Obama Will End the War on Terror

Don't bet on it. A misconceived war on terror has stoked Americans' nightmares since Sept. 11, 2001, and that will in all likelihood continue. Despite having anointed himself the candidate of change, Barack Obama remained wedded to crucial elements of the war on terror throughout his campaign. Not only did he embrace the term, but, like the Bush administration, he portrayed the 9/11 attacks as a turning point in global politics, suggested that transnational terrorism threatened the United States' survival, depicted the tactic of terrorism as the enemy, and laid out an apocalyptic vision of the next attack. The danger of terrorism was, he declared, no less grave than that posed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

This portrayal was more than campaign rhetoric. The war on terror has been the country's defining national security narrative since 9/11, and politicians across the political spectrum have paid obeisance to it. Indeed, shortly after the election, Obama portrayed the attacks in Mumbai as evidence of the grave and urgent threat of terrorism that the United States faces, as if the perpetrators of that tragedy were necessarily members of a global terrorist brotherhood. Introducing his national security team a few days later, he highlighted the threat posed by a poorly specified terror that cannot be contained by borders, rather than by specific U.S. adversaries who would use terrorist tactics.

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As president, Obama will be hard-pressed to jettison the war on terror. His administration's foreign policy will look different from that of its predecessor in many respects, but not this one. With Obama in the Oval Office, the United States seems likely to remain in the war on terror's thrall -- to the detriment of the country's priorities, its foreign policy, the tenor of its discourse, and perhaps its people's liberties. Obama promised to lead America on a new path, but deviating from the course set in the past seven years will not be easy.

Obama Will Wage the Battle of Ideas' Better Than George W. Bush

Doubtful. Yes, Obama, by his presence and personality, has changed the atmospherics of U.S. foreign relations. America's reputation around the world has for some time been at a nadir, so there is nowhere to go but up. But the United States' poor image abroad has not been the result of a marketing failure, and, thus, better public diplomacy will not lead to victory in the Battle of Ideas. Anti-Americanism thrives, not because others misunderstand the United States, but because they perceive its aims and tactics all too well. The Bush administration's greatest perceived foreign-policy failures -- Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantnamo, unimpeded global warming -- could not have been overcome with better public diplomacy, and recent improvements in trans-Atlantic relations cannot be credited to an improved sales pitch. The world is rightly waiting to see if Obama will match his words with actions. Public diplomacy can matter only at the margins.

As much as he might wish it, Obama does not enter the Oval Office with a clean slate. The sizable U.S. presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, combined with the aggressive hunt for al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan's tribal areas, will continue to rankle in the Arab and Muslim worlds. Elsewhere, criticism of U.S. foreign policy predated Bush -- the French expressed alarm at American hyperpower during the good old days of Clintonian multilateralism -- and will persist after he leaves office. Notwithstanding the financial meltdown and U.S. travails in Iraq, the United States remains the world's largest economic and military power by far. Its penchant for pursuing its global interests unilaterally lies at the root of many others' suspicions, and there will be times that even an Obama administration will chafe at and throw off any self-imposed shackles. When that happens, those high-flying expectations will come crashing back to earth.

Withdrawing from Iraq Will Bring Victory Closer in Afghanistan

Wishful thinking. Sure, getting out of Iraq will in principle make available U.S. soldiers and materiel, but don't expect these additional resources to pay large dividends in Afghanistan.

First, insurgent fighters enjoy a safe haven in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan, and it is not for lack of U.S. firepower or troops in Afghanistan that they operate freely. The Pakistani government's reluctance and inability to bring the region to heel is the chief problem, and a reduced U.S. commitment to Iraq will not make that political nut easier to crack. Second, even if the security situation were to improve thanks to more U.S. troops and money, the challenge of governing Afghanistan's ethnically diverse and geographically challenging landscape will remain. Third, all this presumes that the United States has the political will to undertake and sustain a much more substantial long-term military presence in Afghanistan, and such political will -- if it ever existed -- is now at best a wasting asset.

Americans were ready to bring the troops home from Iraq even before the recession intensified the usual guns-versus-butter debates. The budget crunch has prompted calls for slashing military spending, and many will see in the troop drawdown in Iraq an opportunity to free funds to aid Americans at home -- not an opportunity to redouble U.S. commitment to Afghanistan.

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