Anatomy of a failed foreign policy Amir Taheri October 21, 2012

As he runs for re-election, President Obama has tried to portray his foreign policy as a success. A closer look suggests a different picture.

Let us begin with a list of areas where US foreign policy has either stalled or suffered setbacks.

Encouraged by a perceived weakness on the part of the Obama administration, Russia has cast itself as an adversary, adopting an aggressive profile in regions of vital US interest. A clear signal in Moscow’s change of attitude has come with the installation of S400 missiles close to the Caspian Basin and of long-range missiles in Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave next to Poland.

For its part, China has sped up its military buildup and flexed its muscles against Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Vietnam. Beijing has also accelerated the building of a blue-water navy to challenge the US in the Pacific and Indian oceans. And, by undervaluing its currency, China has continued what amounts to low-intensity economic warfare.

Efforts on North Korea have faded away, as Pyongyang pursues its quest for a nuclear arsenal with impunity.

Iran? The facts speak for themselves. On Obama’s watch, Iran has increased its uranium-enrichment capabilities more than tenfold and hardened its defiant rhetoric. The mullahs are also pursuing an aggressive policy in Syria, while doing as much mischief as they can in Bahrain.

US relations with Israel, America’s closest ally in the Middle East, are at low ebb with Obama’s decision to snub the Israeli prime minister during the latter’s visit to New York.

In the “Arab Spring” countries, Obama started by supporting the beleaguered despots (especially in Egypt), and then abandoned them without forming alliances with new emerging forces. As a result, the United States is regarded as a fickle friend by some and an unprincipled power by others.

In Europe, lack of clarity in Obama’s policies has left the US no longer consulted even on crucial economic issues. And for all his promise to make the oceans recede, Obama has failed to provide the leadership needed to bring the allies together on environmental issues. Even the minimum accords negotiated by the Bush administration have been put on the backburner.

Hopes of reforming such international institutions as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, not to mention the United Nations itself, have faded. Lack of US leadership has also led to an impasse in the Doha round of global free-trade negotiations.

In Latin America, the anti-American bloc led by Venezuela and Cuba has won new adherents in Ecuador, Bolivia and Nicaragua; even Argentina is adopting “anti-Yankee” accents. Meanwhile, efforts to unite the region’s pro-American nations, partly through free trade, have been dropped under pressure from Obama’s union supporters.

Part of Obama’s failure may be due to lack of experience; he had never been exposed to the challenges of international politics.

Yet the real reason for Obama’s failure may be his fantasy view of the world in which his personal charm and knowledge are vastly overrated.

This is how candidate Obama praised himself four years ago: “I think that I am a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I am a better political director than my political director.”

This has led to high-octane personalization of policymaking. Yet Obama has been unable or unwilling to make the personal contribution, in terms of study and hard work, that such a style requires.

Mideast leaders tell me that “urgent questions” remain unanswered for weeks because the president is “otherwise engaged.” The US was left without an ambassador in Baghdad for months because the president couldn’t find the time to make a decision.

Obama’s foreign policy has been a jumble of contradictions. On the one hand, deep down, the president believes that America has long projected too much of its hard power, often for the wrong reasons. Thus, he hopes to rebrand his nation as a larger version of Norway by having recourse to soft power, chiefly his own charm and intelligence.

On the other hand, he has at times used more hard power than many of his predecessors. For example, he increased US troops in Afghanistan from 19,000 in 2008 to 150,000 in 2010. And he’s ordered over 600 drone attacks on Pakistan and Yemen, against just 43 in George W. Bush’s two terms.

In his Nobel Peace Prize speech, Obama hinted at his contradictions, saying the “challenge is reconciling these two seemingly irreconcilable truths — that war is sometimes necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly.”

Such lyricism indicates Obama’s failure to distinguish reality from rhetoric. The result is a foreign policy that resembles a blend of “A Farewell to Arms” and “Waiting for Godot.”