In the preface to A Promised Land, the first volume of his presidential memoirs, former US President, Barack Obama, mentions “the forces that led to the Arab Spring.” Enthralled, I had to read on.
The widely anticipated book—it sold 890,000 on the first day—was in the making for almost four years; it ended being a 768-page first volume of probably two volumes, if not more, closing off on a high note: the mission to capture and kill Osama Bin Laden in May of 2011. President Obama had another five years to go in office before the end of his presidency.
The memoirs chronicle Obama’s earlier years going back to his roots, upbringing, and later raising a family with Michelle. It leads up to the rise of his standing, becoming the president of the United States, and the tax and accountability that came with it.
It would be futile to try to recount then analyze all the events conveyed in A Promised Land, for considering it long-winded is no exaggeration. Obama felt obliged “to provide context to the decisions” he made, so he digressed; he is, according to him, “plain wordy.” When he speaks of Egypt and the “Arab Spring,” he goes way back to President Nasser. When he visits Saudi Arabia, he retraces the history of Saudi Arabia as far back as the discovery of oil, and when he talks about the conflict between “Arabs and Jews,” he backtracks to the 1917 Balfour Declaration. Hence, the focus here will be on one issue: the Arab World.
The memoirs, though, speak in a coherent, uncomplicated style, written in readable, easy-to-follow language. Obama’s communication and oratorical skills were put to good use, as detailed events are also accentuated with punch lines, catchphrases, and jokes.
On only a few occasions does the book reference the Middle East before the Arab Spring. In 2006, President Obama visited Iraq only to view firsthand what “U.S. officials had created” after the US-led invasion: “a big blunder” that was “chaotic and increasingly perilous.” He continues, “I couldn’t shake the thought of those kids [American soldiers] paying the price for the arrogance of men like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, who’d rushed us into war based on faulty information and refused, still to fully consider the consequences.”
And yet President Obama’s damaging role in the Iraqi war may have surpassed Bush’s jaded blunder. In 2011, Obama ordered US combat troops to withdraw from Iraq leaving behind an open playing field for insurgencies to move in. Not only did Obama forsake the Iraqis, but he also renounced the US’s role in generating the Iraqi plight. Betraying the Iraqis in this fashion is no different than how “the US tried to have it both ways, publically backing Iraq while secretly selling arms to Iran” earlier on.
The second occasion where Obama mentions the Arab World is during his visit to Cairo in June, 2009, where he gave a speech at Cairo University dubbed “the Muslim speech”; it aimed to help the Muslim world and the American one “understand each other.”
Meeting Mubarak, he found him “a man both accustomed to and slightly weary of his command.” He neglected to mention that the late president had lost his grandson only a month earlier. His description, however, of how he was met at Cairo University, with a “sugar high” result as the cheers and applause continued, and later of his visit to the Pyramids, made the visit “historic.”
He declares though that the promises the speech made never materialized due to his “failure to deliver” on the vision it projected.
Just prior to the Arab Spring, Obama tells of how Al Jazeera, the Qatari-controlled media outlet “had become the dominant news source in the region, having built its popularity by fanning the flames of anger and resentment among Arabs.” He fails to mention the connection his administration had with Al Jazeera though. According to one of Hilary Clinton’s email, in a one-day trip to Doha in April, 2010, she primarily met those in charge of Al Jazeera and discussed a visit by an Al Jazeera delegation to Washington.
As a prelude to the discussion of the Arab Spring, Obama focuses on the Palestinian crisis. He found President Arafat’s tactics “abhorrent,” missing “opportunities for peace,” though none of that “negated the fact that millions of Palestinians lacked self-determination and many of the basic rights.” Interestingly though, he says, “most congressional Republicans had abandoned any pretense of caring about what happened to the Palestinians.” The Democratic side was no better; “loath to look less pro-Israel than Republicans, especially since many of them were Jewish themselves or represented sizable Jewish constituencies,” and “Those who criticized Israeli policy too loudly risked being tagged as ‘anti-Israel’ and (possibly anti-Semitic).”
More importantly, members of both parties, according to Obama, feared the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). “AIPAC’s clout could be brought to bear on virtually every congressional district in the country, and just about every politician in Washington—including me.”
“It was all to no avail”; Obama was unable, like all other American presidents to negotiate a fair Palestinian deal.
As an introduction to the events that occurred in 2011 in the Arab World, Obama didn’t know whether he should “maintain stability, prevent disruptions to oil supplies, and keep adversarial powers (first the Soviets, then the Iranians) from expanding their influence, or encourage progress.”
As far as Egypt is concerned, he felt that the U.S. government was suddenly caught between a “repressive but reliable ally and a population insistent on change.” “If I were an Egyptian in my twenties, I’d probably be out there with them.” Still he realized that Mubarak’s stepping down would create, “a sudden power vacuum,” that the youths in Tahrir “weren’t the ones most likely to fill it,” which was exactly what happened later.
Obama called on President Mubarak to step down, that despite warnings from Netanyahu, who warned, figuratively speaking, of an “Iran in there in two seconds,” and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia who was worried about the spread of protests in the region. Both advices were correct.
Despite the celebration that erupted in Tahrir Square when Mubarak stepped down, Obama says, “the transition in Egypt was only the beginning of a struggle for the soul of the Arab World—a struggle whose outcome remained far from certain.” He was correct there, too.
President Obama construes what happened later as somewhat of a success as anti-government demonstrations in other countries “grew in scope,” though he does say that the reform that followed was “symbolic.” We await in anticipation the second volume, so Obama can expand on what he considers successful.
Obama doesn’t say much about Syria; I’m assuming more will come in the next volume, but he turns to Libya where he considered Gaddafi unequivocally the worst leader, “Prone to flamboyant gestures, incoherent rants, and odd behavior.” According to Obama, after protests ignited in Libya, the US tried to halt the friction, “short of using military force.” Ultimately it does use force. Air strikes were initiated as “U.S. and British warship began firing Tomahawk missiles and destroying Libya’s air defenses.”
Obama claims success in Libya, “March ended without a single U.S. casualty in Libya, and for an approximate cost of $550 million—not much more than what we spent per day on military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.” Unfortunately, in October 2011, American and NATO forces pulled out of Libya leaving behind a vacuum similar to that created in Iraq. The vacuum was immediately seized by IS.
Much more needs to be discussed as far as Obama’s legacy in the Middle East is concerned. We shall await the second volume.
Every antique reproduction that will be produced at the factory will bear a special stamp of the Supreme Council of Antiquities. (Reuters/File)
