Probably a good idea, since Obama was elected on a position that the US would not bomb&invade any more countries to “liberate them and give them the blessings of democracy”.
Elections matter. “Democracy”, as spoken by the Bush Administration, became a code word for US reckless meddling and a rationale for Neocon adventurism and Empire. So by omitting it, Obama is signalling a new period where the US will be highly reluctant to invade another country, spend close to a trillion dollars we can’t afford any more, and take 40,000 casualties.
Even without the Election, we see few recent interventions have brought any true democracy. Haiti, after the 4th time we invaded to “bless them with democracy” is sliding back after 10 years, Somalia was a disaster, the Cedar Revolution failed, and Ukraine and Georgia and some of the initially democratic ‘stans formed after the Soviet breakup have abandoned it.
Afghanistan’s democracy is a sham and talks are underway for a return of the Taliban and some sort of power sharing with the narcokleptics we installed. Iraq is trending towards an Islamic “democracy” on the Iranian model, and 50% of the grateful noble purple-fingered freedom lovers strongly approve of the guy that threw the shoes at poor befuddled Bush…who remained unaware for about a day that he was on the receiving end of a deadly insult.
Welcome to a new period of Realism. America will not be doing any new military adventures to foist our ideology on a resentful, violently resistant people for a long time to come. We will not use the military save for limited duration humanitarian missions or save if our vital interests are truly threatened.
