Limited appeal? Obama's pitch would have been stronger if human rights had been a focus. Demotix Live News. All rights reserved.
Barack Obama’s call last week for a global effort to combat “violent extremism” appeared to signal a shift in US foreign policy towards the Middle East. As many experts have suggested, the president sought to distance himself from the discourse of his predecessor, George W. Bush, avoiding terms like ‘Islamic terrorism’ in speaking out against al-Qaeda and Islamic State (IS). But merely altering the official rhetoric, so that the US is no longer “at war with Islam”, addresses neither the phenomenon of non-state violence nor its determinants.
Obama did urge countries to “break the cycles of conflict” and address its root causes. But only if the US shows it is in earnest about human rights in addressing authoritarian governments in the region, as well as political and economic concerns, will his new paradigm of global security take shape.
