Mick Hartley

Dr Muhammad Idrees Ahmad, last seen here with his LARB piece on the return of the return of the strongmen, has a good article in the Observer this morning – Barack Obama’s presidency will be defined by his failure to face down Assad:

The post-second-world-war international order is on the verge of collapse. In January, when Obama leaves office, he will be leaving the world a lot less stable than even his predecessor.

But in his valedictory press conference, last Friday, Obama defended his policy on Syria – albeit with logic whose fractures even his eloquence could not conceal. Inverting cause and consequence, he cited Russian and Iranian presence in Syria as his reason for not confronting Assad (neither was there in August 2013); he cited the disunion among rebels as the reason for not supporting them (they fragmented because they were denied meaningful support); and he cited the fear of deeper American involvement as his justification for restraint (even though a year later it would lead to a far bigger deployment across two states).

The administration’s response to the neoconservative depredations of the past decade was to revert to old dogmas: the dogmas of “realism”. Under the influence of doctrinaire realists, Obama concluded that the Arab world was not ready for democracy; it needed “strongmen”. The strongmen would protect the west against the twin threats of terror and migration. This logic led the US to back Nouri al-Maliki’s sectarian government after the controversial 2010 election in Iraq; it also led it to tolerate Assad. Syria was defined narrowly as a counterterrorism problem.

But there was also another reason for tolerating Assad. The administration had gambled its reputation on the Iran deal – a deal whose success would distinguish Obama from his belligerent and quixotic predecessor. Iranian leaders, however, understood that by investing his legacy in the deal, Obama had also made himself its hostage. He couldn’t make too many demands for fear of undoing his own legacy. Conscious of this, Iranian hardliners saw no cause for constraint. Flush with cash from the deal, they have embarked on a foreign policy far more intransigent than anything Iran has pursued in a century. Tehran has little need for nuclear weapons when it can conquer Aleppo without them. And, as a client of Iran, Assad has enjoyed impunity.

Aleppo fell on Obama’s watch. He did not raise a finger to save the city even though he had mobilised America’s vast military assets on short notice to defend Kobani and imposed a no-fly zone over Hasakah. By withholding leverage, Obama also allowed Russia to use the charade of diplomacy to aid Iran and the regime’s military conquest.

In January, as Obama surrenders the White House to America’s own strongman, the Iran deal will probably not survive long. Its benefits were already made doubtful by Obama’s invertebracy. It is Aleppo that the world will remember him by.