The Arab world is wracked by far too many conflicts. The fighting in Iraq and Syria has dragged on for years and Yemen and Libya are in chaos as their civil wars do immense damage to their people. It is certainly possible for outside forces to help tip the balance in a conflict and they can also impose the end of fighting in a particular situation, but it is impossible for outside forces to impose a successful long-term peace. That has to come from the people themselves and it requires the building of a consensus across the variety of communities that make up any nation, usually based on the premise that they agree to respect their differences within the rule of law and therefor exclude men of violence and terror from their public life.
It is in this context that the Arab world listened to United States President Barack Obama’s final speech on the foreign policy of his administration in which he defended his multilateral counterterrorism strategy. Obama spoke of how the US had successfully sought “a counterterrorism capability that can sustain pressure against any terrorist network” by consolidating partnerships with foreign allies. He described the campaign against Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) as relentless, sustainable, multilateral and the outgoing American president took pride in building “an international coalition of nearly 70 nations”.
That may be, and if these words were directed at US President-elect Donald Trump then they have a particular resonance as the skilled and globally-aware Obama is warning Trump of the dangers of unilaterally trying to solve the world’s problems — or, in Trump’s case, more probably unilaterally seeking short-term advantage for American interests.
But Obama’s rhetoric has often been far more impressive than the reality of his actions in the Middle East. The multilateral strategy of which he spoke is vital, but he failed to live up to it himself. All through his tenure, the US military has continued to use drones and air strikes to target what they defined as terrorist safe havens, often doing great damage by killing innocent civilians. And the pursuit of multilateralism should not be an excuse for doing nothing.
American power can be used to support local efforts to rebuild peace and this part of multilateral activism has been conspicuous by its absence in countries like Palestine, Libya, Yemen, Iraq and Syria, which need to find a way to peace and security.
