Albert R. Hunt: Obama's Fading Dream of a Foreign Policy
Legacy
President Barack Obama addresses
the Young Southeast Asian Leadership Initiative Town Hall at the University of Malaya
in Kuala Lumpur
on April 27.
Sunday, 27 Apr 2014 11:22 AM
President Barack Obama envisioned
building a foreign-policy legacy in his second term: a nuclear deal with
sanction-strapped Iran, an
end to U.S. involvement in
conflicts overseas, and a successful pivot to Asia,
including a trans-Pacific trade pact.
Fifteen months after his second
inaugural, those goals look more problematic, and Syria's
Bashar Assad and Russia's
Vladimir Putin have created new crises. Dashed foreign-policy dreams aren't
unique to this second-term president: Dwight D. Eisenhower had to contend with
the downing of a spy plane by the Soviet Union,
the Iran-contra scandal bedeviled Ronald Reagan, and the Iraq War turned into a
nightmare in George W. Bush's second term.
Obama's woes are complicated by a
sense — denied by the White House — of American disengagement. "The
perception of American withdrawal is palpable," says Stephen Hadley, the
national security adviser to George W. Bush.
"The Europeans and the Gulf states think that
we're leaving," says Bill Cohen, who served as defense secretary under
President Bill Clinton. "The Asian countries think we're not coming."
Moreover, the president is caught
in a contradictory, and unfair, squeeze. On issues such as Syria and Russia, he's depicted as
insufficiently aggressive or tough. At the same time, the American public,
turned off by the Iraq and Afghanistan
wars, wants no part of more aggressive foreign entanglements. Even some
Republicans are taking cues from Senator Rand Paul's quasi-isolationists
stance.
Some of the specifics seem bleak
and intractable. The Syrian civil war is deteriorating, affecting the entire
region, and the dictator, Assad, is getting stronger, even as the
administration says he must leave power. Despite the valiant efforts of
Secretary of State John Kerry, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is
barely on life support.
U.S. officials acknowledge they lack a good read on Putin's
intentions. There is a good case to be made that Obama's policies toward Russia are
smart in the long run. Yet like every president since Harry Truman, there's
little Obama can do to stop Russian aggressiveness in the short term.
Even the two big areas where major
successes are possible this year, an Iranian nuclear deal and sweeping trade
agreements, are fraught with political complications.
Both sides want a nuclear
agreement, Obama for security and legacy reasons, the Iranians for economic and
political ones. Important details remain, informed sources say, but the
negotiators have made progress, and there's even some hope of an accord before an
interim agreement expires July 20.
If that happens, there will be two
critical questions: Although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won't be pleased, and his government will
express strong reservations, will the Israelis go all out to persuade Congress
to sabotage the deal? Then, will two top Democrats — Senate Foreign Relations
Committee Chairman Robert Menendez and New York Senator Charles Schumer — join
Republicans in trying to thwart a deal?
At that point, would Obama be
willing to expend enormous political capital by telling the country, as well
Congress, that failure to accept the deal means a nuclear-armed Iran or war?
The other conceivable victory
would be obtaining so-called fast-track negotiating authority for trade
agreements, followed by the signing of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which
would be the biggest trade deal in U.S. history.
Obama's problem is his own party.
A majority of House Democrats oppose the pacts under consideration, and Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid has signaled little interest in bringing any
agreements to a vote this year. The White House, already worried about the
prospect of Republican control of the Senate in Obama's final two years, has
difficult calculations to weigh.
The president returns Tuesday from
a trip to Asia, where his pivot policy had alienated China
without assuaging U.S.
allies. When he lands at Andrews Air Force Base, he may feel that even the
recalcitrant and partisan Congress isn't any messier than this uninviting
global landscape.
Albert R. Hunt
Al
Hunt is the executive editor for Washington
for Bloomberg News, and married to Judy Woodruff.
Note: Bloomberg News
is a division of Bloomberg LP.
Michael R.
Bloomberg is the founder of Bloomberg
LP, the founder of the Bloomberg
Family Foundation, was a benefactor for the Harlem Children's Zone, and a donor for the Robin Hood Foundation.
George
Soros was a benefactor for the Harlem
Children's Zone, and the chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open Society.
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Harlem Children's Zone, the Robin
Hood Foundation, the Urban Institute
(think tank), the Aspen Institute
(think tank), the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (think
tank), and the Brookings Institution
(think tank).
Judy
Woodruff is a trustee at the Urban
Institute (think tank), married to Al
Hunt, and was an anchor at CNN.
Walter
Isaacson was the chairman & CEO for CNN, is a director at the Bloomberg
Family Foundation, the president & CEO for the Aspen Institute (think tank).
Ted Turner
is the founder of CNN, and a co-chairman for the Nuclear Threat
Initiative (think tank).
Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace (think tank) was a funder for the Nuclear
Threat Initiative (think tank).
Jessica
Tuchman Mathews is a director at the Nuclear
Threat Initiative (think tank), the president of the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace (think tank), a director at the American Friends of
Bilderberg (think tank), was an honorary trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank), and
a 2008 Bilderberg conference participant (think tank).
Ed Griffin’s interview with
Norman Dodd in 1982
(The investigation into the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace uncovered the plans for population
control by involving the United
States in war)
Cameron F. Kerry
is a fellow at the Brookings Institution
(think tank), and John F. Kerry’s
brother.
Teresa Heinz
Kerry is an honorary trustee at the Brookings
Institution (think tank), and married to John F. Kerry.
John
F. Kerry is Cameron F. Kerry’s
brother, married to Teresa Heinz Kerry,
and the secretary at the U.S. Department
of State for the Barack Obama
administration.
Martin S. Indyk
was the assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of State, a VP &
director of the Foreign Policy Program for the Brookings Institution (think tank), a U.S.
ambassador for Israel, is a Middle East
peace envoy for the U.S. Department of
State, and a founding director at the Saban
Center for Middle East Policy.
Saban
Center for Middle East Policy is a policy center at the Brookings Institution (think tank).
Haim
Saban is a benefactor at the Saban
Center for Middle East Policy, a trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank), and a friend of Shimon Peres.
Shimon
Peres is a friend of Haim Saban,
and the president of Israel.
Benjamin
Netanyahu is the prime minister for Israel.
Daniel B. Shapiro
is the U.S. ambassador for Israel,
and was Dianne Feinstein’s legislative
assistant.
Dianne
Feinstein’s legislative assistant was Daniel
B. Shapiro, is a U.S. Senate senator, and married to Richard C. Blum.
Richard
C. Blum is married to Dianne
Feinstein, and an honorary trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank).
Saban
Center for Middle East Policy is a policy center at the Brookings Institution (think tank).
Kenneth M.
Pollack was a senior fellow, Middle East
policy for the Brookings Institution
(think tank), is a senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, and is married to Andrea Koppel.
Andrea
Koppel is married to Kenneth M.
Pollack, and was a correspondent for CNN.
Judy
Woodruff was an anchor at CNN, is
a trustee at the Urban Institute (think
tank), and married to Al Hunt.
Al
Hunt is married to Judy Woodruff,
and the executive editor for Washington
for Bloomberg News.
Bloomberg News
is a division of Bloomberg LP.
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