In un breve articolo di qualche giorno fa il commentatore del Financial Times, Gideon Rachman, espone correttamente i dilemmi cui si sta confrontando l’amministrazione americana in questi mesi, tra crisi in Medio Oriente e tentativi di “ribalanciamento” verso l’Asia.

Barack Obama is meant to be the most powerful man in the world. But it looks increasingly as though he may be dragged into a conflict in Syria, against his own better judgment.
The news that Bashar al-Assad’s regime might well have crossed America’s “red line” by using chemical weapons has ratcheted up the pressure on the president to act. There was already a debate in Washington about whether the US should provide weapons to the anti-Assad rebels. A confirmed use of chemical arms in Syria could well provoke a direct military response. […]

If Mr Obama does end up sanctioning much more direct US involvement in the Syrian conflict, it will be a clear reversal of the grand strategy formed during his first term. This has three key elements. The first is to avoid new wars in the Middle East. The second is to “pivot to Asia” – concentrating US power on dealing with the most dynamic region of the world, rather than frittering away resources in the bloody backwaters of the Middle East. The final element is to rebuild America’s global strength through domestic economic and social reforms, concentrating on what the president calls “nation-building at home”.
The new strategy was tried out in Libya, where the US let Britain and France take the military lead – a policy that gave birth to the phrase “leading from behind”. Yet, in the much more daunting environment of Syria, America’s European allies are incapable of taking the lead. Meanwhile, there is a recurrence of talk in Washington that Iran may be getting closer to another red line – over nuclear weapons – and that the US may also soon have to consider military action there.
As the pressure over Syria and Iran rises, the Obama administration is struggling to maintain its strategic focus on Asia. Last week General Martin Dempsey, the head of the US joint chiefs of staff, was in Beijing. There was no shortage of regional security crises to discuss – from North Korea to the rising tensions between China and Japan.
The real logic of the “pivot”, however, is long-term. The argument is that the Asia-Pacific region is increasingly the centre of the global economy. Unless the US provides strategic reassurance to its friends there – and makes it clear that it has the determination and resources to remain a central power in east Asia – China’s sheer economic weight will mean that the world’s most dynamic region gradually becomes a Chinese sphere of influence.
Any contest for power and influence between the US and China will ultimately rest on the relative strengths of the two economies. That strengthens the case that – after a decade of war and a financial crisis – America must now concentrate on rebuilding its economy. This indeed is the argument of Richard Haass, head of the influential Council on Foreign Relations whose new book is: Foreign Policy Begins at Home. […]