Though it's early days for Obama, sooner or later he will have to face and deal with the reality of terror, writes Abdel-Moneim Said* The fortunes of US presidents vary, though perhaps Clinton was the luckiest. By the time he entered the White House, the Cold War had ended, the US economy had begun to emerge from a brief recession, the technological revolution was advancing in leaps and bounds, the so- called democratic revolution had spread across the length and breadth of the world, and the UN was convening conferences over how to organise international affairs. It was not hard, at the outset of the 1990s, to speak of a new global order. In those days, Russia, which had plummeted from superpower heights, was being extra nice, even submissive, governed as it was by an alcoholic president allied with the mafia and at the mercy of Western aid, while its allies rushed to Washington to receive its blessings. Even the Arabs and Israelis, who never agree about anything, headed off to Madrid, prepared to commit themselves to a long-term peace. Compare that to the picture Barack Obama faced upon becoming president: a global financial crisis and economic straits at home, with US industries and services toppling like dominoes against a climate of panic and uncertainty over whether it is best to rescue them or to leave them to succumb to market forces. Meanwhile abroad, Moscow has developed claws and recently emerged from an invasion of Georgia, while the Arabs and Israelis are less ready than ever to agree on anything. Indeed, the entire world seems on the brink of a chain of disasters at a time when the US has neither the military energies nor the financial capacities to intervene. Maybe we cannot chalk all this down to luck. Perhaps a broader historical dialectic is shifting the world from one state to another and Obama happened to arrive at that rare moment in which global and domestic tragedies coincide. Last week, Congress passed Obama's economic recovery package and it now remains to be seen whether the new injections of money and resources will succeed where other remedies have failed. Whereas efforts until now have focused, here, on shoring up the liquidity of banks and, there, on stimulating demand, attention will now turn to stimulating industry and, perhaps, the automobile industry first with other industries to follow later. Maybe the remedies will work. Or maybe they will have to be modified or rethought. Whatever the case, this situation seems somehow manageable compared to an even greater challenge that awaits Obama and that could well threaten us all. I am referring here to how he handles the "Great War on Terror". We should not forget that the president who has just taken office based his electoral campaign on the charge that the Bush administration made a disastrous mistake when it shifted its focus from the war in Afghanistan, where Al-Qaeda was based and where the 11 September events were masterminded, to the war on Iraq, which had no connection whatsoever to international terrorism or even to nuclear bombs. Obama pledged to turn his attention back to the original theatre of operations and to transfer US forces from Baghdad to Kabul, so they can confront those who actually attacked the US and who continue to pose a threat to the US. He also realised that because the threat extends to other areas of the world, there were greater opportunities for anti-terrorist coalitions, including NATO countries and other countries that are determined to uproot terrorism. Unfortunately, Obama may have come to power way too late. The situation in Afghanistan these days is totally different to the situation in the autumn of 2001 when coalition forces overthrew the Taliban regime, pursued Al-Qaeda into the Tora Bora mountains and surrounded it there, and even entertained high hopes of building a modern democracy in one of the world's most underdeveloped Islamic countries. Today, the situation has taken an almost 180-degree turn. Taliban forces are now back in full control over 72 per cent of the country and threaten the four gateways to Kabul, and all major roads are potential death traps. In addition, the Taliban has forged an increasingly strong alliance with the Haqqani and Hakmatyar forces that make up the remnants of the mujahideen armies that fought the Soviet Union. As if this is not bad enough, in neighbouring Pakistan, the Taliban are growing stronger, the north is cut off from the federal government and Baluchistan, on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, has become another rebel area. Obama's new national security advisor, General Jim Jones, was not off the mark when he told the Congressional Foreign Affairs Committee that there should be no illusions that NATO will win the war in Afghanistan. What can Obama do, faced with a doomed war at a time of a gruelling economic crisis and with a pledge to keep regarding the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq? How will whatever he does affect the international balance of powers and the fate of the world's sole superpower? Perhaps more important to us, what repercussions will all this have on the Middle East, especially now that the Israelis have elected Benyamin Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman as their leaders at this critical time? The fact is that the US president's options are more limited than ever before. Perhaps the best option is to lower US sights from the goal of eradicating terrorism altogether and rebuilding Afghanistan to defeating Al-Qaeda, alone, as the agent responsible for planning and carrying out the 11 September attacks. In the opinion of some US military experts, this task is feasible if the US concentrates its efforts on a single region -- northern Pakistan -- and deploys appropriately trained and sufficient numbers of Special Forces for its operations there. Then, once it accomplishes its objective, the US can declare victory, clear out of Afghanistan and leave the country to the fate it chooses for itself. Option two would be to increase support for -- and reliance upon -- Pakistan, which played no small part in creating the Taliban to begin with and which has an immediate interest in reaching an understanding with the Taliban in its Pakistani and Afghani versions that would put Al-Qaeda out of business. Washington's third option would be to build a new international coalition for dealing with the Afghani terrorist phenomenon. The coalition would conceivably consist of countries that feel threatened by that source of terrorism, such as China, Russia, Central Asian republics and even India, which has recently been shaken by the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. All of these options come with material, political and strategic costs. Perhaps Obama will only be able to choose when troops become available from Iraq, or when he reaches a level of understanding with Iran, which has an interest in a non-Taliban state in Afghanistan and a more stable state in Iraq. Indeed, such choices might be guided by the nature of the strategic understandings he reaches with other powers in the Islamic world, from Indonesia in the Far East to Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia in the Middle East, over new ways to handle the Middle East region's chronic problems, foremost among which is the problem of terrorism. An America that is developing understandings and rebuilding strategic alliances from a standpoint that is less arrogant and domineering might come as a jolt to many countries that have grown accustomed to dealing with the Bush administration over the past eight years. What is certain is that although Obama may have been less fortunate than his predecessors with regard to the world he has to deal with upon coming to power, he will not allow the US's international standing to deteriorate further and he will not risk an upheaval in the international balance of powers. For this reason, he will open numerous opportunities to those who calculate their strategic interests carefully. What is not clear yet is whether Arab governments have taken stock of the changes going on in Washington, or whether -- out of long-ingrained habits -- they are still waiting for Washington to make the first move. Is it not about time that they try to change too? * The writer is director of Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.
