Obama’s Flailing Wars; A Study in BP-Style “Pragmatism”

[laststeamtrain]

Obama’s Flailing Wars
A Study in BP-Style “Pragmatism”
By Tom Engelhardt

On stage, it would be farce. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, it’s bound to play out as tragedy.

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BP-Style Pragmatism Goes to War

One thing can be said about the Bush administration: it had a grand strategic vision to go with its wars. Its top officials were convinced that the American military, a force they saw as unparalleled on planet Earth, would be capable of unilaterally shock-and-awing America’s enemies in what they liked to call “the arc of instability” or “the Greater Middle East” (that is, the oil heartlands of the planet). Its two wars would bring not just Afghanistan and Iraq, but Iran and Syria to their knees, leaving Washington to impose a Pax Americana on the Middle East and Central Asia (in the process of which groups like Hamas and Hezbollah would be subdued and anti-American jihadism ended).

They couldn’t, of course, have been more wrong, something quite apparent to the Obama team. Now, however, we have a crew in Washington who seem to have no vision, great or small, when it comes to American foreign or imperial policy, and who seem, in fact, to lack any sense of strategy at all. What they have is a set of increasingly discredited tactics and an approach that might pass for good old American see-what-works “pragmatism,” but these days might more aptly be labeled “BP-style pragmatism.”

The vision may be long gone, but the wars live on with their own inexorable momentum. Add into the mix American domestic politics, which could discourage any president from changing course and de-escalating a war, and you have what looks like a fatal -- and fatally expensive -- brew.

We’ve moved from Bush’s visionary disasters to Obama’s flailing wars, while the people of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq continue to pay the price. If only we could close the curtain on this strange mix of farce and tragedy, but evidently we’re still stuck in act four of a five-act nightmare.

Even as our Afghan and Pakistani wars are being sucked dry of whatever meaning might remain, the momentum is in only one direction -- toward escalation. A thousand repetitions of an al-Qaeda-must-be-destroyed mantra won’t change that one bit. More escalation, unfortunately, is yet to come.

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http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175248/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_obama%27s_afpak_flip-flop_/#more

[pscot]

1. Involuntary wars forever

The President would like to end them, but just can't seem to muster the bipartisan support it would take. To bad, so sad.