Quick takes // By Ben FrankelObama’s address on countering ISIS: The missing context
Yesterday, President Barack Obama delivered a prime time address on his administration’s policy to defeat ISIS. Obama offered no new initiatives or ideas, but the address still mentioned all the right things: No one wants to send tens of thousands of American troops to the Middle Eat; no one wants the United States to invade and occupy another country; we should not equate Islam with terrorism; we should guard against anti-Muslim backlash; the United States has faced daunting challenges in the past, and came out victorious. What was missing from the address was the same thing which has been missing from the Obama’ administration’s Middle East policies and its approach to fighting ISIS: Context.
The House of Commons last Wednesday, after an 11-hour debate, voted 397-223 to authorize U.K. military action against ISIS targets in Syria. Sixty-six Labor MPs defied the call by the party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and voted with the government.
The debate was contentious, but both sides – and the media analyses which followed – were united in agreement on one thing: The speech by Labor MP and shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn stood out. Some called in “Churchillian.”
The Financial Times’s Friday editorial said:
In an age when communications are dominated by the internet and social media, most politicians tend to dismiss the art of oratory as an irrelevance. Many seem more concerned by how they perform in jousts with television interviewers or how regularly their aides text supportive messages on Twitter. This week, however, the Labor MP Hilary Benn offered a welcome reminder in the House of Commons that a great speech can still make the political weather.
The shadow foreign secretary’s oration came at the end of a long and lackluster day of debate on whether Britain should extend its bombing campaign against ISIS in Iraq to Syria. In the course of 15 minutes, Mr. Benn detailed the case for action, defying the anti-war stance of Labor’s leader Jeremy Corbyn. His bravura performance was greeted with rapturous applause by MPs on all sides — one of the rare occasions this has happened. In the days since, it has been replayed by tens of thousands of Britons on digital media.
Yesterday, President Barack Obama delivered a prime time address on his administration’s policy to defeat ISIS, and one thing that can be said about the speech is that no one will call it “Churchillian.” It will not be mistaken for a galvanizing, Hilary Benn-like speech.
Obama offered no new initiatives or ideas, but the address still mentioned all the right things: No one wants to send tens of thousands of American troops to the Middle Eat; no one wants the United States to invade and occupy another country; we should not equate Islam with terrorism; we should guard against anti-Muslim backlash; the United States has faced daunting challenges in the past, and came out victorious.
What was missing from the address was the same thing which has been missing from the Obama’ administration’s Middle East policies and its approach to fighting ISIS: Context.
