Obama: The Fairy-Tale President?
Published on
Thursday, December 17, 2015
by
Foreign Policy In Focus
Obama: The Fairy-Tale President?
Obama's made a lot of Faustian bargains over the last seven years. But given
his likely successors, what we got over the last two terms may be as good as
it gets.
by
John Feffer
President Barack Obama delivers remarks on Nov. 20, 2014 in the East Room of
the White House in Washington, DC. (Photo: NASA/flickr/cc)
In fairy tales, the hero makes a wish. After a few trials the wish comes
true, and everyone lives happily ever after. But only in this Disney version
of fairy tales is wish fulfillment so straightforward.
In Goethes modern fairy tale, a scholar dreams of knowledge and power. A
stranger grants his wish, but the ambitious Faust must pledge his soul to
the Devil to seal the deal. In the famous short story The Monkeys Paw, a
distraught mother rubs the animals amputated limb and wishes for her dead
son to return. When the knock on the door comes late at night, she realizes
that her dead son has indeed returned, but not necessarily to life.
The moral? Unless youre two-dimensional and Technicolor, be careful what
you wish for.
Those who aspire to occupy the Oval Office, should their wish come true, are
not guaranteed a fairy-tale ending. Indeed, few exit the presidency without
giving up their soul (or large parts thereof). Some are even haunted by the
dead who come knocking at midnight, demanding to be heard. Presidents watch
their hair turn grey and their shoulders slump from the weight of the
office.
Barack Obama became president of the United States seven years ago. He made
many a difficult bargain in order to fulfill his wish to become Americas
first African American commander-in-chief. In the process, hes auctioned
off parts of his soul to different vested interests and, as a result,
disappointed many.
Some commentators on the left have blasted his presidency because it doesnt
conform to their Disney understanding of American politics (in which the
fairy leftist waves a wand and all Americans suddenly become Swedish
socialists). Many commentators on the right have dismissed the Obama
administration from day one because it doesnt conform to their Reaganesque
understanding of American society (in which gummint shrivels up like a
raisin in the sun leaving Americans free to choose, starve, and fire their
semi-automatics).
But there are also plenty of people in the middle who have grown cynical of
the Obama administration, because seven years is a long time to sustain hope
and pray for change. This broad slice of the electorate expected peace, and
theyve gotten a lot of war. They hoped in the wake of the financial crisis
for an economy geared to the 99 percent, and theyve seen the raucous return
of the rich. They expected a transformation of the way Washington does
business, and they witnessed a continuation of business as usual.
Its best, of course, to approach American politics with diminished
expectations. Such realism applies double when the president himself is a
realist. The Barack Obama who took office in 2009 was no revolutionary,
though many mistook the radical fact of an African American winning the
presidency for a radical agenda.
Obama promised to end one war (Iraq), not all wars. He offered a modest
program of economic reforms, but he was also heavily funded during his
campaign by Wall Street donors. And he was a centrist Democrat taking the
reins of a government increasingly hobbled by the lunatic fringe of the
Republican Party. Only against the backdrop of the presidents constrained
ambitions and Washingtons dysfunctional politics do the first seven years
of the Obama era make any sense at all.
Coming on the heels of perhaps his greatest accomplishment a global
commitment to tackle climate change its time to look at what Obama has
and hasnt done as president. Theres one year left in his term. But Hillary
Clinton and Bernie Sanders are already vying to be in the on-deck circle.
Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio are itching to be the
last-minute pinch-hitter.
Theres an excellent chance that U.S. foreign policy after January 2017 will
be more militaristic, more beholden to the rich and powerful, and more
embedded in the Beltways business as usual. And thats if Hillary wins.
Theres also a possibility, should the inevitably right-wing Republican
candidate cobble together a majority of the resentful, that the United
States will return to the armed exceptionalism of the Bush era.
At this critical juncture, then, we need to be clear-eyed about Obamas
accomplishments in order to brace ourselves for 2017. Its been seven years
of turbulence. Buckle up and prepare for a crash landing.
The Green Miracle
The most telling moment in the recent climate change talks came when U.S.
negotiator Todd Stern walked into the assembly in Paris, with the
representative of the Marshall Islands by his side, and received a standing
ovation.
At a similar meeting in Bali eight years before, the U.S. team consistently
played an obstructionist role and endured one round of boos after another.
If for some reason you are not willing to lead, leave it to the rest of
us, Kevin Conrad, the negotiator from Papua New Guinea, told the U.S.
delegation. Please, get out of the way. At the very last moment, the Bush
team signed a watered-down version of an accord that effectively pushed the
hard choices off for the next administration.
This time around, however, the United States was willing to lead not only
at the Paris conference itself, but also in all the patient negotiations
required in the lead-up to the gathering. This included a compact with
China, a commitment to provide more funds to developing countries to ensure
sustainable economic growth, and a push to get as many countries as possible
to make pledges to reduce their carbon emissions. In the end, 186 out of 196
countries stepped up to the plate.
Yes, the resulting agreement in Paris could have required the international
community to make more binding commitments, provide more funds for poorer
countries, and allocate more urgent subsidies of renewables to ensure that
the global temperatures wont exceed a 1.5 degree Celsius jump (at Foreign
Policy In Focus, Oscar Reyes gives seven good reasons to be skeptical of the
COP21 results). But the very fact that the United States helped to negotiate
a lowering of the aspirational threshold from 2 degrees to 1.5 represents a
sea change in government policy. Of course, these accomplishments are the
result of significant lobbying by environmentalists and scientists. But the
Obama administration, compared to its predecessor, is far more open to such
lobbying (perhaps because environmentalists and scientists actually serve in
the administration).
More importantly, the way the United States has engaged with other countries
on this issue reflects a fundamentally different attitude toward diplomacy.
Perhaps we have all become accustomed in the last seven years to the United
States acting like an adult in the international community. But the rhetoric
of the Republican presidential aspirants is a stark reminder that the
tantrum style of foreign policy I will rip up that Iran deal on day one
of my presidency! is only a few swing votes of the Electoral College away
from the Oval Office.
The climate deal is just one of a series of diplomatic accomplishments for
the Obama administration. It not only negotiated a nuclear deal with Iran,
but also pushed it through a largely hostile Congress and over the
objections of key Democratic senators like Charles Schumer and Ben Cardin.
It ended more than a half-century of hostility with Cuba even without a
regime change in Havana. And it secured a détente with Burma that helped to
speed that countrys peaceful, democratic transformation.
This diplomatic hat trick is all the more remarkable when set against the
diplomatic failures of the administration. An agreement with North Korea
the Leap Day deal of 2012 fell apart almost immediately when Pyongyang
announced a satellite launch. Secretary of State John Kerry racked up a lot
of air miles trying to advance negotiations between Israel and Palestine,
but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasnt interested in giving
any ground (quite literally in this instance). The reset with Russia went
back a little too far into the past, all the way in fact to the Cold War,
because of an eagerness on the part of NATO to push eastward and on the part
of Russian President Vladimir Putin to push westward.
In these three cases, the Obama administration could perhaps have proven
more skillful, more willing to take risks, and more open to twisting the
arms of allies (for instance, Israel). But the president is fundamentally a
cautious leader. With Iran, Cuba, and Burma, he had the U.S. business
community and U.S. public opinion pushing vigorously from behind, and the
Republican Party opposition simply couldnt push hard enough in the opposite
direction. Obama had no such tailwinds with North Korea, Palestine, and
Russia, plus he encountered some significant headwinds from the headstrong
trio of Kim Jong Eun, Netanyahu, and Putin.
For those of us pushing for additional diplomatic breakthroughs, the lesson
is to enlist the support of the business community (often a bitter pill to
swallow) and transform, however slowly, U.S. public opinion. Civil society
has to do the heavy lifting, which is as it should be. Leadership in the
absence of some degree of popular support is autocracy, and the results
arent likely to be sustainable either.
The National Security President
If Obama had focused for the last seven years exclusively on diplomacy, he
might have lived up to the Nobel Peace Prize that he received, in a burst of
premature extrapolation, only a few months after his inauguration.
But as the president took pains to point out in his Nobel acceptance speech,
hes no pacifist. He opposes many wars because he recognizes the diminishing
utility of military force. But where he believes that force can yield
results, he will let fly drones, call down aerial bombardment, and even
dispatch U.S. troops. Its not so much a moral decision his nod to just
war doctrine notwithstanding as a tactical one.
Moreover, Obama has presided over a strengthening of the surveillance state
and an almost maniacal hounding of national security whistleblowers. The
president has never pretended to be a libertarian, though he voiced some
cautions about the Patriot Act when he was senator and promised to close the
Guantanamo detention facility as his first act in the Oval Office. As
president, Obama has been rather consistent in his support of an activist
government. It just so happens that he believes that government should
provide both universal health care and universal surveillance.
The war in Syria has flummoxed the Obama administration (as it has so many
other countries). The president has been careful to resist pressure from
Democrats and Republicans alike to introduce U.S. ground troops in the
fight against the Islamic State (or against radical Islam, Bashar
al-Assad, Russian forces in Ukraine, the Houthis in Yemen, or any of the
other threats du jour).
At the same time, Obama has showed no compunction whatsoever in funding
moderate militias, sending in military advisors, and partnering with
countries like Turkey that have their own dubious agendas. Its a middle
path tailor-made to piss off just about everybody those who want to crush
Americas enemies by all means necessary, as well as those (like me) who
believe that even these more judicious (and often extrajudicial) flexings of
American muscle will produce more virulent strains of extremism.
Even The Washington Posts Dana Milbank, who has generally made fun of
warmongers, took the president to task for his uninspiring efforts at
counterterrorism. President Oh-bummer, he labeled Obama. Having exhausted
his rhetorical powers, the president has perhaps tired of trying to persuade
America of his middle course (though he continues to press his case that his
strategy is succeeding against the Islamic State).
Whether Obamas heart is in this exercise of American power, hes certainly
made such discriminate deterrence a hallmark of his administration. To
secure his diplomatic achievements, perhaps the president believes that he
has to demonstrate his willingness to punch, and punch hard. Its a Faustian
bargain, and one at the heart of the presidential enterprise in America.
Every president in the modern era has expanded American power even Jimmy
Carter in the last two years of his term while negotiating peace deals in
selected locations.
Its the price of empire. The leaders of Costa Rica and Norway dont face
such conflicts.
Beyond the Horizon
When it comes to foreign policy, the future looks like more of the same if
were lucky.
Hillary Clinton, a former secretary of state, is no stranger to diplomacy.
But shes also demonstrated time and again that she must overcompensate as
a Democrat, as a woman, as a former 1960s activist to act tough in order
to command respect in a violent, patriarchal world. Shes also proven even
more committed to kowtowing to the Netanyahu strain of Israeli politics,
which will make any movement forward on a host of Middle East issues
considerably more difficult.
Bernie Sanders has a better position on some foreign policy questions, but I
doubt that middle America, however appalled it might be at economic
inequality, is ready to elect an avowed socialist (I would love to be proven
wrong in this regard, though).
In his last year, then, Obama will be scrambling to institutionalize the
more pacific parts of his legacy, as quietly as possible. That will mean
fulfilling the terms of the nuclear deal with Iran, clearing obstacles from
the path of engagement with Cuba, implementing his Clean Power Plan,
continuing to repair Americas international reputation (for instance, by
restoring U.S. funding for UNESCO), and preserving State Department funding
from congressional attacks.
The other part of his legacy drone strikes and aerial bombing,
broad-spectrum surveillance, Special Forces operations around the globe
wont need protecting from a successor.
I was a realist eight years ago when I wrote that Obamas middle-of the-road
policies would produce a Goldilocks apocalypse. American foreign policy of
the last seven years was flawed in so many ways, and were still on the road
to this catastrophe of the middle way. Obama is no Disney hero, and theres
no unambiguously happy ending.
But as I survey the post-2016 alternatives, Im increasingly concerned that,
for the immediate future at least, what we got over the last two terms is as
good as it gets.
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Obama: The Fairy-Tale President?
Published on
Thursday, December 17, 2015
by
Foreign Policy In Focus
Obama: The Fairy-Tale President?
Obama's made a lot of Faustian bargains over the last seven years. But given
his likely successors, what we got over the last two terms may be as good as
it gets.
by
John Feffer
11 Comments
President Barack Obama delivers remarks on Nov. 20, 2014 in the East
Room of the White House in Washington, DC. (Photo: NASA/flickr/cc)
In fairy tales, the hero makes a wish. After a few trials the wish
comes true, and everyone lives happily ever after. But only in this Disney
version of fairy tales is wish fulfillment so straightforward.
In Goethes modern fairy tale, a scholar dreams of knowledge and
power. A stranger grants his wish, but the ambitious Faust must pledge his
soul to the Devil to seal the deal. In the famous short story The Monkeys
Paw, a distraught mother rubs the animals amputated limb and wishes for
her dead son to return. When the knock on the door comes late at night, she
realizes that her dead son has indeed returned, but not necessarily to life.
The moral? Unless youre two-dimensional and Technicolor, be careful
what you wish for.
Those who aspire to occupy the Oval Office, should their wish come
true, are not guaranteed a fairy-tale ending. Indeed, few exit the
presidency without giving up their soul (or large parts thereof). Some are
even haunted by the dead who come knocking at midnight, demanding to be
heard. Presidents watch their hair turn grey and their shoulders slump from
the weight of the office.
Barack Obama became president of the United States seven years ago. He made
many a difficult bargain in order to fulfill his wish to become Americas
first African American commander-in-chief. In the process, hes auctioned
off parts of his soul to different vested interests and, as a result,
disappointed many.
Some commentators on the left have blasted his presidency because it doesnt
conform to their Disney understanding of American politics (in which the
fairy leftist waves a wand and all Americans suddenly become Swedish
socialists). Many commentators on the right have dismissed the Obama
administration from day one because it doesnt conform to their Reaganesque
understanding of American society (in which gummint shrivels up like a
raisin in the sun leaving Americans free to choose, starve, and fire their
semi-automatics).
But there are also plenty of people in the middle who have grown cynical of
the Obama administration, because seven years is a long time to sustain hope
and pray for change. This broad slice of the electorate expected peace, and
theyve gotten a lot of war. They hoped in the wake of the financial crisis
for an economy geared to the 99 percent, and theyve seen the raucous return
of the rich. They expected a transformation of the way Washington does
business, and they witnessed a continuation of business as usual.
Its best, of course, to approach American politics with diminished
expectations. Such realism applies double when the president himself is a
realist. The Barack Obama who took office in 2009 was no revolutionary,
though many mistook the radical fact of an African American winning the
presidency for a radical agenda.
Obama promised to end one war (Iraq), not all wars. He offered a modest
program of economic reforms, but he was also heavily funded during his
campaign by Wall Street donors. And he was a centrist Democrat taking the
reins of a government increasingly hobbled by the lunatic fringe of the
Republican Party. Only against the backdrop of the presidents constrained
ambitions and Washingtons dysfunctional politics do the first seven years
of the Obama era make any sense at all.
Coming on the heels of perhaps his greatest accomplishment a global
commitment to tackle climate change its time to look at what Obama has
and hasnt done as president. Theres one year left in his term. But Hillary
Clinton and Bernie Sanders are already vying to be in the on-deck circle.
Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio are itching to be the
last-minute pinch-hitter.
Theres an excellent chance that U.S. foreign policy after January 2017 will
be more militaristic, more beholden to the rich and powerful, and more
embedded in the Beltways business as usual. And thats if Hillary wins.
Theres also a possibility, should the inevitably right-wing Republican
candidate cobble together a majority of the resentful, that the United
States will return to the armed exceptionalism of the Bush era.
At this critical juncture, then, we need to be clear-eyed about Obamas
accomplishments in order to brace ourselves for 2017. Its been seven years
of turbulence. Buckle up and prepare for a crash landing.
The Green Miracle
The most telling moment in the recent climate change talks came when U.S.
negotiator Todd Stern walked into the assembly in Paris, with the
representative of the Marshall Islands by his side, and received a standing
ovation.
At a similar meeting in Bali eight years before, the U.S. team consistently
played an obstructionist role and endured one round of boos after another.
If for some reason you are not willing to lead, leave it to the rest of
us, Kevin Conrad, the negotiator from Papua New Guinea, told the U.S.
delegation. Please, get out of the way. At the very last moment, the Bush
team signed a watered-down version of an accord that effectively pushed the
hard choices off for the next administration.
This time around, however, the United States was willing to lead not only
at the Paris conference itself, but also in all the patient negotiations
required in the lead-up to the gathering. This included a compact with
China, a commitment to provide more funds to developing countries to ensure
sustainable economic growth, and a push to get as many countries as possible
to make pledges to reduce their carbon emissions. In the end, 186 out of 196
countries stepped up to the plate.
Yes, the resulting agreement in Paris could have required the international
community to make more binding commitments, provide more funds for poorer
countries, and allocate more urgent subsidies of renewables to ensure that
the global temperatures wont exceed a 1.5 degree Celsius jump (at Foreign
Policy In Focus, Oscar Reyes gives seven good reasons to be skeptical of the
COP21 results). But the very fact that the United States helped to negotiate
a lowering of the aspirational threshold from 2 degrees to 1.5 represents a
sea change in government policy. Of course, these accomplishments are the
result of significant lobbying by environmentalists and scientists. But the
Obama administration, compared to its predecessor, is far more open to such
lobbying (perhaps because environmentalists and scientists actually serve in
the administration).
More importantly, the way the United States has engaged with other countries
on this issue reflects a fundamentally different attitude toward diplomacy.
Perhaps we have all become accustomed in the last seven years to the United
States acting like an adult in the international community. But the rhetoric
of the Republican presidential aspirants is a stark reminder that the
tantrum style of foreign policy I will rip up that Iran deal on day one
of my presidency! is only a few swing votes of the Electoral College away
from the Oval Office.
The climate deal is just one of a series of diplomatic accomplishments for
the Obama administration. It not only negotiated a nuclear deal with Iran,
but also pushed it through a largely hostile Congress and over the
objections of key Democratic senators like Charles Schumer and Ben Cardin.
It ended more than a half-century of hostility with Cuba even without a
regime change in Havana. And it secured a détente with Burma that helped to
speed that countrys peaceful, democratic transformation.
This diplomatic hat trick is all the more remarkable when set against the
diplomatic failures of the administration. An agreement with North Korea
the Leap Day deal of 2012 fell apart almost immediately when Pyongyang
announced a satellite launch. Secretary of State John Kerry racked up a lot
of air miles trying to advance negotiations between Israel and Palestine,
but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasnt interested in giving
any ground (quite literally in this instance). The reset with Russia went
back a little too far into the past, all the way in fact to the Cold War,
because of an eagerness on the part of NATO to push eastward and on the part
of Russian President Vladimir Putin to push westward.
In these three cases, the Obama administration could perhaps have proven
more skillful, more willing to take risks, and more open to twisting the
arms of allies (for instance, Israel). But the president is fundamentally a
cautious leader. With Iran, Cuba, and Burma, he had the U.S. business
community and U.S. public opinion pushing vigorously from behind, and the
Republican Party opposition simply couldnt push hard enough in the opposite
direction. Obama had no such tailwinds with North Korea, Palestine, and
Russia, plus he encountered some significant headwinds from the headstrong
trio of Kim Jong Eun, Netanyahu, and Putin.
For those of us pushing for additional diplomatic breakthroughs, the lesson
is to enlist the support of the business community (often a bitter pill to
swallow) and transform, however slowly, U.S. public opinion. Civil society
has to do the heavy lifting, which is as it should be. Leadership in the
absence of some degree of popular support is autocracy, and the results
arent likely to be sustainable either.
The National Security President
If Obama had focused for the last seven years exclusively on diplomacy, he
might have lived up to the Nobel Peace Prize that he received, in a burst of
premature extrapolation, only a few months after his inauguration.
But as the president took pains to point out in his Nobel acceptance speech,
hes no pacifist. He opposes many wars because he recognizes the diminishing
utility of military force. But where he believes that force can yield
results, he will let fly drones, call down aerial bombardment, and even
dispatch U.S. troops. Its not so much a moral decision his nod to just
war doctrine notwithstanding as a tactical one.
Moreover, Obama has presided over a strengthening of the surveillance state
and an almost maniacal hounding of national security whistleblowers. The
president has never pretended to be a libertarian, though he voiced some
cautions about the Patriot Act when he was senator and promised to close the
Guantanamo detention facility as his first act in the Oval Office. As
president, Obama has been rather consistent in his support of an activist
government. It just so happens that he believes that government should
provide both universal health care and universal surveillance.
The war in Syria has flummoxed the Obama administration (as it has so many
other countries). The president has been careful to resist pressure from
Democrats and Republicans alike to introduce U.S. ground troops in the
fight against the Islamic State (or against radical Islam, Bashar
al-Assad, Russian forces in Ukraine, the Houthis in Yemen, or any of the
other threats du jour).
At the same time, Obama has showed no compunction whatsoever in funding
moderate militias, sending in military advisors, and partnering with
countries like Turkey that have their own dubious agendas. Its a middle
path tailor-made to piss off just about everybody those who want to crush
Americas enemies by all means necessary, as well as those (like me) who
believe that even these more judicious (and often extrajudicial) flexings of
American muscle will produce more virulent strains of extremism.
Even The Washington Posts Dana Milbank, who has generally made fun of
warmongers, took the president to task for his uninspiring efforts at
counterterrorism. President Oh-bummer, he labeled Obama. Having exhausted
his rhetorical powers, the president has perhaps tired of trying to persuade
America of his middle course (though he continues to press his case that his
strategy is succeeding against the Islamic State).
Whether Obamas heart is in this exercise of American power, hes certainly
made such discriminate deterrence a hallmark of his administration. To
secure his diplomatic achievements, perhaps the president believes that he
has to demonstrate his willingness to punch, and punch hard. Its a Faustian
bargain, and one at the heart of the presidential enterprise in America.
Every president in the modern era has expanded American power even Jimmy
Carter in the last two years of his term while negotiating peace deals in
selected locations.
Its the price of empire. The leaders of Costa Rica and Norway dont face
such conflicts.
Beyond the Horizon
When it comes to foreign policy, the future looks like more of the same if
were lucky.
Hillary Clinton, a former secretary of state, is no stranger to diplomacy.
But shes also demonstrated time and again that she must overcompensate as
a Democrat, as a woman, as a former 1960s activist to act tough in order
to command respect in a violent, patriarchal world. Shes also proven even
more committed to kowtowing to the Netanyahu strain of Israeli politics,
which will make any movement forward on a host of Middle East issues
considerably more difficult.
Bernie Sanders has a better position on some foreign policy questions, but I
doubt that middle America, however appalled it might be at economic
inequality, is ready to elect an avowed socialist (I would love to be proven
wrong in this regard, though).
In his last year, then, Obama will be scrambling to institutionalize the
more pacific parts of his legacy, as quietly as possible. That will mean
fulfilling the terms of the nuclear deal with Iran, clearing obstacles from
the path of engagement with Cuba, implementing his Clean Power Plan,
continuing to repair Americas international reputation (for instance, by
restoring U.S. funding for UNESCO), and preserving State Department funding
from congressional attacks.
The other part of his legacy drone strikes and aerial bombing,
broad-spectrum surveillance, Special Forces operations around the globe
wont need protecting from a successor.
I was a realist eight years ago when I wrote that Obamas middle-of the-road
policies would produce a Goldilocks apocalypse. American foreign policy of
the last seven years was flawed in so many ways, and were still on the road
to this catastrophe of the middle way. Obama is no Disney hero, and theres
no unambiguously happy ending.
But as I survey the post-2016 alternatives, Im increasingly concerned that,
for the immediate future at least, what we got over the last two terms is as
good as it gets.
