankara breaks but Obama manages the incredible feat to worsen relations with both.
The process is slow but the final breakthrough there in July 2016, when Erdogan (now President) foil the coup and accuses the US of having organized. Turkey's independent policy continues in Syria, where it embarrasses the US shield with the operation of the Euphrates to contain the Kurds across the border. Washington supports the Kurds against ISIS to have a foot in Syria, but in front of turkish NATO ally, is preparing to sacrifice own the much advocated Kurds of Rojava.
Turkey meanwhile gets closer to Russia with which revitalizes the agreement for the buried Turkish Stream. Considering that Erdogan has control of the second armed forces of the Atlantic Alliance, the questions to ask about the future are not few.
Speaking of Syria, we are in front of the biggest political disaster packaged by Obama. In 2013 echo the words "Assad's days are numbered ...".
We are at the end of 2016 and we are still counting. He armed the ranks of the anti-Assad Islamist rebels, the US close to a corner by refusing any compromise with Damascus and its ally Moscow. The Russian military intervention freeze the military situation and the attempt to direct stems from the outside, the last piece of a inventatissima Arab Spring.
The political disaster in Syria unmasks meanwhile the eyes of world public the strange conduct of the war against terrorism. Who and what is behind the ISIS? Who continues to help Islamist gangs that are rampant in the country?
Libya. The Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama, led by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and aided by France, in 2011 makes war against Gaddafi. The Libyan disaster, seen from the point of view of Washington, at first it is a victory: a country before hostile, become access land for the management of an immense energy honey. The Libyan issue, however, is complicated. At present the Tripoli national unity government controls less than a third of the territory and above all does not handle major oil fields. The middle is the General Haftar, a friend of Egypt and Russia,
downloaded from the CIA a few years earlier.
About Egypt. Cairo after the turn of Sadat's Camp David, was passed by the socialist tradition Nasser to open collaboration with the West. The US then had managed to pull out the largest country in the Arab front, making a great gift to Israel and the West. Mubarak had supervised for 30 years on this position.
Over the years of Obama we are fortunate to attend the aforementioned Arab Spring. Falls and Mubarak in Cairo for a year govern the Muslim Brotherhood Morsi. It is a critical moment, but he speaks very little. In defiance of political correctness, this time Obama supports the coup of General Al Sisi showing Egypt on track. Al Sisi, despite being of the same extraction of Mubarak, however, has a more nuanced view of the Egyptian foreign policy: supports Haftar in Libya with grave embarrassment of the West and especially tightens with Putin, even putting on the table the lease of bases and military maneuvers joint.
Referring to Putin and the relations with Russia, we could write hours. We simply say that since 1991 the relations between Washington and Moscow had never had been so ugly. The bad management of the crisis in Ukraine, economic sanctions and Eastern Europe were not reset occurred even at the time of the second term of the Bush gunslinger, when NATO enlargement to the East was already accomplished and Putin had already consolidated the power. Chapeau!
We told him to Bush; It is saying that every political decision is influenced by those that occurred previously. While this partly fulfills Obama's policy, in turn heir to a decade of wars fought by the United States around the world, it does not put it away from criticism in handling the situation in Afghanistan and Iraq. The war in Afghanistan continues quietly for 15 years. In 2010, 10 years after the invasion, there were about 4 deaths per day in the anti Taliban coalition. We are far from the 10 daily deaths in Vietnam, but to be a victory could be said. Obama has reduced the US contingent (arrived in 3000 total almost fallen), but a way out could not find it. The next president will have to end the war and is likely to accept a return of the Taliban to power.
Even in Iraq, 13 years after the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the situation remained in limbo. The withdrawal of the fact it has never been implemented, indeed, the Americans are back in force. At this very hour we fight in Mosul, with direct US involvement. Giving for errors discounted between 2003 and 2008, one wonders if in the years after they could have done more.
ISIS and international terrorism have already spoken between the lines. We add only that the Middle East, endemically unstable, offers very few safe havens for Washington today. The future President will have to patch up relations with all the parties, one by one. Not least with the enigmatic Saudi Arabia, with whom the US will also have to solve the itch Yemen, now adrift.
While the horizon consolidate new Asian and other certainties vanish powers (with Obama the US has accepted the Chinese expansion in the Far East and also lost the support of the secular Philippines) we will see what will happen in November. Downsizing or total war? the US is ahead of an important crossroads. Much of our future life depends on it.
(Photo: US gov - US Army)
---
IZAKOVIC