Boston shock may push Obama to the right
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts - The Boston terror attack, pinned on two American-Chechen brothers, represents the first time since September 11, 2001 that a planned strike on US soil has succeeded. The official narrative about the bombing has raised a great deal of questions about "internal" or "homegrown" terrorism. These questions will likely grow more prominent as time goes by.
In terms of both foreign and domestic policy, the attack has weakened Barack Obama's presidency and increased pressures on him to veer to the right. Lest we forget, in his State of the
Union Address earlier this year, Obama displayed signs of a turn to the left that were combined with his offer of engagement with Iran and a more vigorous push for a Middle East peace process, among others.
A few months on and that script for Obama's second term in the Oval Office has clearly been changed, and one may even say somewhat derailed, by the alarming signs of homeland insecurity and the need to adopt a more muscular demeanor or face greater public disapproval and a decline in political and legislative influence in the wake of a national outrage at the Boston "massacre".
The official narrative on the marathon terror plot is full of inconsistencies and question marks, and we must withhold judgment until the dust clears and the pertinent facts are established apart from a great deal of misinformation that is circulated by the mainstream media.
It will be left to future historians to determine if a sharp polarization of American politics has reached its most extreme, reflected in the bifurcation of national votes at the last presidential election, and has in any shape and form come into play in the tumultuous Boston area events last week that briefly introduced a shade of martial law in Boston and its surrounding suburbs under the guise of manhunt for the terrorists.
What will happen if more acts of terrorism are perpetrated in US in the near future? Are we likely to witness a sharp turn against civil liberties and the full resurrection of the post 9/11 siege mentality that resulted in foreign invasions and the incarceration of thousands of "suspects"?
One reason why these are relevant questions is that there appears to be a concerted effort to make use of the event for a more hawkish anti-Iran agenda, in light of a false report in US media trying to connect the Boston marathon perpetrators to Iran's revolutionary guards, as well as the report yesterday from Canada that it has arrested two men who received instructions from "Al-Qaeda in Iran" to derail trains. Iran has adamantly denied these allegations and hurled them back at the US - and its policy of support for Jihadists in Syria.
Unfortunately, irrespective of Iran's strong denial and the "confession" of the young Chechen in Boston that he and his brother acted alone, a claim accepted by the law enforcement agencies in Boston, the current smear campaign on Iran appears to have received some traction in Washington, in light of an article by Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin, lambasting Obama for his inaction on Iran. [1]
In terms of Iran-bashing stage-setting, the climate in US is in the process of ripening, with or without any tangible evidence of Iran's involvement in any of the terror activities in US or Canada. For the formidable army of pro-Israel lobbyists, the opportunity to pressure Obama on Iran is not lost to them, and we will soon find out if they will prove effective in this poisoned environment that has certain similarities with the 9/11 milieu, including poisoned letters to members of the US Congress.
The new terror climate is in fact tantamount to a policy coup against the White House, which has been put on the defensive along with its core support in the Boston area liberal establishment.
Indeed, when Obama at last week's service for the victims said that "it is personal", he may have been more frank and admitted that it feels and smells like a concerted effort to bruise his administration. In turn, this raises the question of whether or not last week's events will serve as "game-changers" and tilt the White House more to the right? Or will Obama stick to his gun, lick his wounds, and fight back by relying on his traditional base of support?
For now, Obama appears to have been hit so hard that he may be in the process of deciphering and tabulating the damage, which potentially heralds a downward slope at the outset of his second term. Who knows, if he throws the towel on Iran and agrees to the Israeli agenda on Iran completely and without setting stiff conditions, then he may be let off a great deal of the artificial pressure he has been experiencing?
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) . For further biographical details, click here. Afrasiabi is author of Reading In Iran Foreign Policy After September 11 (BookSurge Publishing , October 23, 2008) and Looking for Rights at Harvard. His latest book is UN Management Reform: Selected Articles and Interviews on United Nations CreateSpace (November 12, 2011).
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