The war of Obama’s transition

"The War of Jenkins Ear" is part of the residue of 10th grade history that has always stayed with me. This is not because of its role in the run up to the War of Austrian Succession or the uncomfortable reality that it revealed just how much our British cousins valued their part in the slave trade to Spain’s colonies. Mostly it’s because of the name and the image of Robert Jenkins, British merchant sea-captain, holding up his ear — recently severed thanks to the Spanish — in Parliament. That’s how to drum up support for a conflict. The crisis in Gaza does not lend itself to quirky imagery. There is nothing light about it. With each passing day the conflict grew grimmer, revealing a moral ambiguity on a par with British outrage over any Spanish incursion on their right to sell human beings for profit. But the conflict may come to have a designation in history that is every bit as memorable as the one inspired by Jenkins sacrifice for his king. Because looking at the timing of the war and the timing of the Israeli unilateral cease-fire announcement this weekend, it would be fair to christen this three-week exercise in brutality "The War of Obama’s Transition" or, perhaps, "The War of One President at a Time."

This was unambiguously a conflict packaged to fit into a particular window of time created by the departure of George Bush and the arrival of Barack Obama. This was apparent at the beginning (and if you want you can go look up my observation to that effect in the Financial Times fairly early in the conflict) and it was even clearer at the end. Commentators spent endless time trying to determine what Israel’s goals were or should have been, but all one really had to do was look at the clock. Israel wanted to get in and take care of business while on Bush’s watch. They knew he would support them and they knew that it would be best for their relations with the incoming president to leave the stain of this effort on Bush’s hands, to start fresh with Obama. Given the vital role the United States plays as Israel’s principal ally in the world, it is not U.S.-centric narcissism to cast the timing of this war in the context of the U.S. transition. And, to be absolutely fair to all, it needs also be said that Obama’s repetition of the "one president at a time mantra" (on this…not, for example, on the stimulus) enabled him to turn away from Gaza and say, for three final weeks, "not my problem." This was a wink and a nod, of course. Obama could easily have sent a strong message one way or another about Gaza. But it was in everyone’s interests (except for the innocents caught in the cross-fire) to play it this way.

Now, of course, the game has changed. Within a matter days…and perhaps hours…Obama will be, as Joe Biden once sensibly predicted, tested. Among the first tests will come from Hamas as it fires rockets into Israel and for the responses that echo out of Washington. The North Koreans, currently rattling their sabers at South Korea’s borders, seem intent on doing the same thing.  Within no time at all, terror groups in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and almost certainly elsewhere will also test the new team. Harsh words are expected and will be discounted. What they want to know is whether there will be meaningful action, how we work with alliances, whether or not Obama is materially different from Bush in his reactions.

There is only one president at a time was a great and appropriate catch phrase for the past few months. It will resonate quite differently now as the world probes and provokes, testing to see just how un-Bush-like the un-Bush really is. My guess…having read the world press for the past year… is that they will be more surprised by the similarities than they are the differences. Obama promises long overdue change on many levels, but both hold the same office and represent the same country and the interests of that country remain largely the same from administration to administration.