American president Barack Obama disembarks Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, February 6, 2015 (White House/Chuck Kennedy)
I wasn’t a fan of Barack Obama eight years ago, when we started the Atlantic Sentinel. It unnerved me how many people, especially here in Europe, fell over themselves to praise the new president and I disagreed with his policies.
Now I’m sad to see him go.
It’s not just that the Democrat looks like a paragon of grace and wisdom compared to his Republican successor, although Donald Trump’s shortcomings in both regards are profound.
It’s that I’ve become less right-wing and Obama was a better president in his second term than in his first. (more…)
American president Barack Obama waits backstage before participating in a panel discussion in Atlanta, Georgia, March 29, 2016 (White House/Pete Souza)
The faded signs of “Hope and Change” still linger in the attics and closets of millions of Americans. I still have my old campaign t-shirt; I worked the phone bank in 2008 in Arizona, where ubiquitous caller ID screens let people decide if they were going to thank me or shout at me before they even picked up. “We ain’t no Democrats,” declared one woman, in what sounded like all caps.
A presidency whose base was inspired by a spiritual approach to politics, whose spiritualism promised a complete 180 from George W. Bush’s bloody wars and backward cultural practices, and who seemed transformational at the time, can be subject to exaggeration and projection. All Americans of age have a story about Barack Obama: he is the 9/11 of our political landscape, a seminal change that both changed so much and yet changed so little.
Evaluating Obama as a geopolitical leader demands a strict litmus test, though. How much did his presidency secure his nation state? How much did he stabilize it?
At the end, Obama was less of a transformation geopolitically than a transition: an essential step onto something else not yet realized. (more…)
Presidents Xi Jinping of China and Barack Obama of the United States speak at Sunnylands in Rancho Mirage, California, June 8, 2013 (White House/Pete Souza)
Barack Obama was elected at a time when political anxiety in America was relatively high, particularly among Democratic voters who disliked George W. Bush’s seeming lack of sophistication.
The feeling was that the United States had wasted trillions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan and thus helped to ruin America’s economy and divert attention away from more serious adversaries like Russia and especially China.
The economic failure was seen as being confirmed by the financial crisis that began with the collapse of Lehman Brothers a month or so before the election.
The foreign policy failure was seen as being confirmed by, among other things, Russia’s invasion of Georgia three months before the election, followed one day later by the extravagant opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. (more…)
American president Barack Obama observes the annual Memorial Day ceremony at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Illinois, May 31, 2010 (White House/Pete Souza)
Looking back on Barack Obama’s presidency, which expires next year, Walter Russell Mead, a centrist observer of American politics, argues in The American Interest that this president has failed to balance “a commitment to human rights and the niceties of American liberal ideology with a strong policy in defense of basic American security interests.”
The result, he argues, is a world “less safe for both human rights and for American security.”
Those are strong words and Mead doesn’t always convince when he tries to back them up.
He sees many failures:
The reconciliation with the Sunni world? The reset with Russia? Stabilizing the Middle East by tilting toward Iran? The Libya invasion? The Syria abstention? The “pivot to Asia” was supposed to be the centerpiece of Obama’s global strategy; instead the waning months of the Obama Administration have seen an important American ally pivot toward China in the most public and humiliating way possible.
This is not altogether wrong. The “reset” with Russia was naive. Obama betted on Dmitri Medvedev and he better wrong. He never understood Vladimir Putin. The intervention in Libya was halfhearted and Western allies did not think through the aftermath — which is especially damning given how critical Obama (rightly) was about the Bush Administration’s lack of postwar planning in Iraq.
But the Democrat’s record is more mixed in the other areas Mead lists, where he overlooks the agency of the foreign governments and leaders involved. (more…)
American president Richard Nixon of the United States and King Baudouin of Belgium listen to a speech by NATO secretary general and former Dutch foreign minister Joseph Luns in Brussels, June 26, 1974 (NATO)
In the fall of 1972, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and a North Vietnamese peace delegation led by Lê Đức Thọ reached a preliminary peace agreement in Paris that would eventually lead to the end of the Vietnam War, at the time America’s longest war. Kissinger had deliberately kept South Vietnamese negotiators in the dark and when he arrived in Saigon to deliver the agreement for their approval, South Vietnamese negotiators had not been involved in the process.
Saigon rejected the plan, which was effectively the death warrant for thousands of South Vietnamese in the South, and asked its views be included in the ceasefire agreement. South Vietnamese president Nguyễn Văn Thiệu accosted Kissinger, “Are you trying to win the Peace Prize?”
Conversely, the North Vietnamese government in Hanoi flatly refused to make even minor concessions, setting the stage for the December 1972 bombing of North Vietnam and the mining of Haiphong harbor by the United States. Formally known as Linebacker II, the operation became known as the “Christmas Bombings” by Richard Nixon’s critics.
Kissinger indeed later won the Nobel Peace Prize and, eventually, the North Vietnamese agreed to allow South Vietnamese input and an eventual ceasefire. (more…)
With Afghan election workers continuing to count the ballots of the country’s most important presidential election since 2001, the Obama Administration is once again reopening the debate about how many troops should remain in Afghanistan after the end of this year.
The debate has been ongoing since last year when Afghanistan’s outgoing president, Hamid Karzai, put his foot down and refused to sign the Bilateral Security Agreement — a document that would allow foreign forces to stay in Afghanistan after NATO’s war mandate expires in December 2014. But with Karzai now due to be replaced by either Abdullah Abdullah or Ashraf Ghani, the administration is putting renewed energy into the question of what kind of force would best accomplish the post-2014 mission.
Both leading candidates in Afghanistan’s presidential election have signaled their support for the security agreement and both have acknowledged that Afghanistan’s own troops need continued support from America’s and NATO’s if they have any chance at keeping the country secure from the Taliban. The debate inside the White House and Pentagon right now is therefore not about whether American troops should stay but how many should be deployed. (more…)
It has been nearly a month since Russian president Vladimir Putin, in response to the overthrow of Ukraine’s Viktor Yanukovich, ordered thousands of Russian soldiers into the Crimean. Seemingly caught off guard by Putin’s moves, which came despite American intelligence assessments that he would not enter into Ukraine by force, the Obama Administration has been forced to react to the situation largely on the fly.
Republican lawmakers in Washington DC have attempted to use the crisis in Ukraine to bolster their narrative of Barack Obama as a president who is unable to anticipate events or demonstrate strong leadership during times of crisis and unwilling to send a visible message to America’s adversaries that bad behavior will be met with stern consequences. The government, assisted by Democratic Party allies, has fought back against such accusations. And, despite poor approval ratings and concern in Democratic circles that Republicans could pick up more seats in the congressional elections this fall, President Obama has brushed aside criticisms as partisan and contrary to the facts.
But when a former cabinet official starts to question the president’s policy, the criticism seems less partisan and more substantive. (more…)
Washington’s attention may be focused on events in the Crimea but the rest of the world is not standing still. Indeed, on the very day Russian officials moved to formally annex the peninsula from Ukraine, President Barack Obama delved into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
On Monday, he hosted Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas in Washington DC. As was the case when Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the White House earlier this month, Abbas was treated to a red carpet welcome and both leaders exchanged platitudes in front of reporters about the need for peace, the importance of the diplomatic process and why the conflict needs to end after festering for so many years. As President Abbas said, “We don’t have any time to waste. Time is not on our side.” (more…)
Just last week, it looked as if the United States Senate was close to bringing a bipartisan bill to the floor that could have potentially threatened the success of the Obama Administration’s nuclear talks with Iran. The legislation, written by Democratic Robert Menendez and Republican Mark Kirk, would blacklist an even greater amount of Iran’s economy if its leaders backed out of the interim agreement signed last November or failed to arrive at a comprehensive deal to dismantle a significant portion the Islamic country’s uranium enrichment infrastructure. When the bill was first introduced, it drew overwhelming support from both parties, with 59 senators signing on as co-sponsors — one vote shy of the supermajority necessary to override a filibuster.
Yet thanks to months of tenacious behind the scenes lobbying from White House officials and a public veto threat from President Barack Obama during his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, the sanctions bill that could otherwise have breezed through the Senate has lost momentum. (more…)
Democratic leaders Dick Durbin, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi meet with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington DC, July 11, 2012 (White House/Pete Souza)
When America’s secretary of state, John Kerry, made an unexpected trip to Geneva, Switzerland last weekend, there was hope in the international community that Iran and the world’s major powers were close to a nuclear deal. A successful agreement, however short-term, would have been seen as a big political victory for the Obama Administration at a time when its foreign policy credentials have been challenged by a host of shimmering conflicts abroad, from the civil war in Syria to a moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
It turned out the deal that many thought possible was beyond the grasp of negotiators last weekend. It is not exactly clear who scuttled the momentum. Some reports point to the French who appeared to insist on more restrictions. Others blame the Iranians for failing to budge on some of their core demands involving the right to enrich uranium.
In the long run, whoever was to blame matters little. What matters is what impact the failed talks will have on the diplomatic process that the Obama Administration is now so dearly invested in. (more…)
Twenty-three months ago, Americans and Iraqis alike celebrated a milestone they had both long waited for: an end to a bloody and hard fought occupation. Iraq, at least when compared to its more violent days, was slowly stabilizing, with an Al Qaeda terrorist network struggling to sustain itself and a thriving oil sector pouring tens of billions of dollars into the country’s economy. President Barack Obama, who had considered the invasion of Iraq a “dumb war,” announced on national television that all America’s troops were coming home and that its involvement in the war was finally over.
Fast forward to today and it is clear that whatever hopes Iraqis had for a future have come apart at the seams. (more…)
The recent rhetorical goodwill between Iran and the United States seems to have dampened the animosity and mistrust that existed between the two nations for 34 years. But unless the diplomatic opening achieves clear results, hardliners may yet close the door on talks.
A relatively conciliatory speech from Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, before the United Nations set the stage for a preliminary discussion between Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, on the sidelines of the annual General Assembly meeting last week. Rouhani’s first trip to New York as Iran’s leader ended in a dramatic fashion — with a brief but historic phone call with President Barack Obama on his way to the airport.
However, as commentators and officials keep repeating, words are one thing; actions and concessions are something else entirely. (more…)
After their respective speeches to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Presidents Barack Obama of the United States and Hassan Rouhani of Iran returned to their own corners without the historic handshake that observers were hoping for. Given the constant speculation in the media of an informal meeting between the two leaders, the news that a handshake would not occur came as a disappointment. Some saw Rouhani’s refusal to meet Obama as a snub. Others labeled it a missed opportunity.
It appears that Obama and Rouhani had something else in mind. Just as an American-Iranian détente threatened to unravel, Obama stepped behind the White House podium and stated, to everyone’s surprise, that he had spoken directly with Iran’s new president on the phone. “Going forward,” Obama said, “President Rouhani and I have directed our teams to continue working expeditiously to pursue an agreement” on Iran’s nuclear enrichment program.
More so then a public handshake, the phone call between Obama and Rouhani is an historic moment. As Susan Rice, Obama’s national security advisor, later reiterated on CNN, this was the first direct American-Iranian contact between heads of state since the 1979 revolution that deposed the shah. (more…)
If President Barack Obama has any chance of winning congressional approval for using limited military force in Syria, his national-security team will need to make a better case for action in the next several days. That seems to be the collective judgment of millions of Americans and dozens of members of Congress, most of whom are still on the fence as to whether they should allow the resolution to pass.
constitutionally, the president has the power to act militarily against the regime of his Syrian counterpart Bashar Assad without Congress’ approval. Yet in a sign that Obama does not want to plunge his nation into yet another Middle Eastern war without some support at home, he decided to bring the matter up to the legislature last weekend. However, Congress has often disappointed his administration by underachieving or failing to come together to get legislation through. (more…)
More than a week after hundreds of Syrian civilians were allegedly gassed by their own government in a suburb of the capital Damascus, it looked as if the United States were finally about to respond to the crisis in a determined and forceful manner. Five warships were deployed to the Eastern Mediterranean, stocked with dozens of cruise missiles in the event President Barack Obama ordered retaliatory strikes. Secretary of State John Kerry spoke to the American public and the world twice in a week, arguing for a resolute response to a savage attack that he called a “crime against conscience.”
An American attack against Syrian regime targets seemed a foregone conclusion. So much so that Syrian commanders ordered their troops to evacuate their bases and head into the dense, civilian areas of Damascus.
But almost as soon as the Obama Administration declassified its assessment of the Syrian regime’s responsibility for the chemical weapons attack, President Obama held a news conference to tell the nation he would bring the manner before the United States Congress. “While I believe I have the authority to carry out this military action without specific congressional authorization,” the president said, “I know that the country will be stronger if we take this course and our actions will be even more effective.” (more…)
