Scenarios for Obamagate in the Second Term

The second Obama administration is now just a month away, reminding us of the century-old American tendency for second presidential terms to be troubled and often unsuccessful. Second terms are particularly vulnerable to scandal.

At the same time, constitutional changes made after World War II have guaranteed that every second term president is a lame duck, and therefore less feared by his enemies. It is impossible to predict the future, but it is also clear that the second Obama administration bears a major vulnerability: this is a foreign policy heavily reliant on support from irregular military forces which can only be described as “al-Qaeda.” Obama has in fact gone far beyond any of his predecessors in his use of terrorist fighters as the infantry component in the NATO-backed assaults on countries like Libya and Syria, as well as for operations in Pakistan and Yemen. This is often what “leading from behind” really means.

The declared goal of the US military in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as in Somalia and Yemen, is to kill any al-Qaeda fighters which they manage to locate. But when it comes to Libya and Syria, …