President
Obama is such a great statesman and world leader, with an unerring instinct for
diplomacy. First he managed, without firing a shot, to get Assad and
Putin to the negotiating table, and to prompt a UN Security Council resolution
to coerce Assad to give up all his chemical weapons.
The resolution
was passed on Thursday, having been put together by the five permanent members
of the Security Council; the US, Britain, France, Russia and China. The ten
non-permanent members (Australia, Azerbaidjan, Argentine, South Korea, Morocco,
Luxemborg, Togo, Rwanda, Guatamela and Pakistan) signed on Friday. Action to
investigate Assad’s arsenal of chemical weapons begins on Tuesday. The deal was
put together in a couple of weeks, pointing to how desperate everybody was for
some kind of solution to Assad’s use of sarin gas; Russia and China included. Putin
certainly didn’t know how to back down from his obdurate position, caught
between a rock and hard place.
But no
leaders had the gutzpah to step out, especially in the face of Putin’s
continued veto and western voters’ apathy about Syrians being slaughtered
by Assad’s regime and the threat of chemical weapons usage becoming an accepted
norm.
No leader
that is, except for Barack Obama. For him, what Assad did wasn’t acceptable. So
he acted, despite massive resistance at home and no support from the
international community. What a great man. He didn’t just act, he acted
brilliantly and succeeded. International coup – as in triumph, feat,
accomplishment, achievement, scoop, master stroke, stroke of genius – number
one.
Then
yesterday he made a phone call to President Rouhani who was on his way to the
airport. Rouhani had refused a meeting with Obama and the opportunity to shake
hands. But Obama called him anyway. And Rouhani took the call. For the first
time in thirty-four years the US and Iranian leaders spoke, both against the
will of hardliners at home. It gave Rouhani what he needed to take back to his electorate
who voted him in because he’s a moderate and they want an end to sanctions and
bad relations with the US.
Obama
pulled off a second international coup. And let's not forget that he did it
whilst also dealing with his own hardliners at home, a disintegrating Congress
and the threat of a government shutdown.
He doesn’t
have as much support as he deserves at home. He deserves to be celebrated and
lauded. The saddest and most aggravating aspect of his term in office is that
prejudices that have nothing to do with politics still run deep in the US and
prevent too many from seeing the reality of who he is and what he’s achieving.
But
some see it. And history will judge him as one of the greatest ever US
presidents and world leaders. Because that’s what he is.
