Tweet
Scoring Obama's Foreign Policy
A Progressive Pragmatist Tries to Bend History
By Martin Indyk, Kenneth Lieberthal, and Michael E. O'Hanlon
May/June 2012
As November's U.S. presidential election approaches, foreign policy
and national security issues are rising in importance. President
Barack Obama is running on a platform of ending the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan while demonstrating toughness against al Qaeda. His
Republican opponents charge him with presiding over the United States'
decline and demonstrating fecklessness on Iran. The true story is
somewhat more complicated than either side admits.
When Obama was sworn into office in January 2009, he had already
developed an activist vision of his foreign policy destiny. He would
refurbish the United States' image abroad, especially in the Muslim
world; end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; offer an outstretched
hand to Iran; "reset" relations with Russia as a step toward ridding
the world of nuclear weapons; elicit Chinese cooperation on regional
and global issues; and make peace in the Middle East. By his own
account, Obama sought nothing less than to bend history's arc in the
direction of justice and a more peaceful, stable world.
There was inevitable tension between Obama's soaring rhetoric and
desire for fundamental change, on the one hand, and his instinct for
governing pragmatically, on the other. The history of the Obama
administration's foreign policy has thus been one of attempts to
reconcile the president's lofty vision with his innate realism and
political caution. In office, Obama has been a progressive where
possible but a pragmatist when necessary. And given the domestic and
global situations he has faced, pragmatism has dominated.
This balancing act has pleased few and provided fodder for Obama's
critics. His compromises have been interpreted as signs of weakness,
and his inability to produce clean outcomes in short order taken as an
indication of incompetence. His efforts to engage competing powers
have seemed at times to come at the cost of ignoring traditional
allies. Above all, his approach has caused some to question whether he
has a strategy at all or merely responds to events.
With his "strategic pivot" to Asia, Obama sought to generate
confidence in America's leadership in the region--something many had
begun to doubt.
Such a portrayal, however, misses the point. Obama is neither an
out-of-his-depth naif nor a reactive realist. He has been trying to
shape a new liberal global order with the United States still in the
lead but sharing more responsibilities and burdens with others where
possible or necessary. Surrounding himself with experienced cabinet
members who are not personally close to him, along with junior
advisers who are close but not experienced, Obama has kept the
conceptualization, articulation, and sometimes even implementation of
his foreign policy in his own hands. Intelligent, self-confident,
ambitious, and aloof, he is more directly responsible for his record
than most of his predecessors have been.
He has racked up some notable successes, including significantly
weakening al Qaeda, effectively managing relations with China,
rebuilding the United States' international reputation, resetting the
relationship with Russia and ratifying the New Strategic Arms
Reduction Treaty (New START), achieving a UN Security Council
resolution imposing harsh sanctions on Iran, completing overdue but
welcome free-trade accords, and withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.
There have also been some notable setbacks, including no progress on
resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, very little to show on
combating climate change, the United States' continued low standing in
the Muslim world, deepening frictions in U.S.-Pakistani relations, a
Mexico awash in drugs and violence, an Iran still bent on acquiring
the means to produce and deliver nuclear weapons, and a North Korea
still developing its nuclear arsenal.
The Obama approach has been relatively nonideological in practice but
informed by a realistic overarching sense of the United States' role
in the world in the twenty-first century. The tone has been neither
that of American triumphalism and exceptionalism nor one of American
decline. On balance, this approach has been effective, conveying a
degree of openness to the views of other leaders and the interests of
other nations while still projecting confidence and leadership.
Judged by the standard of protecting American interests, Obama's
foreign policy so far has worked out quite well; judged by the
standard of fulfilling his vision of a new global order, it remains
very much a work in progress.
ASIA RISING
Obama came to power envisioning a foreign policy based on three
pillars: a changed relationship with the rising powers in Asia,
particularly China; a transformed relationship between the United
States and the Muslim world in which cooperation replaced conflict;
and reinvigorated progress toward nonproliferation and nuclear
disarmament. Even as his election was making history, however, the
financial collapse made economic crisis management the new president's
top priority in domestic and foreign policy -- and limited his options
in both.
Arguably the most difficult steps to avert a catastrophe (such as the
passage of the Troubled Asset Relief Program and actions to make
possible the rescue of key financial institutions) were taken at the
end of George W. Bush's term. But Obama still had to determine which
institutions to save and take other steps to arrest the economy's free
fall and stimulate growth. This had profound implications for Obama's
foreign policy, making quick collective action with other powerful
economies essential. The administration worked with countries both in
and beyond the traditional G-8 club of major powers, turning to the
larger but still fledgling G-20, in which all the emerging economic
powers are represented.
In the end, the danger of each country's acting to protect its own
economy at the expense of others was largely avoided, demonstrating a
surprising degree of collaborative common sense about shared
interests. But the United States' role in precipitating the crisis
through the popularization of dubious financial instruments severely
tarnished the Washington-consensus model of deregulated markets,
reduced deficits, and liberalized trade. A president less open to
soothing the international community might have become a lightning rod
for global frustrations, and Obama deserves more credit than he
commonly receives for avoiding this outcome and helping keep a
catastrophe at bay. This same crisis had the result of accelerating
perceptions of Beijing's economic rise and Washington's relative
decline, something that would complicate U.S.-Chinese relations during
Obama's second year in office and pose a broader management challenge
for his foreign policy.
>From the beginning, the new administration sought more active
engagement with Asia, trying to improve U.S. ties with friends and
allies and cooperating with China on bilateral, regional, and global
issues. The Obama team accepted that China's relative importance in
the world was growing and that the United States could no longer
exercise the degree of leverage that it had previously.
The Arab awakening is the biggest curveball thrown at Obama to date.
He has manged the turmoil and tensions relatively well.
Despite concentrated attention, however, the administration's efforts
to work more closely with China have not gone smoothly. A major
deterioration in relations has been avoided, reflecting the underlying
maturity of U.S.-Chinese relations and the long-standing desire of
both countries' leaders to keep disagreements within bounds. Regular
high-level meetings have created strong incentives for stabilizing
relations and articulating areas of cooperation, but subsequent
implementation of the intentions expressed at these meetings has often
fallen short.
One of the administration's major goals has been to have China become
a responsible player in the current liberal international order, one
that accepts the system's basic goals and rules and contributes to
their overall success. However, the administration has found that
China's rapid rise in global standing has created enhanced
expectations too quickly for Beijing to absorb. Although China is now
a major factor in global issues, it still views itself as a developing
country whose obligation is first of all to grow its economy, not to
take on global responsibilities.
Perhaps the greatest policy failure for both countries has been the
inability to mitigate distrust over each other's long-term intentions.
Almost every American policy is seen by most in Beijing as part of a
sophisticated conspiracy to frustrate China's rise. Washington,
meanwhile, has increasingly been disconcerted by these Chinese views
and concerned that Beijing seeks to use its economic and growing
military power in Asia to achieve both diplomatic and security
advantages at the United States' expense. Washington is also well
aware that almost every other country in Asia wants the United States
to help counterbalance the growing Chinese pressures, but not at the
cost of making them choose between the two giants.
Obama's resulting "strategic pivot" to Asia, announced last November,
was an attempt to generate confidence in the United States' future
leadership role in the region, something many there had begun to
doubt. This is a sophisticated, regionally integrated economic,
diplomatic, and security strategy, but its full implementation will
require disciplined administration management and convincing evidence
of the United States' economic resurgence. The strategy of rebalancing
toward Asia thus makes sense but risks creating expectations that
Washington will not be able to meet while feeding Chinese suspicions,
which could lead to a far more irascible U.S.-Chinese relationship.
U.S. officials must act adroitly both at home and in Asia in order to
realize the strategic benefits they have set in motion instead of
generating greater distrust and tension.
MIDDLE EASTERN MORASS
The administration's relations with the Muslim world have provided the
most surprise and drama. Obama always intended to continue combating
terrorism, but he did not embrace Bush's concept of a "global war on
terror." Instead, he sought to wind down the ongoing wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan while focusing narrowly on attacking al Qaeda operatives
in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere, removing the organization as
a threat to the United States and the world at large. The
administration's success in this area has been among its signature
achievements, and Obama can rightly claim that he has ended the Iraq
war, persevered in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and essentially
decapitated al Qaeda.
In the process, Obama has been tough. He has displayed no naive
expectations about the power of his personal charm or vision to
resolve matters of war and peace. In Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan,
however, stability hangs by a slender thread, and it is not yet clear
if the president will be able to achieve both his goals
simultaneously, exiting the wars without leaving dangerous messes
behind.
On both Iraq and Afghanistan, the administration has displayed an
admirable degree of flexibility and adaptation. In Iraq, for example,
the president reconciled his earlier campaign positions with the
realities he found on the ground. He slowed down the withdrawal of
U.S. troops substantially, finally bringing them home in late 2011, in
line with the schedule first designed and agreed on by Bush and Iraqi
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki back in 2008. It is hard to see how an
American president could have -- or should have -- retained U.S.
forces abroad in a country that was not willing to have them remain
there under a normal legal framework.
Nevertheless, Obama's crowing about the finality of the troop
withdrawal was inappropriate given that his administration was on
record as having tried to reach an accord with the Iraqis to keep the
troops deployed there longer. At the same time, it is better for the
future of U.S. military intervention abroad that the United States
reestablished its reputation for leaving when asked instead of
remaining where it was not wanted.
Obama decided to devote far more resources than his predecessor to
both Afghanistan and Pakistan. But the intractable nature of the
problems there and the deep divisions within the administration over
how to handle them have kept success at bay. Practically every senior
national security official has had his or her own priorities when it
comes to AfPak, and so it is hardly surprising that locals there could
never quite figure out if the United States was staying or going or if
Washington saw them as friends or foes. This naturally led to hedging
behavior from key local figures and a failure to achieve objectives as
effectively as possible. Having invested so much in a robust
Afghanistan strategy that sought to weaken the insurgency and build up
the Afghan state's institutions, Obama will, in a possible second
term, need to engineer a carefully designed troop drawdown through
2013 and 2014, when Afghan forces are set to assume primary
responsibility for security throughout the country.
Middle East diplomacy, meanwhile, has been the source of the greatest
gap between promise and delivery in the Obama record and the greatest
frustration for the president. This is ironic given that Obama vowed
to make Middle East peacemaking a priority from day one of his
presidency. Critics have been unanimous in seeing the president's
biggest mistake as focusing on an unrealistic demand for a full freeze
on Israeli settlement activity in the occupied territories. By
insisting on such a freeze, they argue, Obama drove Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas away from the negotiating table (since he
could not be seen as accepting something less than the U.S. president
himself had demanded of the Israelis), and then by achieving less than
his stated objectives, Obama damaged U.S. credibility as a mediator in
the conflict.
Obama's demand was logical: restricting settlement activity should
have improved the environment for negotiations and reduced Palestinian
mistrust of Israeli intentions. The Palestinian Authority had made
progress on Bush's watch in fighting terrorism, and it was reasonable
for Obama to expect that Israel would in turn fulfill its reciprocal
obligations by restricting settlement activity. Memories of how then
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had driven a truck through a
loophole allowing "natural growth" in the settlements during the
Clinton administration, moreover, increased the determination of some
of Obama's senior advisers who had been around then to support his
desire for a full freeze.
But when Obama, following his pragmatic instinct, gave George
Mitchell, his special envoy to the Middle East, a green light to
negotiate something less than a complete settlement freeze with a
newly elected Netanyahu, the president failed to adjust his declared
objective. This opened up a gap between what the administration was
publicly demanding and the reality of what it eventually achieved (a
problem that also emerged with the president's speech envisaging a
Palestinian state welcomed into the 2011 session of the UN General
Assembly, something that the administration would ultimately have to
reject). The effort generated bad blood in U.S.-Israeli relations and
a settlement moratorium that disappointed the Arabs.
In fact, in general, Obama's relations with the Israelis have been
curiously tone-deaf. His blockbuster Cairo speech in 2009 was clearly
directed at the Arabs, but there were no corresponding visits to
Israel or speeches directed at the Israelis, with the result that he
lost Israeli public opinion early on. This, in turn, helped frustrate
the president's peace diplomacy by diminishing his potential leverage
over Netanyahu, who follows the polls obsessively and realized that he
had more to gain than to lose at home from defying a president
perceived as hostile. From Vice President Joseph Biden and former
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton and Clinton's adviser Dennis Ross, Obama had an array of
advisers who recommended greater efforts to try to change Israeli
minds, but the president himself thought he could win Israel over with
stepped-up security backing, not understanding that what the Israeli
public really craved was his attention and affection.
All this might have been forgotten or forgiven if Obama had succeeded
in bringing the Arab world around to a more encouraging diplomatic
stance. But when he proved unable to fulfill his promises to resolve
the Palestinian problem and to close Guantánamo, the Arab street
became disillusioned with Obama as well, eventually turning its back
on him when he pivoted toward Israeli positions as his reelection
approached. The president ended up with the worst of both worlds,
losing the support of the Israelis and the Arabs and achieving
nothing.
To be sure, Obama did not have willing partners in Netanyahu and
Abbas. But his missteps ended up letting them both off the hook. If he
decides to try again in a second term, he will need Israeli and
Palestinian partners willing to take risks for peace and defend the
necessary and painful compromises. But he will also need to work much
more with, rather than against, them.
SPRING FORWARD?
The Arab awakening is the biggest curveball thrown at Obama to date.
The president has managed the turmoil and tensions relatively well,
recognizing that these revolutionary stirrings are not about the
United States and that he therefore has limited ability to affect
their outcomes. Unlike during the protests in the wake of the June
2009 Iranian elections, when Obama muted his criticism while the
Iranian regime suppressed the pro-democracy movement, the president
has put the United States' voice behind popular demands for freedom
and democracy across the Arab world and assisted in toppling unpopular
dictators in Egypt, Libya, and Yemen, while doing his best to protect
U.S. interests in stability in the Gulf. There have been tactical
missteps: the humiliation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, the
failure to push effectively for meaningful reforms in Bahrain, and the
subsequent slowness to push for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's
ouster. But in general, Obama's instinctive idealism has put the
United States on the right side of history, and his innate pragmatism
has served him well in striking a new balance between American values
and the United States' strategic interests in a volatile region.
In Egypt, Obama's support for the preservation of the military's role
was important in achieving a quick start to the transition process,
but betting on the Egyptian military as the midwife of Egyptian
democracy has not quite worked out as hoped. Although the Supreme
Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), Egypt's temporary ruling body, has
reiterated its intention to honor all of the country's international
obligations, including the peace treaty with Israel, it has proved
feckless in handling popular demands and protecting minority rights.
Worse than that, instead of ensuring the orderly transition that Obama
sought from the early days of the revolution, the military has tried
to protect its special interests and place itself above the
constitution.
In demanding that the SCAF abide by Egypt's recent election results
and allow the Islamists to take power, Obama is betting that rather
than attempting to impose sharia on a quarter of the Arab world's
population, the Muslim Brotherhood, out of a need to generate tangible
results for those who voted for it, will prefer the stability that
comes from cooperating with the United States and preserving the peace
treaty with Israel. Obama has made a judgment that it will be less
damaging to U.S. interests to try to shape this dramatic development
than to encourage its suppression. But it is a gamble; standing on the
right side of history now means accepting that one of the United
States' most important Arab partners will be led by Islamist religious
parties and betting that their pragmatism will outweigh their
ideological opposition to liberalism, secularism, and U.S. regional
objectives.
The shakiness of the United States' strategic relationship with Egypt,
however, is offset by the strategic windfall coming from the troubles
of Syria, Iran's one Arab ally. Cutting off the Syrian conduit for
Iran's meddling in the affairs of the Arab-Israeli heartland would
represent a major strategic setback for Iran. Already, Assad's
international isolation and preoccupation with his country's severe
internal challenges have significantly reduced his ability to support
Iran's proxy Hezbollah in maintaining its grip on Lebanon. Meanwhile,
Hamas is busy moving out of the Iranian orbit and into the Egyptian
camp as the influence of its Muslim Brotherhood patron in Egypt rises,
manifested in the withdrawal of Hamas' external headquarters from
Damascus and the cutoff of Iranian aid to the group.
Libya was always a strategic sideshow. Obama helped achieve the
relatively low-cost overthrow of a brutal dictator there, supporting
the military intervention of NATO's European allies, which had a
greater stake in the outcome. But there were indirect costs. By
repeatedly calling for Muammar al-Qaddafi's over-throw when the UN
Security Council resolution that justified NATO's military
intervention provided for no such thing, Obama confirmed Chinese and
Russian charges that the West would distort the intentions of UN
resolutions on the matter for its own purposes. The unintended
consequence was that China and Russia, as well as the emerging powers
on the Security Council (Brazil, India, and South Africa), are no
longer willing to countenance UN Security Council resolutions that
could lead to military interventions to overthrow regimes elsewhere in
the Arab world. This has made it more difficult for Obama to isolate
the Assad regime.
Meanwhile, Obama's balancing of American values and interests is
likely to be put to the test in the Persian Gulf sooner rather than
later. Saudi Arabia seems determined to hold back on political reform
at home, prevent it altogether in neighboring Bahrain, and carve out
an exemption on political liberalization for all the kings and sheiks
in its wider neighborhood. This cannot work as a long-term solution,
even though the monarchies enjoy greater legitimacy among their people
than the pharaohs and generals who have ruled in other parts of the
Arab world.
Indeed, it seems likely that no Arab authoritarian regime will remain
immune for long from popular demands for political freedom and
accountable government. Obama's inclination to let these transitions
play out on their own is understandable, but it might well seem
shortsighted down the road unless he can find a way to negotiate a new
compact with Saudi King Abdullah. Obama needs to convince the king
that drawing up a road map that leads eventually to constitutional
monarchies in the neighborhood, first in Bahrain, but over time in
Jordan and other Gulf Cooperation Council states, too, is the better
way to secure these kingdoms and the interests of their subjects.
On balance, it is not clear that a more consistent U.S. policy in the
Middle East would have produced better results since the upheavals
began. The United States' influence has been inherently limited in
most cases. But the net effect of the tumultuous developments in the
Arab world, when combined with Obama's failure to achieve an
Israeli-Palestinian peace deal and Turkey's determination to play a
leadership role in the Arab world at the expense of its relationship
with Israel, has left the United States without a consistent strategy
beyond reacting to the crosscutting currents of unpredictable events.
NUKES OF HAZARD
Obama took office determined "to seek the peace and security of a
world without nuclear weapons," as he put it in Prague in April 2009.
Russia was critical to this effort, which is why the president sought
the reset in relations, designed to remove the frictions generated by
expanding NATO's writ to Russia's borders and by Bush's determination
to deploy a missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland.
The New START treaty, signed with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in
March 2010, with its reductions in U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals,
was a manifestation of this new partnership, designed to set an
example for the rest of the world.
Iran and North Korea have been at the core of the nuclear
proliferation issue. Obama tried at first to engage Iran, but when
those efforts bore little fruit, he moved to pressure Tehran instead.
As part of his nonproliferation agenda, Obama wanted to ensure that
those who broke the rules in this area would face, in his words,
"growing consequences," that is, sanctions that "exact a real price."
And his efforts first to engage Iran and North Korea gave him greater
credibility when he sought broad support for sanctions: hence, the
passage of a UN Security Council resolution in June 2010, with China
and Russia voting in favor, mandating tougher sanctions against Iran
for its violations of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
The administration's attempts to change North Korea's behavior have
been unproductive, but at least the effort has been handled in a way
that has generated other important diplomatic benefits for the United
States. Through its clear articulation of the consequences of ongoing
nuclear and missile development for the U.S. deployment of military
assets in Northeast Asia, the administration has increased China's
incentives to try to constrain North Korea. The White House has also
adeptly worked with Seoul to come to an understanding on how to handle
Pyongyang, and as a consequence, the U.S.-South Korean alliance is
probably as strong as it has ever been. Extensive consultations with
Japan have helped improve American relations with the government
there, as well, and reduced the risks to the U.S.-Japanese alliance
from the Democratic Party of Japan's victory after over five decades
of virtually unbroken rule by the Liberal Democratic Party.
Similarly, notwithstanding the tensions with Israel over the
Palestinian issue and with Saudi Arabia over the Arab awakenings,
close coordination against Iran with these two critical Middle Eastern
allies has increased the effectiveness of U.S. strategy.
As of the time of this writing, Iran and North Korea retain their
nuclear and ballistic missile programs; Iran, especially, is thumbing
its nose at the international community; and both countries are making
their neighbors nervous. But both are also facing the "growing
consequences" that Obama warned them about in his Prague speech. And
through painstaking diplomatic efforts, Obama has succeeded in
convincing China and Russia to cooperate with his broader arms control
agenda and with UN Security Council efforts to inflict increased costs
for Iran's and North Korea's recalcitrance. That, together with other
measures, has forced Iran's leaders to contemplate the dire
consequences of their country's nuclear advance and has possibly
persuaded North Korea to reconsider the steps necessary to reactivate
the six-party talks. In addition, Obama's actions have alerted others
that "going rogue" is costly.
Although there have been no breakthroughs when it comes to disarming
the world yet, Obama has strengthened the international community's
commitment to nonproliferation and nuclear disarmament. Consequently,
Iran and North Korea face growing isolation from the emerging global
order that Obama is shaping. The giant question mark hanging over
these efforts, however, remains the prospect of Iran's potential
acquisition of a nuclear weapons capability. That would deal a blow to
the nonproliferation regime -- a pillar of the U.S.-led international
order -- and raise questions about the efficacy of Obama's pressure
tactics.
WHAT NEXT?
Obama's foreign policy has been sensible and serious but not
pathbreaking. It has stewarded the nation's interests competently in
most areas, with few signature accomplishments (apart from the killing
of Osama bin Laden) that might create a distinctive historical legacy.
Keeping the country safe and helping prevent an even worse economic
meltdown were considerable feats. But they have been measured mostly
against negative counterfactuals -- bad things that could have
happened but were prevented, such as another big terrorist strike or
another Great Depression. And the gap between the president's rhetoric
and his deeds has generated disappointment at home and abroad among
those who did not appreciate that Obama's way of achieving progress is
incremental rather than transformational.
The record also leaves the president with no clear road map for the
future should he win reelection. The remedy for this situation,
ironically, is to refresh Obama's original view of what mattered most:
a gradual readjustment of the United States' leadership role in an
emerging global order. Over the last seven decades, the U.S.-led
international system has encouraged the development and rise of other
powers, from Europe to Japan to countries in the rest of Asia, Latin
America, and elsewhere. Gradual, directed change that accords these
rising powers greater roles in constructively managing the system
could benefit most countries, including the United States.
Obama seems to understand this well, but he has not yet developed a
clear strategy for achieving it or found a way to persuade the
American public of the need for and benefits of such a course. One
cornerstone to build on could be the rebalancing toward Asia that the
administration rolled out last fall. Fleshed out and managed well, it
could yield a reaffirmation of the United States' international
leadership for years to come, serving as a framework for trade
promotion and investment; a transformation to a leaner, more flexible
military working closely with foreign partners; and the reshaping of
global and regional organizations to preserve a leadership role for
the United States while more accurately reflecting the emerging
distribution of power in the international system.
Obama's ability to pursue such a strategy effectively, however, will
depend on two other factors: some less-than-disastrous resolution of
the Iranian nuclear issue and a revival of the United States' domestic
political economy. Should Iran go nuclear, or should Israel or the
United States attack it in an attempt to head off that outcome,
security issues in the Middle East would once again rocket back to the
top of the foreign policy agenda, probably throwing the region into
turmoil and pushing other issues onto the back burner yet again. Like
Michael Corleone, that is, just when Obama thought he was reducing his
involvement in the region, he would be pulled back in, with a
vengeance.
The second factor is whether the president will be able to overcome
the United States' structural problems of low growth, high
unemployment, and an unsustainable trajectory on debt. The global
system is based on American political and economic, as well as
military, strength. That strength is now being called into question,
and the very public domestic political dysfunction in the United
States is affecting expectations about the future around the world.
There are many dimensions to this issue, but Washington's ability to
gain control over its fiscal challenges while making investments that
nurture the United States' capacity to adapt and compete in the future
will obviously have to be a critical component of any serious program.
And at the end of the day, national security budgets can and must be
trimmed as well (albeit preferably without the severe reductions of
"sequestration").
The United States still has many advantages: the strongest armed
forces in the world; a powerful network of allies and partners; a
continued lead in research and development; the world's best higher
education system, innovation, and high-tech manufacturing; melting-pot
demographics and moderate, balanced population growth; a transparent
political system and reliable rule of law, which help attract foreign
investment; and abundant natural resources, a vibrant civil society,
and vast experience in global leadership.
Yet some key trends are heading in the wrong direction, and the
country's economic future therefore remains at risk. Put simply, the
continued weakening of the United States' economic foundations is
incompatible with maintaining long-term national power and a
successful foreign policy. The consequences of a failure to arrest
American domestic decline for the United States and the world at large
will thus reach far beyond any consequences stemming from the
president's personal popularity or partisan standing.
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/137516/martin-indyk-kenneth-lieberthal-and-michael-e-ohanlon/scoring-obamas-foreign-policy
A Progressive Pragmatist Tries to Bend History
By Martin Indyk, Kenneth Lieberthal, and Michael E. O'Hanlon
May/June 2012
As November's U.S. presidential election approaches, foreign policy
and national security issues are rising in importance. President
Barack Obama is running on a platform of ending the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan while demonstrating toughness against al Qaeda. His
Republican opponents charge him with presiding over the United States'
decline and demonstrating fecklessness on Iran. The true story is
somewhat more complicated than either side admits.
When Obama was sworn into office in January 2009, he had already
developed an activist vision of his foreign policy destiny. He would
refurbish the United States' image abroad, especially in the Muslim
world; end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; offer an outstretched
hand to Iran; "reset" relations with Russia as a step toward ridding
the world of nuclear weapons; elicit Chinese cooperation on regional
and global issues; and make peace in the Middle East. By his own
account, Obama sought nothing less than to bend history's arc in the
direction of justice and a more peaceful, stable world.
There was inevitable tension between Obama's soaring rhetoric and
desire for fundamental change, on the one hand, and his instinct for
governing pragmatically, on the other. The history of the Obama
administration's foreign policy has thus been one of attempts to
reconcile the president's lofty vision with his innate realism and
political caution. In office, Obama has been a progressive where
possible but a pragmatist when necessary. And given the domestic and
global situations he has faced, pragmatism has dominated.
This balancing act has pleased few and provided fodder for Obama's
critics. His compromises have been interpreted as signs of weakness,
and his inability to produce clean outcomes in short order taken as an
indication of incompetence. His efforts to engage competing powers
have seemed at times to come at the cost of ignoring traditional
allies. Above all, his approach has caused some to question whether he
has a strategy at all or merely responds to events.
With his "strategic pivot" to Asia, Obama sought to generate
confidence in America's leadership in the region--something many had
begun to doubt.
Such a portrayal, however, misses the point. Obama is neither an
out-of-his-depth naif nor a reactive realist. He has been trying to
shape a new liberal global order with the United States still in the
lead but sharing more responsibilities and burdens with others where
possible or necessary. Surrounding himself with experienced cabinet
members who are not personally close to him, along with junior
advisers who are close but not experienced, Obama has kept the
conceptualization, articulation, and sometimes even implementation of
his foreign policy in his own hands. Intelligent, self-confident,
ambitious, and aloof, he is more directly responsible for his record
than most of his predecessors have been.
He has racked up some notable successes, including significantly
weakening al Qaeda, effectively managing relations with China,
rebuilding the United States' international reputation, resetting the
relationship with Russia and ratifying the New Strategic Arms
Reduction Treaty (New START), achieving a UN Security Council
resolution imposing harsh sanctions on Iran, completing overdue but
welcome free-trade accords, and withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.
There have also been some notable setbacks, including no progress on
resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, very little to show on
combating climate change, the United States' continued low standing in
the Muslim world, deepening frictions in U.S.-Pakistani relations, a
Mexico awash in drugs and violence, an Iran still bent on acquiring
the means to produce and deliver nuclear weapons, and a North Korea
still developing its nuclear arsenal.
The Obama approach has been relatively nonideological in practice but
informed by a realistic overarching sense of the United States' role
in the world in the twenty-first century. The tone has been neither
that of American triumphalism and exceptionalism nor one of American
decline. On balance, this approach has been effective, conveying a
degree of openness to the views of other leaders and the interests of
other nations while still projecting confidence and leadership.
Judged by the standard of protecting American interests, Obama's
foreign policy so far has worked out quite well; judged by the
standard of fulfilling his vision of a new global order, it remains
very much a work in progress.
ASIA RISING
Obama came to power envisioning a foreign policy based on three
pillars: a changed relationship with the rising powers in Asia,
particularly China; a transformed relationship between the United
States and the Muslim world in which cooperation replaced conflict;
and reinvigorated progress toward nonproliferation and nuclear
disarmament. Even as his election was making history, however, the
financial collapse made economic crisis management the new president's
top priority in domestic and foreign policy -- and limited his options
in both.
Arguably the most difficult steps to avert a catastrophe (such as the
passage of the Troubled Asset Relief Program and actions to make
possible the rescue of key financial institutions) were taken at the
end of George W. Bush's term. But Obama still had to determine which
institutions to save and take other steps to arrest the economy's free
fall and stimulate growth. This had profound implications for Obama's
foreign policy, making quick collective action with other powerful
economies essential. The administration worked with countries both in
and beyond the traditional G-8 club of major powers, turning to the
larger but still fledgling G-20, in which all the emerging economic
powers are represented.
In the end, the danger of each country's acting to protect its own
economy at the expense of others was largely avoided, demonstrating a
surprising degree of collaborative common sense about shared
interests. But the United States' role in precipitating the crisis
through the popularization of dubious financial instruments severely
tarnished the Washington-consensus model of deregulated markets,
reduced deficits, and liberalized trade. A president less open to
soothing the international community might have become a lightning rod
for global frustrations, and Obama deserves more credit than he
commonly receives for avoiding this outcome and helping keep a
catastrophe at bay. This same crisis had the result of accelerating
perceptions of Beijing's economic rise and Washington's relative
decline, something that would complicate U.S.-Chinese relations during
Obama's second year in office and pose a broader management challenge
for his foreign policy.
>From the beginning, the new administration sought more active
engagement with Asia, trying to improve U.S. ties with friends and
allies and cooperating with China on bilateral, regional, and global
issues. The Obama team accepted that China's relative importance in
the world was growing and that the United States could no longer
exercise the degree of leverage that it had previously.
The Arab awakening is the biggest curveball thrown at Obama to date.
He has manged the turmoil and tensions relatively well.
Despite concentrated attention, however, the administration's efforts
to work more closely with China have not gone smoothly. A major
deterioration in relations has been avoided, reflecting the underlying
maturity of U.S.-Chinese relations and the long-standing desire of
both countries' leaders to keep disagreements within bounds. Regular
high-level meetings have created strong incentives for stabilizing
relations and articulating areas of cooperation, but subsequent
implementation of the intentions expressed at these meetings has often
fallen short.
One of the administration's major goals has been to have China become
a responsible player in the current liberal international order, one
that accepts the system's basic goals and rules and contributes to
their overall success. However, the administration has found that
China's rapid rise in global standing has created enhanced
expectations too quickly for Beijing to absorb. Although China is now
a major factor in global issues, it still views itself as a developing
country whose obligation is first of all to grow its economy, not to
take on global responsibilities.
Perhaps the greatest policy failure for both countries has been the
inability to mitigate distrust over each other's long-term intentions.
Almost every American policy is seen by most in Beijing as part of a
sophisticated conspiracy to frustrate China's rise. Washington,
meanwhile, has increasingly been disconcerted by these Chinese views
and concerned that Beijing seeks to use its economic and growing
military power in Asia to achieve both diplomatic and security
advantages at the United States' expense. Washington is also well
aware that almost every other country in Asia wants the United States
to help counterbalance the growing Chinese pressures, but not at the
cost of making them choose between the two giants.
Obama's resulting "strategic pivot" to Asia, announced last November,
was an attempt to generate confidence in the United States' future
leadership role in the region, something many there had begun to
doubt. This is a sophisticated, regionally integrated economic,
diplomatic, and security strategy, but its full implementation will
require disciplined administration management and convincing evidence
of the United States' economic resurgence. The strategy of rebalancing
toward Asia thus makes sense but risks creating expectations that
Washington will not be able to meet while feeding Chinese suspicions,
which could lead to a far more irascible U.S.-Chinese relationship.
U.S. officials must act adroitly both at home and in Asia in order to
realize the strategic benefits they have set in motion instead of
generating greater distrust and tension.
MIDDLE EASTERN MORASS
The administration's relations with the Muslim world have provided the
most surprise and drama. Obama always intended to continue combating
terrorism, but he did not embrace Bush's concept of a "global war on
terror." Instead, he sought to wind down the ongoing wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan while focusing narrowly on attacking al Qaeda operatives
in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere, removing the organization as
a threat to the United States and the world at large. The
administration's success in this area has been among its signature
achievements, and Obama can rightly claim that he has ended the Iraq
war, persevered in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and essentially
decapitated al Qaeda.
In the process, Obama has been tough. He has displayed no naive
expectations about the power of his personal charm or vision to
resolve matters of war and peace. In Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan,
however, stability hangs by a slender thread, and it is not yet clear
if the president will be able to achieve both his goals
simultaneously, exiting the wars without leaving dangerous messes
behind.
On both Iraq and Afghanistan, the administration has displayed an
admirable degree of flexibility and adaptation. In Iraq, for example,
the president reconciled his earlier campaign positions with the
realities he found on the ground. He slowed down the withdrawal of
U.S. troops substantially, finally bringing them home in late 2011, in
line with the schedule first designed and agreed on by Bush and Iraqi
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki back in 2008. It is hard to see how an
American president could have -- or should have -- retained U.S.
forces abroad in a country that was not willing to have them remain
there under a normal legal framework.
Nevertheless, Obama's crowing about the finality of the troop
withdrawal was inappropriate given that his administration was on
record as having tried to reach an accord with the Iraqis to keep the
troops deployed there longer. At the same time, it is better for the
future of U.S. military intervention abroad that the United States
reestablished its reputation for leaving when asked instead of
remaining where it was not wanted.
Obama decided to devote far more resources than his predecessor to
both Afghanistan and Pakistan. But the intractable nature of the
problems there and the deep divisions within the administration over
how to handle them have kept success at bay. Practically every senior
national security official has had his or her own priorities when it
comes to AfPak, and so it is hardly surprising that locals there could
never quite figure out if the United States was staying or going or if
Washington saw them as friends or foes. This naturally led to hedging
behavior from key local figures and a failure to achieve objectives as
effectively as possible. Having invested so much in a robust
Afghanistan strategy that sought to weaken the insurgency and build up
the Afghan state's institutions, Obama will, in a possible second
term, need to engineer a carefully designed troop drawdown through
2013 and 2014, when Afghan forces are set to assume primary
responsibility for security throughout the country.
Middle East diplomacy, meanwhile, has been the source of the greatest
gap between promise and delivery in the Obama record and the greatest
frustration for the president. This is ironic given that Obama vowed
to make Middle East peacemaking a priority from day one of his
presidency. Critics have been unanimous in seeing the president's
biggest mistake as focusing on an unrealistic demand for a full freeze
on Israeli settlement activity in the occupied territories. By
insisting on such a freeze, they argue, Obama drove Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas away from the negotiating table (since he
could not be seen as accepting something less than the U.S. president
himself had demanded of the Israelis), and then by achieving less than
his stated objectives, Obama damaged U.S. credibility as a mediator in
the conflict.
Obama's demand was logical: restricting settlement activity should
have improved the environment for negotiations and reduced Palestinian
mistrust of Israeli intentions. The Palestinian Authority had made
progress on Bush's watch in fighting terrorism, and it was reasonable
for Obama to expect that Israel would in turn fulfill its reciprocal
obligations by restricting settlement activity. Memories of how then
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had driven a truck through a
loophole allowing "natural growth" in the settlements during the
Clinton administration, moreover, increased the determination of some
of Obama's senior advisers who had been around then to support his
desire for a full freeze.
But when Obama, following his pragmatic instinct, gave George
Mitchell, his special envoy to the Middle East, a green light to
negotiate something less than a complete settlement freeze with a
newly elected Netanyahu, the president failed to adjust his declared
objective. This opened up a gap between what the administration was
publicly demanding and the reality of what it eventually achieved (a
problem that also emerged with the president's speech envisaging a
Palestinian state welcomed into the 2011 session of the UN General
Assembly, something that the administration would ultimately have to
reject). The effort generated bad blood in U.S.-Israeli relations and
a settlement moratorium that disappointed the Arabs.
In fact, in general, Obama's relations with the Israelis have been
curiously tone-deaf. His blockbuster Cairo speech in 2009 was clearly
directed at the Arabs, but there were no corresponding visits to
Israel or speeches directed at the Israelis, with the result that he
lost Israeli public opinion early on. This, in turn, helped frustrate
the president's peace diplomacy by diminishing his potential leverage
over Netanyahu, who follows the polls obsessively and realized that he
had more to gain than to lose at home from defying a president
perceived as hostile. From Vice President Joseph Biden and former
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton and Clinton's adviser Dennis Ross, Obama had an array of
advisers who recommended greater efforts to try to change Israeli
minds, but the president himself thought he could win Israel over with
stepped-up security backing, not understanding that what the Israeli
public really craved was his attention and affection.
All this might have been forgotten or forgiven if Obama had succeeded
in bringing the Arab world around to a more encouraging diplomatic
stance. But when he proved unable to fulfill his promises to resolve
the Palestinian problem and to close Guantánamo, the Arab street
became disillusioned with Obama as well, eventually turning its back
on him when he pivoted toward Israeli positions as his reelection
approached. The president ended up with the worst of both worlds,
losing the support of the Israelis and the Arabs and achieving
nothing.
To be sure, Obama did not have willing partners in Netanyahu and
Abbas. But his missteps ended up letting them both off the hook. If he
decides to try again in a second term, he will need Israeli and
Palestinian partners willing to take risks for peace and defend the
necessary and painful compromises. But he will also need to work much
more with, rather than against, them.
SPRING FORWARD?
The Arab awakening is the biggest curveball thrown at Obama to date.
The president has managed the turmoil and tensions relatively well,
recognizing that these revolutionary stirrings are not about the
United States and that he therefore has limited ability to affect
their outcomes. Unlike during the protests in the wake of the June
2009 Iranian elections, when Obama muted his criticism while the
Iranian regime suppressed the pro-democracy movement, the president
has put the United States' voice behind popular demands for freedom
and democracy across the Arab world and assisted in toppling unpopular
dictators in Egypt, Libya, and Yemen, while doing his best to protect
U.S. interests in stability in the Gulf. There have been tactical
missteps: the humiliation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, the
failure to push effectively for meaningful reforms in Bahrain, and the
subsequent slowness to push for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's
ouster. But in general, Obama's instinctive idealism has put the
United States on the right side of history, and his innate pragmatism
has served him well in striking a new balance between American values
and the United States' strategic interests in a volatile region.
In Egypt, Obama's support for the preservation of the military's role
was important in achieving a quick start to the transition process,
but betting on the Egyptian military as the midwife of Egyptian
democracy has not quite worked out as hoped. Although the Supreme
Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), Egypt's temporary ruling body, has
reiterated its intention to honor all of the country's international
obligations, including the peace treaty with Israel, it has proved
feckless in handling popular demands and protecting minority rights.
Worse than that, instead of ensuring the orderly transition that Obama
sought from the early days of the revolution, the military has tried
to protect its special interests and place itself above the
constitution.
In demanding that the SCAF abide by Egypt's recent election results
and allow the Islamists to take power, Obama is betting that rather
than attempting to impose sharia on a quarter of the Arab world's
population, the Muslim Brotherhood, out of a need to generate tangible
results for those who voted for it, will prefer the stability that
comes from cooperating with the United States and preserving the peace
treaty with Israel. Obama has made a judgment that it will be less
damaging to U.S. interests to try to shape this dramatic development
than to encourage its suppression. But it is a gamble; standing on the
right side of history now means accepting that one of the United
States' most important Arab partners will be led by Islamist religious
parties and betting that their pragmatism will outweigh their
ideological opposition to liberalism, secularism, and U.S. regional
objectives.
The shakiness of the United States' strategic relationship with Egypt,
however, is offset by the strategic windfall coming from the troubles
of Syria, Iran's one Arab ally. Cutting off the Syrian conduit for
Iran's meddling in the affairs of the Arab-Israeli heartland would
represent a major strategic setback for Iran. Already, Assad's
international isolation and preoccupation with his country's severe
internal challenges have significantly reduced his ability to support
Iran's proxy Hezbollah in maintaining its grip on Lebanon. Meanwhile,
Hamas is busy moving out of the Iranian orbit and into the Egyptian
camp as the influence of its Muslim Brotherhood patron in Egypt rises,
manifested in the withdrawal of Hamas' external headquarters from
Damascus and the cutoff of Iranian aid to the group.
Libya was always a strategic sideshow. Obama helped achieve the
relatively low-cost overthrow of a brutal dictator there, supporting
the military intervention of NATO's European allies, which had a
greater stake in the outcome. But there were indirect costs. By
repeatedly calling for Muammar al-Qaddafi's over-throw when the UN
Security Council resolution that justified NATO's military
intervention provided for no such thing, Obama confirmed Chinese and
Russian charges that the West would distort the intentions of UN
resolutions on the matter for its own purposes. The unintended
consequence was that China and Russia, as well as the emerging powers
on the Security Council (Brazil, India, and South Africa), are no
longer willing to countenance UN Security Council resolutions that
could lead to military interventions to overthrow regimes elsewhere in
the Arab world. This has made it more difficult for Obama to isolate
the Assad regime.
Meanwhile, Obama's balancing of American values and interests is
likely to be put to the test in the Persian Gulf sooner rather than
later. Saudi Arabia seems determined to hold back on political reform
at home, prevent it altogether in neighboring Bahrain, and carve out
an exemption on political liberalization for all the kings and sheiks
in its wider neighborhood. This cannot work as a long-term solution,
even though the monarchies enjoy greater legitimacy among their people
than the pharaohs and generals who have ruled in other parts of the
Arab world.
Indeed, it seems likely that no Arab authoritarian regime will remain
immune for long from popular demands for political freedom and
accountable government. Obama's inclination to let these transitions
play out on their own is understandable, but it might well seem
shortsighted down the road unless he can find a way to negotiate a new
compact with Saudi King Abdullah. Obama needs to convince the king
that drawing up a road map that leads eventually to constitutional
monarchies in the neighborhood, first in Bahrain, but over time in
Jordan and other Gulf Cooperation Council states, too, is the better
way to secure these kingdoms and the interests of their subjects.
On balance, it is not clear that a more consistent U.S. policy in the
Middle East would have produced better results since the upheavals
began. The United States' influence has been inherently limited in
most cases. But the net effect of the tumultuous developments in the
Arab world, when combined with Obama's failure to achieve an
Israeli-Palestinian peace deal and Turkey's determination to play a
leadership role in the Arab world at the expense of its relationship
with Israel, has left the United States without a consistent strategy
beyond reacting to the crosscutting currents of unpredictable events.
NUKES OF HAZARD
Obama took office determined "to seek the peace and security of a
world without nuclear weapons," as he put it in Prague in April 2009.
Russia was critical to this effort, which is why the president sought
the reset in relations, designed to remove the frictions generated by
expanding NATO's writ to Russia's borders and by Bush's determination
to deploy a missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland.
The New START treaty, signed with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in
March 2010, with its reductions in U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals,
was a manifestation of this new partnership, designed to set an
example for the rest of the world.
Iran and North Korea have been at the core of the nuclear
proliferation issue. Obama tried at first to engage Iran, but when
those efforts bore little fruit, he moved to pressure Tehran instead.
As part of his nonproliferation agenda, Obama wanted to ensure that
those who broke the rules in this area would face, in his words,
"growing consequences," that is, sanctions that "exact a real price."
And his efforts first to engage Iran and North Korea gave him greater
credibility when he sought broad support for sanctions: hence, the
passage of a UN Security Council resolution in June 2010, with China
and Russia voting in favor, mandating tougher sanctions against Iran
for its violations of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
The administration's attempts to change North Korea's behavior have
been unproductive, but at least the effort has been handled in a way
that has generated other important diplomatic benefits for the United
States. Through its clear articulation of the consequences of ongoing
nuclear and missile development for the U.S. deployment of military
assets in Northeast Asia, the administration has increased China's
incentives to try to constrain North Korea. The White House has also
adeptly worked with Seoul to come to an understanding on how to handle
Pyongyang, and as a consequence, the U.S.-South Korean alliance is
probably as strong as it has ever been. Extensive consultations with
Japan have helped improve American relations with the government
there, as well, and reduced the risks to the U.S.-Japanese alliance
from the Democratic Party of Japan's victory after over five decades
of virtually unbroken rule by the Liberal Democratic Party.
Similarly, notwithstanding the tensions with Israel over the
Palestinian issue and with Saudi Arabia over the Arab awakenings,
close coordination against Iran with these two critical Middle Eastern
allies has increased the effectiveness of U.S. strategy.
As of the time of this writing, Iran and North Korea retain their
nuclear and ballistic missile programs; Iran, especially, is thumbing
its nose at the international community; and both countries are making
their neighbors nervous. But both are also facing the "growing
consequences" that Obama warned them about in his Prague speech. And
through painstaking diplomatic efforts, Obama has succeeded in
convincing China and Russia to cooperate with his broader arms control
agenda and with UN Security Council efforts to inflict increased costs
for Iran's and North Korea's recalcitrance. That, together with other
measures, has forced Iran's leaders to contemplate the dire
consequences of their country's nuclear advance and has possibly
persuaded North Korea to reconsider the steps necessary to reactivate
the six-party talks. In addition, Obama's actions have alerted others
that "going rogue" is costly.
Although there have been no breakthroughs when it comes to disarming
the world yet, Obama has strengthened the international community's
commitment to nonproliferation and nuclear disarmament. Consequently,
Iran and North Korea face growing isolation from the emerging global
order that Obama is shaping. The giant question mark hanging over
these efforts, however, remains the prospect of Iran's potential
acquisition of a nuclear weapons capability. That would deal a blow to
the nonproliferation regime -- a pillar of the U.S.-led international
order -- and raise questions about the efficacy of Obama's pressure
tactics.
WHAT NEXT?
Obama's foreign policy has been sensible and serious but not
pathbreaking. It has stewarded the nation's interests competently in
most areas, with few signature accomplishments (apart from the killing
of Osama bin Laden) that might create a distinctive historical legacy.
Keeping the country safe and helping prevent an even worse economic
meltdown were considerable feats. But they have been measured mostly
against negative counterfactuals -- bad things that could have
happened but were prevented, such as another big terrorist strike or
another Great Depression. And the gap between the president's rhetoric
and his deeds has generated disappointment at home and abroad among
those who did not appreciate that Obama's way of achieving progress is
incremental rather than transformational.
The record also leaves the president with no clear road map for the
future should he win reelection. The remedy for this situation,
ironically, is to refresh Obama's original view of what mattered most:
a gradual readjustment of the United States' leadership role in an
emerging global order. Over the last seven decades, the U.S.-led
international system has encouraged the development and rise of other
powers, from Europe to Japan to countries in the rest of Asia, Latin
America, and elsewhere. Gradual, directed change that accords these
rising powers greater roles in constructively managing the system
could benefit most countries, including the United States.
Obama seems to understand this well, but he has not yet developed a
clear strategy for achieving it or found a way to persuade the
American public of the need for and benefits of such a course. One
cornerstone to build on could be the rebalancing toward Asia that the
administration rolled out last fall. Fleshed out and managed well, it
could yield a reaffirmation of the United States' international
leadership for years to come, serving as a framework for trade
promotion and investment; a transformation to a leaner, more flexible
military working closely with foreign partners; and the reshaping of
global and regional organizations to preserve a leadership role for
the United States while more accurately reflecting the emerging
distribution of power in the international system.
Obama's ability to pursue such a strategy effectively, however, will
depend on two other factors: some less-than-disastrous resolution of
the Iranian nuclear issue and a revival of the United States' domestic
political economy. Should Iran go nuclear, or should Israel or the
United States attack it in an attempt to head off that outcome,
security issues in the Middle East would once again rocket back to the
top of the foreign policy agenda, probably throwing the region into
turmoil and pushing other issues onto the back burner yet again. Like
Michael Corleone, that is, just when Obama thought he was reducing his
involvement in the region, he would be pulled back in, with a
vengeance.
The second factor is whether the president will be able to overcome
the United States' structural problems of low growth, high
unemployment, and an unsustainable trajectory on debt. The global
system is based on American political and economic, as well as
military, strength. That strength is now being called into question,
and the very public domestic political dysfunction in the United
States is affecting expectations about the future around the world.
There are many dimensions to this issue, but Washington's ability to
gain control over its fiscal challenges while making investments that
nurture the United States' capacity to adapt and compete in the future
will obviously have to be a critical component of any serious program.
And at the end of the day, national security budgets can and must be
trimmed as well (albeit preferably without the severe reductions of
"sequestration").
The United States still has many advantages: the strongest armed
forces in the world; a powerful network of allies and partners; a
continued lead in research and development; the world's best higher
education system, innovation, and high-tech manufacturing; melting-pot
demographics and moderate, balanced population growth; a transparent
political system and reliable rule of law, which help attract foreign
investment; and abundant natural resources, a vibrant civil society,
and vast experience in global leadership.
Yet some key trends are heading in the wrong direction, and the
country's economic future therefore remains at risk. Put simply, the
continued weakening of the United States' economic foundations is
incompatible with maintaining long-term national power and a
successful foreign policy. The consequences of a failure to arrest
American domestic decline for the United States and the world at large
will thus reach far beyond any consequences stemming from the
president's personal popularity or partisan standing.
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/137516/martin-indyk-kenneth-lieberthal-and-michael-e-ohanlon/scoring-obamas-foreign-policy