Baraq Husain Obama starts war against terror :(Source Rediff)
Sambhal News : The brutal execution of the American journalist James Foley by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [ISIL] operating in Syria and Iraq has brought the ‘war on terror’ back on the centre stage of world politics. This is apparent from the strong condemnation by President Barack Husain Obama. Of course, no two wars are alike and the upcoming ‘world war’ will have unique features.
According to the US state department spokesperson, here, “there are an estimated 12000 foreign terrorist fighters that’ve joined these conflicts [in Syria and Iraq]” and “it looks increasingly likely” that the individual responsible for the murder of Foley was a British citizen. At once this makes the upcoming war much more complicated and demanding than the previous one against al-Qaeda and makes it a global enterprise that is far beyond the US’ capacity to wage unilaterally.
Without doubt, the US foreign policies are going to be profoundly affected in the remaining two-year period of the Obama presidency. This is evident from the extraordinary initiative by Obama to host a heads of government meeting of the members of the United Nations Security Council in New York in late September on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session.
This will be the first HOG-level UN Security Council session since Obama hosted one on nuclear non-proliferation in 2009. He hopes to “work through the UN mission with partners on a resolution to address the phenomenon [of terrorism], emphasize the need for states to have the tolls and mobilize the resources to help prevent it.”
Obama’s preference is to work through the UN to address the conflicts in Syria and Iraq, although vital American interests are in the crosshairs in these conflicts. It is a judicious move, given the need to put ‘boots on the ground’ at some stage to fight the ISIL.
Significantly, Washington is having to work with Russia and China, two veto holding Security Council members, and that, in turn, cannot but rub on the US’ overall relationships with these two big powers. Put differently, the Obama administration is coming under compulsion to realize that the US has a convergence of interests with Russia and China with regard to international security, which the discord over Ukraine or Washington’s ‘pivot’ strategy in Asia cannot be allowed to overshadow. It will be interesting to see if presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping travel to New York for the Security Council summit hosted by Husain Obama. In all probability they might.
