President Barack Obama
conceded Tuesday that the United States and other world powers have limited
ability to solve the most profound challenges facing the world, while calling
for a "course correction" for globalization to ensure that nations
don't retreat into a more sharply divided world.
Obama, in his final speech to the U.N. General Assembly,
acknowledged that the extremist and sectarian violence wreaking havoc in the
Middle East and elsewhere "will not be quickly reversed." Still, he
stuck faithfully to his insistence that diplomatic efforts and not military
solutions are the key to resolving Syria's civil war and other conflicts.
"If we are honest, we know that no external power is
going to be able to force different religious communities or ethnic communities
to co-exist for long," Obama said. "Until basic questions are
answered about how communities co-exist, the embers of extremism will continue
to burn. Countless human beings will suffer."
In a less-than-subtle jab at Donald Trump, the Republican
running to replace him, Obama said, "The world is too small for us to
simply be able to build a wall and prevent (extremism) from affecting our own
societies."
The president was unabashed in his critique of Russia as
he laid out his diagnosis of the world's ills. Obama's longstanding differences
with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his actions in Ukraine have
accompanied intense disagreement over Syria's future and a series of failed
attempts by Russia and the U.S. to resolve the civil war there together.
"In a world that left the age of empire behind, we
see Russia attempting to recover lost glory through force," Obama said.
The tough talk about Russia illustrated how little progress
has been made in reconciling the diverging interests among the two powers that
has allowed the Syria crisis to continue to fester. A year ago, Obama stood at
the same podium and declared anew that Syrian President Bashar Assad must leave
power, while Putin gave a dueling speech warning it would be a mistake to
abandon Assad.
In the year since, Moscow's leverage in the conflict has
strengthened significantly. Russia's military intervention in Syria has helped
bolster Assad's standing without pulling it into the military
"quagmire" that Obama had predicted.
Obama sought to use his last appearance before the global
body to define how his leadership had put the world on a better trajectory over
the last eight years. At the heart of that approach, Obama said, is the notion
that the biggest conflicts are best solved when nations cooperate rather than
tackle them individually.
It's a theme that Democrat Hillary Clinton has put at the
forefront of her campaign for president, casting herself as the natural
continuation of Obama's legacy. In another apparent reference to Trump, Obama
bemoaned how terrorist networks had spread their ideology on social media,
spurring anger toward "innocent immigrants and Muslims."
Obama lamented that the world has become safer and more
prosperous as nations are struggling with a devastating refugee crisis,
terrorism and a breakdown in basic order in the Middle East. He said governing
had become more difficult as people lose faith in public institutions and
tensions among nations spiral out of control more rapidly.
"This is the paradox that defines the world
today," Obama said. "We must go forward, and not backward."
The president cited his administration's outreach to
former adversaries Cuba and Myanmar as key examples of progress, along with
global cooperation to cut emissions blamed for global warming. At the same
time, he said he sought not to "whitewash" challenges across the
globe, some of which he attributed to deepening anxieties about the profound
shifts inflicted by technology and growing international interdependence.
"In order to move forward though, we do have to
acknowledge that the existing path to global integration requires a course
correction," Obama said.
No comments:
Post a Comment