Obama Administration Drops "War on Terror" Rhetoric

In March, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acknowledged that the Obama administration has stopped using the phrase “war on terror,” favoring instead “overseas contingency operation.” Clinton did not explain why the phrase was dropped, but the event is an important indication of the president’s stance on the war and may mark a turning point in the struggle against radical Islam.

During the week of March 25, the government agency that reviews the public statements of administration officials before dissemination informed employees of the U.S. Defense Department in an E-mail that “This administration prefers to avoid using the term ‘long war’ or ‘global war on terror.’ Please use ‘Overseas Contingency Operation.’”

Clinton said, “The administration has stopped using the phrase and I think that speaks for itself.”

The change in rhetoric was noted by commentators. Reza Aslan, writing for the Washington Times, noted that the change is important because the “war on terror” was more ideological than actual. While there has been a very real struggle in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other locations, the war on terror was explained from the start as a conflict of ideologies. Aslan wrote, “It is a rhetorical war, one fought more constructively with words and ideas than with guns and bombs.”

After the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, President Bush introduced the U.S. to an unprecedented foreign policy doctrine of pursuing terrorists and their supporters in whatever country they might be found, but the phrase war on terror was always problematic for his administration. Critics argue that the phrase was never meant to describe a war on terrorism per se, otherwise the conflict would have involved dozens of other countries.

Bush first used the phrase “war on terror” nine days after Sept. 11 in an emergency address to Congress. “Our war on terror begins with Al-Qaeda, but it does not end there,” he said. “It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated.”

The war on terror led by the Bush administration targeted a specific kind of terrorism employed by Islamic extremists, which allowed it to include people who were not directly involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. The war on terror was directed at any Muslim group that used terrorism as a tactic.

Opponents say the Bush doctrine assumed that such Muslim groups were a united enemy with a common agenda and ideology. Aslan wrote, “The Bush administration seemed to be making a blatant statement that the war on terror was, in fact, ‘a war against Islam.’”

Many in the Muslim world believe that U.S. goals in the region are hostile to Islam. In a 2009 WorldPublicOpinion.org poll, large majorities ranging from 62 percent in Indonesia to 87 percent in Egypt said they believe that the United States seeks “to weaken and divide the Islamic world.” In a 2007 poll from the same source, nearly two-thirds of respondents said they believe that the purpose of the war on terror is to “spread Christianity in the region” of the Middle East.

In nearly all nations polled more than seven in 10 say they disapprove of attacks on American civilians, but large majorities simultaneously endorse the Al Qaeda’s goal to push the U.S. and its military bases out of all Islamic countries, including 87 percent of Egyptians, 64 percent of Indonesians, and 60 percent of Pakistanis. Across eight Muslim publics on average, 66 percent said that U.S. naval bases in the Persian Gulf are a bad idea; only 13 percent called it a good idea.

Steven Kull, director of WorldPublicOpinion.org, commented, “The U.S. faces a conundrum. U.S. efforts to fight terrorism with an expanded military presence in Muslim countries appear to have elicited a backlash and to have bred some sympathy for al Qaeda, even as most reject its terrorist methods.”

The U.S. has lost popularity in non-Muslim countries as well. A 2008 BBC World Service survey of 23 countries, including Russia, Australia, Pakistan, Turkey, France, Germany, Britain, the U.S., China and Mexico, found that nearly 60 percent of respondents said the war on terror had either no effect or made Al Qaeda stronger. Forty-nine percent said that neither side was winning, while only 22 percent believed that the U.S. had gained the upper hand.

Under the Bush administration, the battle for global popularity seems to have been lost, especially in the Muslim world. Obama’s foreign policy so far is intended to reverse the Bush doctrine, fundamentally changing the mission of the U.S. military in Iraq: end the war. The new change in rhetoric by the Obama administration signals that the new president will take steps to reverse that defeat, seeking to win the hearts of Muslims.

But this hasn’t happened so far. Time recently reported that the Taliban is winning the propaganda war in Afghanistan. After Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s office announced that it would begin holding peace talks with the Taliban, the militants dismissed the announcement as an attempt to make the Taliban appear divided.

According to a report from the International Crisis Group, a think tank that monitors conflicts, the Taliban has successfully tapped into Afghan nationalism by exploiting the policy failures of the Kabul government and its international supporters, resulting in weakened public support for nation-building, even though few support the Taliban.

The dilemma in Afghanistan might seem to legitimize President Bush’s often-criticized style of dealing with enemy combatants—radical groups like the Taliban are not interested in negotiating with the U.S. or its allies. But the lack of popular support for the U.S. in the Muslim world also suggests that the new administration would be wise to carefully evaluate its rhetoric, since public opinion can be a decisive factor in war.

Simply switching from “war on terror” to “overseas contingency operation” might not be enough for the Obama administration to win over the Muslim world. One Indian columnist recently wrote that Obama’s administration has sent mixed signals on the war on terror and is “clearly torn between realists and the extreme left of the Democratic Party.” Secretary of State Clinton recently infuriated Pakistanis by telling a congressional hearing that the Islamabad government had “abdicating to the Taliban and to the extremists” in a dangerous situation.

Declaring “war” on an issue has been part of U.S. political language since the 1960s when President Lyndon Johnson declared a war on poverty in 1964 and President Richard Nixon launched a war on drugs in 1969.

According to some legal experts, however, the combined term “war on terror” is much more problematic, and the new approach by Obama’s administration might be a key to precisely defining “international terrorism.” Terrorism rhetoric has been used by governments for many years seeking to suppress opposition and avoid international scrutiny. Since the Sept. 11, 2009 attacks the term “terrorist” has been used by governments such as China and Russia to stifle dissent in Tibet and Chechnya, respectively.

Noah Bialostozky, an attorney in New York who serves on the United Nations Law Committee of the International Law Association, recently argued in the Christian Science Monitor that the term terrorism is not useful without a definitive meaning, noting that there are 12 different definitions of the word in various international treaties.

The new U.S. approach in Afghanistan could help restrict the use of the term “war on terror” and hopefully be a step toward undoing some of the damage it has done. Bialostozky wrote, “The indiscriminate use of ‘terrorist’ not only has been devastating to groups to whom the label has been unfairly attached, but it also has damaged efforts to isolate those who deserve international condemnation as terrorists.”

While the rhetoric has changed, however, many foreign policies have stayed the same under Obama, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, according Mark McKinnon, a former Bush media adviser. “At the end of the day,” McKinnon noted, “this administration won’t be judged on the rhetoric but really on the results and what progress they make.”