The Obama Doctrine: A Legacy of Continuity in Us Foreign Policy? by Michelle Bentley & Jack Holland

Author:Michelle Bentley & Jack Holland [Bentley, Michelle & Holland, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367281618
Google: 3sZRwwEACAAJ
Goodreads: 44640470
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-07-29T00:00:00+00:00

Escaping policies

For many, Obama’s first administration was anti-climatic. For those who anticipated that he would bring about a major change in US foreign policy – ‘change we can believe in’ – the extensive continuity in approach has not lived up to expectations. Obama was supposed to have been an antidote to everything that had been unacceptable about Bush and the way the American response to 9/11 had been constructed. Consequently, the subsequent identification of significant similarities in policy has been a source of frustration and disappointment, not least where Obama has actually expanded controversial policies such as drone attacks. The reasons for continuity have already been debated within other chapters in this volume. But whatever the explanation, it is clear that any shift has been far from transformative. Within this context then, and to the extent that comparable policies were adopted, it is perhaps unsurprising that the same narratives used to express them in the past would also be employed.

At one level this could be seen as the realisation of Obama’s self-interest. Given that these narratives were already successfully linked to these policies, why not derive the same political benefit by continuing to utilise them? At another level, however, this can be viewed as a situation of rhetorical ensnarement: that in continuing to adhere to policies – specifically policies created within, and because of, the discursive construct of the ‘War on Terror’ – this would necessitate a commitment to any underpinning narrative. Indeed, it has already been noted how intrinsically linked action and rhetoric have been in respect of the ‘War on Terror’. For example, the way in which the discursive framework of ‘war’ and actual military action in Iraq were mutually reinforcing. Consequently, these two aspects were so fundamentally co-dependent that attempting to separate out any part of this for removal would have been extremely problematic.

The most evident example of this is raised by Jackson and relates to Obama’s attempts to close Guantanamo Bay. On entering the White House, one of Obama’s first commitments was to shut the controversial facility. Yet Gitmo is still very much open for business. Various legal factors prevented Obama realising this ambition; not least where closure would raise serious questions as to where/how detainees should be transferred and, critically, tried (a situation complicated further by Congress’ refusal to finance alternative facilities or trials). In this situation, closing Guantanamo threatened to open a Pandora’s Box; it was easier to keep the lid on. In doing so, however, this raised a different question as to how to justify the continued detention of prisoners at the unit. Detention had been achieved under Bush through the legal classification of prisoners as ‘unlawful enemy combatants’. This allowed ‘suspect terrorists’ to ‘be detained in accordance with the “laws and customs of war,” which would mean they have no rights as criminal detainees or, for that matter, as civil detainees under the U.S. Constitution’ (Kanstroom 2003: 18–19). Within this context, terrorists could be defined as enemy combatants within that conflict, specifically

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