Ken Berwitz
This may be the mostsurprising of President Obama\’s foreign-policy legacies: not just that hepresided over a humanitarian and cultural disaster of epochal proportions, butthat he soothed the American people into feeling no responsibility for thetragedy.
Todaythe Islamic State is blowing up precious cultural monuments in Palmyra, and half ofall Syrians have been displaced -as if, on a proportional basis,160 million Americans had been made homeless. More than a quarter-millionhave been killed. Yet the “Save Darfur” signs have not given way to “SaveSyria.”
Onereason is that Obama – who ran for president on the promise of restoring theUnited States’ moral stature – has constantly reassured Americans that doingnothing is the smart and moral policy. He has argued, at times, that there wasnothing the United States could do,belittling theSyrian opposition as “former doctors, farmers, pharmacists andso forth.”
Hehas argued that we would only make things worse – “I am more mindful probablythan most,” he told the NewRepublic in 2013, “of not only our incredible strengths andcapabilities, but also our limitations.”
Hehas implied that because we can\’t solve every problem, maybe we shouldn\’t solveany. “How do I weigh tens of thousands who\’ve been killed in Syria versus thetens of thousands who are currently being killed in the Congo?” he asked(though at the time thousands were not being killed in Congo).
The realists were rightthat the United States has to consider interests as well as values, must paceitself and can\’t save everyone. But a values-free argument ought at least to beable to show that the ends have justified the means, whereas the strategicresults of Obama\’s disengagement have been nearly as disastrous as the humanconsequences.
