How to back down from the aggressive stance Obama has taken toward the Taliban’s role in Afghanistan ? One practical reason for this new willingness to talk (also to some of the Taliban) could be the difficulties that Obama knows he will face trying to convince Europeans to increase their military commitment.
A more general reason is the painful memory of the disastrous experience of the Democratic party under Lyndon Johnson when it found its grand goals for social reform (“The Great Society”) blocked and finally reduced to near nothingness because it was inextricably committed to the fight against what it saw as global communism in Vietnam.
(…) In a recent essay published in The Washington Post (March 2, 2009), columnist E.J Dionne Jr. suggested an interesting analogy between the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower and the need for Barack Obama to avoid becoming a “war president.” Eisenhower took office in 1953, shortly after the onset of the Cold War, and while a hot war had ground to a stalemate in Korea. The former leader of allied forces against Nazism set out immediately to extinguish the fires in Korea. But he did not opt to use over-whelming force by means of a “surge” in allied troops. Instead, he negotiated a truce, putting an end to active hostility without either side being able to claim a victory. This was part of a broader strategic vision on the part of Eisenhower. Despite his bellicose Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, whose talk of a “roll-back” of communism threatened to bring about a new hot war, the American president recognized that the communist enemy could be fought be other means—militarily by a policy of “containment” and ideologically by using what is today called the “soft power” of democratic values to dry up the well from which the enemy drew its sometimes fanatical supporters.
The analogy is suggestive, but it is of course only an analogy. Dionne himself does not follow its implications further. From the point of view of Obama and his special political power, it seems like a plausible approach to the problem of how to deal with Islamic terrorism, which will not disappear simply on its own, and cannot be eliminated by sheer force of arms. To succeed, Eisenhower had to have the personal political credibility to face down the wrath of violent and paranoiac anti-communists led by Senator Joe McCarthy and his allies. Obama has a similar credibility. It remains to be seen how he uses it.
