President Barack Obama and the US administration are in an unenviable position right now. They are the favourite punching bag of the Muslim world and many accuse them for being responsible for all that is ailing Egypt and Syria.
In July this year, when the Egyptian military deposed President Morsi, those in Egypt who supported the generals took great pains to educate Obama that the move had the backing of a large number of Egyptians. But when the US administration appeared cautious in responding, they were slammed it being supportive of the Islamists.
By mid-August, the United States had apparently switched sides when the generals in Egypt, ruthlessly went about dispersing sit-ins by the Muslim Brotherhood in support of Morsi, leading to more than 1000 deaths. Obama was now accused of being sympathetic to the military and backing the generals against the Islamists.
There is just no pleasing some people. Both the charges cannot be true at the same time and probably neither is. But the situation symbolises the loathing for Obama and the US that seems to prevail in the Muslim world.
But then who said being in the top job in the world was going to be easy? As the chief of a superpower nation, the general feeling is that he can orchestrate events sitting in the Oval Office, by a nod of his head and flick of his finger. The United States’ approval and complicity for solving global strife is often desired but at the same time, its role as a global policeman is also much despised and reviled.
Egyptians who supported the military overthrow are convinced that Obama is firmly behind the Islamists. This begets the question as to why would America support the Muslim Brotherhood. To weaken the country by dividing Egypt into mini-states, claims a conspiratorial chorus, and thus help the cause of an Israeli invasion.
Taking forward the absurd,a mainstream Arabic newspaper ran an explosive front-page headline a couple of days ago, alleging that Obama is a full-blown member of the Muslim Brotherhood International!
At the same time, to the Islamists, the ousting of their leader, Morsi, has to be America’s handiwork. A pro-Islamist poster shows Obama dressed as a pharaoh and leading the Egyptian military chief General Abdel Fatah-al-Sisi by a dog leash. After all, didn’t America’s secretary of state, John Kerry, defend his country’s reluctance to suspend military aid to Egypt, by describing the dismissal of Morsi as an attempt to “restore democracy” in Egypt.
Both the sides have a different narrative, but are happy to blame America as logic and facts become a casualty of troubled times.
Coming to Syria, the President has managed to back himself into a corner and tie himself up in knots over the two-year old Syrian civil war. The United States has received flak for its forbearance to engage militarily with Syria, while more than a 100,000 people have already died and it has waited for Obama’s “red line” to be crossed.
Now that the “red line” has been breached-the United States says it has proof that chemical weapons have been used by the Assad regime in Syria against its civilian population- the decision by Obama to seek Congressional support to engage in unilateral military strikes against Syria has been described as “alarming.”
Of course, in this case too, there are those who think that an intervention by the United States at this stage is a folly and there have been anti-war demonstrations in Jordan, Turkey and Tunis. The cartoonists and caricaturists are at it again by depicting doomsday on the lines of America’s intervention in Iraq, with the war with Syria being billed as Iraq 2 and Obama being compared to his predecessor, George W Bush.
Added to all this cacophony is strident criticism at home of Obama’s strategy for handling overseas crises. There are growing demands to suspend military aid to Egypt, while others want the President to support the generals.
On Syria too, the President is slammed by some as “weak” for dithering on Syria, while others argue that engaging militarily in Syria will be suicidal since there is no clear leadership to hand over to and peace might turn out to be a long drawn out affair.
Americans themselves seem detached from the events unfolding in Egypt and Syria and seem to favour a hands-off approach. The spectre of debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan still looms large and Obama does not enjoy much support for a war with Syria.
With so many opposing voices and the memory of his predecessor’s protracted imbroglios still fresh, Obama has his work cut out. He is has argued that the “red line” is not just his, but that it is the international community’s credibility that is at stake in the case of Syria.
However, this is unlikely to change perceptions or to stop the varied criticisms against him.
But the man has got to do what he has got to do. Maybe, history will be kinder to Obama. After all, in hindsight, things are always clearer.