Barack Obama: Problem-Solving Strategy

Abstract

Obama entered the presidency in January, 2009 facing two unpopular American-generated wars in the Islamic world begun under the Bush administration: the war in Afghanistan that started with the October, 2001 U.S. intervention in response to the 9/11 attacks—a determination to wipe out al Qaeda training camps and seize its primary leaders, and to eliminate the repressive, fundamentalist Taliban regime; and the war in Iraq, a preemptive invasion in March, 2003 designed to oust its leader, Saddam Hussein, capture and destroy the presumed, but later discovered to be a nonexistent, cache of weapons of mass destruction, and to “drain the swamp” of terrorists expected to flock to the region. Both of these wars were unpopular in that their rationale and support within the United States was waning, and anti-Americanism abroad, particularly in Muslim majority nations, was growing as a result of the massive U.S. military presence. Neither conflict showed sure signs of U.S. victory. The Taliban were regaining strength in Afghanistan and post-Saddam regime conditions in Iraq pointed to serious, continuing hostile rift between the Sunni and Shiite Muslims. The terrorism threat was alive despite the expansive, expensive Global War on Terrorism policy built by the Bush administration to defeat it.