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How happy would a future US president be to see Russia, China or any of the other 76 states who have acquired drones, follow the CIA's example?
Nothing illustrates the continuation, to say nothing of the intensification, of the Bush era "war on terror", more than Barack Obama's use of drones. Drone strikes have grown eightfold under the president who vowed in his Nobel prize acceptance speech that the US must remain a standard bearer in the conduct of war. And yet the standards that Mr Obama has applied to the killing of suspected militants in non-combat zones of Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia remain opaque. Not even the basic facts, such as the number of strikes, are acknowledged. An aggregation by the Council on Foreign Relations of estimates by three sources found that by the start of this year 411 strikes had killed 3,430 people, of whom 401 – 12% – were civilians, but that is many more non-combatants than the Pentagon is prepared to hold its hands up to.
The pace of strikes may have slowed this year, but the practice continues to pose two key legacy issues for the Obama administration: how happy would a future US president be to see Russia, China or any of the other 76 states who have acquired this technology, follow the CIA's example? And what is the net cost of targeted killings, both in terms of swelling the ranks of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and rampant anti-Americanism in Pakistan and Libya?
Mr Obama addressed some of these issues in a speech presaged by the belated admission that drone strikes killed four US citizens. His rejection of a perpetual war against terrorists is long overdue. The prospect of an unending conflict that hopscotches around the failed states of the globe never helped the cause of counter-terrorism, which requires local support, eyes and ears. New policy guidance will curtail the occasions when drones can be used to strike places that are not war zones. Lethal force will only be used against targets who pose a "continuing, imminent threat" to Americans. This should put an end to the practice of "signature strikes", the crowd-killing of people who bear the characteristics of militants on the run who could, posthumously, turn out to be anyone attempting to flee that faint hum in the sky. But note the shoulds and the coulds. The speech is an attempt to invite the final curtain down on a calamitous and bloody decade-and-a-half of warfare. But the battles themselves will continue, and Mr Obama has not resiled from the past. He has largely tried to justify it.
Mr Obama's second attempt to shut Guantánamo Bay is also studded with ifs and buts, particularly his call on Congress to allow the transfer of some of the detainees to a site in the US. Much though the words are welcome, this commander in chief's actions will never match the expectations that he, as president, arouses in his speeches. He will restrict drones, but targeted killings are here to stay.
