The White House Foreign Policy's False Dawn
Obama has performed much better in foreign policy than in domestic policy, which is all the more surprising given the weak hand that he was dealt: an America that had lost its moral authority, its military invincibility, and its credibility as an economic model.
It's almost as if our successes and gains on the world stage are just a misleading prologue to the inescapable difficulties to follow. It's only a bit about Obama. He has managed to transition us out of the immediate predicaments of the Bush years. He's checked some important items (bin Laden) off the list. He's avoided making an overt enemy out of Russia and prevented war with Iran while finishing up operations in Iraq -- two hugely significant accomplishments. But that 'weak hand' Obama received was actually tremendously favorable to his aims -- dialing back traditional applications of American force, wringing maximum symbolic value from a minimum of prestige-raising and shows of good faith. And the global situation remains so inauspicious that even his administration's achievements are nowhere near enough, and could even be reduced to irrelevance.
"It is easy to focus on what has not been achieved," Slaughter concedes, "because Obama raised high expectations and then failed to deliver." But the real shortcomings have little to do with an inability to execute developed plans. Often, the administration has dealt energetically with the urgent at the expense of the important. There seems to be no effort to comprehend the political roots of Europe's economic crisis, or to weight relations with allies accordingly. Our relationship with India has been permitted to drift. A question mark hangs over the whole matter of America's grand strategy post-GWOT. (Remember, the war on terror is over.)
It's not easy to formulate a good grand strategy, and that goes double at the present moment. But it's obligatory. The administration's response to the ongoing collapse of political authority in the Arab world can be characterized as ad hoc at best. US-Pakistan relations are an unfolding disaster. The president's longstanding goal of fighting and winning 'the real war' in Afghanistan is morphing into an embrace of a quasi-imperial garrisoning operation, with too little fight and too little win to command the support of the American people.
It was essential to buy the US some breathing room in 2008 and 2009. Last year was the moment to pivot into action. Action came to Iran, in the form of Stuxnet and related operations, which hobbled Tehran's nuclear program just at the moment that the Arab rebellions were crippling its regional influence. But nowhere else has buying time accomplished more for the administration than a good kick to the proverbial can. One needn't despise the president, or even his domestic program, to fear with good reason that our current global position is a false dawn.
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Sep '10
Re: The White House Foreign Policy's False Dawn
Umm, Islamists just captured Egypt. What dawn is Anne-Marie talking about here?
Re: The White House Foreign Policy's False Dawn
Finishing up operations in Iraq is a "hugely significant" accomplishment? It already looks like a prelude to an Iraqi civil war.
Re: The White House Foreign Policy's False Dawn
True, Paul. But it looks like that prelude less because of the end of operations than because of the departure of forces, which the administration is still hopelessly at odds with itself over. Bringing military operations to a close in a way that prevented an outbreak of direct hostilities with Iran was a (hugely significant) Bush-era objective, too. One hard question is whether the lingering US presence the administration really wanted would actually have gotten Iraq through the sectarian woods -- and if so, on what timeline, and at what cost.
Jul '10
Re: The White House Foreign Policy's False Dawn
He changed a 30-year relationship with Egypt in a week; helped to convince the Egyptian military not to fire on citizens in the first stage of the revolution; assembled and enabled a successful coalition to intervene in Libya; worked closely with Turkey, the European Union, and Saudi Arabia to increase pressure on Syria and cooperated with Egypt to broker a settlement in Yemen...
Finally, the US Senate ratified free-trade agreements with South Korea, Panama, and Colombia, clearing the way for the new Trans-Pacific Partnership.
1.Egypt changed a 30 year relationship with us.
2. By assembling and enabling, I suppose Anne-Marie means he followed.
3. Yemen's all settled, eh? That might come as news to the Yemenis.
4. The trade agreement is fine as far as it goes, but I fail to recall it being a key Obama administration policy goal, with full-throated Presidential support from day one.
cont
Jul '10
Re: The White House Foreign Policy's False Dawn
Obama's Republican opponents love to hammer home the phrase "leading from behind." But they miss the point, for they imagine leadership as the equivalent of a 19th-century cavalry charge, in which the general is either out front carrying the flag or following along in the rear. Obama is actually far in front in terms of shaping the world's norms and expectations. He leads from wherever he needs to lead in order to get results.
What a silly caricature. Anne-Marie, what we expect is that leadership is directed by the "leader."
Obama hasn't been as bad on foreign policy as he could have, but good grief this piece reads like campaign lit.
Jul '11
Re: The White House Foreign Policy's False Dawn
Slaughter seems to miss, entirely, that the "wins" for Obama came as a direct result of the policies of his predecessor, policies Obama voted against or campaigned against as a Senator and then presidential aspirant, but once he held the keys to the kingdom, he maintained or increased those policies, and now claims credit for these "wins".
Laughable. America didn't lose it's "moral authority", nor its military power (no army is invincible), nor it's economic credibility. If anything, what's been demonstrated is that the failed policies of many EU countries is an example why the US should avoid them.
Jul '11
Re: The White House Foreign Policy's False Dawn
(continued from above)
Obama hasn't performed well in foreign policy. bin Laden would have been taken out by any sitting president as soon as the opportunity arose; only a fool who campaigned against the war on terror would now tout his foreign policy streed cred under the bin Laden aegis. Oh, wait - I guess he has. Operation Tough Guy succeeded on all fronts, politically, but that doesn't erase the serial kow-towing to foreign governments, a repeated and nauseating apology tour early in his office, a complete non-reaction to the real Arab spring in Iran (another gutsy foreign policy call by the Tough Guy In Chief), and a steadfast refusal to acknowledge that his domestic drilling policies have entirely enabled the continuance of the status quo in the Persian Gulf.
I guess when your domestic policy is transformationally disastrous, these foreign policy "wins" are the only positive thing you can point to - but only by comparison to the domestic side. The sounds we're hearing from the likes of Slaughter is a scraper being applied to a barrel's bottom. It is not a pleasant sound.
Re: The White House Foreign Policy's False Dawn
James Poulos
True, Paul. But it looks like that prelude less because of the end of operations than because of the departure of forces, which the administration is still hopelessly at odds with itself over. Bringing military operations to a close in a way that prevented an outbreak of direct hostilities with Iran was a (hugely significant) Bush-era objective, too. One hard question is whether the lingering US presence the administration really wanted would actually have gotten Iraq through the sectarian woods -- and if so, on what timeline, and at what cost. · Dec 24 at 9:10am
All true. But the departure coincided with the renewal of sectarian struggle, and the folks who knew the most in this country vigorously opposed the departure, warning that this might well be the outcome.
Nov '10
Re: The White House Foreign Policy's False Dawn
Obama's election may well have helped trigger the awakening of the Middle East.
My Russian friends were impressed that a 'nyegr' could become President of the USA, which everybody thought a racist society.
His election signaled to everybody, worldwide, that the things could change.
Unfortunately, Obama missed his opportunity be truly transformative, truly post-racist. Tragic.
Edited on Dec 24, 2011 at 4:23pm