The most significant shift signalled by Barack Obama is towards a new understanding of the roots of Islamic extremist violence.
This is still a work in progress as the inconsistencies in Sunday night’s Oval Office speech made clear. But it could have powerful and important ramifications.
Most of the strategy to combat Islamic State outlined on Sunday night had been heard before in various formulations.
There was a further elaboration of the “slowly but surely” campaign to degrade and ultimately destroy the group. That degrading is significantly more likely than destroying is no doubt privately recognised by the president and his advisers but cannot be publicly admitted in the face of vituperative Republican criticism of the administration’s alleged timidity in the face of the threat Isis poses.
The statement that “our military will continue to hunt down terrorist plotters in any country where it is necessary” will surprise many around the world. This is not a declaration of a “war on terrorism”, but appears close to one.
In fact, there may be less here than meets the eye. The phrase appears to be a catch-all designed to stiffen the image of the US commander in chief without actually committing Obama to doing much he is not doing already.
The president rules out a major deployment of US ground troops, on the basis that a) Isis want one b) the US domestic population does not, and c) it would not work. Instead the strategy of building up local forces, airstrikes and using small numbers of special forces will continue, alongside a diplomatic push and better intelligence sharing.
Then there are also calls to greater international solidarity. Airstrikes make for good TV, and reassure scared domestic populations. But if the composition of the US-led coalition launching the strikes underlines a certain degree of international cooperation, particularly among certain close allies, the gaping gaps in its ranks also demonstrates the lack of consensus too.
There is a signal that White House sees small-scale local ceasefires as the most practicable way to mitigating the intensity of the civil war within Syria not a global diplomatic solution. This may raise some eyebrows internationally. Measures on gun control – particularly the purchase of assault rifles – will not, however.
But most interesting are Obama’s words on radicalisation, which reveal an analysis in transition.
The familiar element is the talk of “the growing efforts by terrorists to poison the minds of people like the Boston Marathon bombers and the San Bernardino killers.”
Yet there is no evidence that either the Tsarnaev brothers who set off homemade devices at the sporting event in 2013, or the couple who attacked at the weekend were in any contact with any “terrorists” at all.
Instead, US commentators and officials have repeatedly spoken about “self-radicalisation” in recent days.
This at least moves away from the image of “brainwashing” with its implication that radicalisation is a passive process akin to dental surgery undergone by a barely conscious or willing individual. It is also a move away from the idea that the removal of the predatory indoctrinators will end the problem of extremism.
The idea that anyone becomes “self-radicalised” in isolation, even with the enhanced access to propaganda offered by the internet, is controversial. Most eventual killers are exposed to a toxic mix of historical myth, religious reinterpretation and twisted geopolitics through real people as well as websites.
However the principles structuring this poisonous worldview in either case are well-known: a belief that the west and the Islamic world are at war, that co-existence is virtually impossible, that most Muslims have abandoned the true path to become lax, cowardly and decadent; that homosexuality should be extirpated; that Jews are evil and run much of the world (including the US); that heretics and apostates within Islam should be fiercely hunted; that a final battle is approaching.
If not all those who hold these views are violent, there can be few Islamic extremists that kill or maim who do not share some or all of them.
On Sunday Obama indicated his understanding of some of these ideas, arguing that “we cannot turn against one another by letting this fight be defined as a war between America and Islam” and stating that Isis “does not speak for Islam”.
But he then signalled a shift. He did not say that Isis has nothing to do with Islam. Not only did he say “denying that an extremist ideology has spread within some Muslim communities” would be a mistake, but added that “it’s a real problem that Muslims must confront without excuse”.
Obama then called on “Muslim leaders [in the US] and around the globe ... to continue working with us to decisively and unequivocally reject the hateful ideology that groups like [Isis] and al-Qaida promote, to speak out against not just acts of violence, but also those interpretations of Islam that are incompatible with the values of religious tolerance, mutual respect, and human dignity.”
This final line is significant, or at least could be if pushed to its logical conclusion. Obama appears to be describing a much broader culture of intolerance and conservatism which feeds extremism, in the US and elsewhere, and which has spread through the Muslim world over the past several decades. This culture, he says, is a genuine threat to the lives of American citizens. Where or what are its well-springs? Obama does not say, and any effort to isolate a single cause would be fruitless. However he cannot be unaware that the two nations which figure most significantly in the backgrounds of the two shooters in San Bernardino are two long-standing allies: Pakistan and, above all, Saudi Arabia.
