Obama as world leader
by
RICHARD FALK*

It seemed to represent a momentous achievement in the long struggle against racism when an African American could be elected to the highest political office in the country. After a year in the White House, Obama remains more appreciated as a leader on the world stage than he does as an American president trying to address a series of daunting problems. But even globally, Obama’s star has dimmed at least temporarily. His visionary language has yet to be matched by a credible performance, and so there is a tendency to believe now that nothing much new can be expected from Washington on a series of vital issues, particularly in the Middle East and Asian settings.

In one respect, Obama enjoys considerable political capital due to the widespread sense that compared to the Bush presidency there has been much internationally to be thankful for. After all, Obama immediately struck a collegial tone in world settings, offered conciliatory words about ongoing conflicts, and seems eager to use diplomacy and multilateralism wherever possible. Coming after Bush is a help, but it is not enough, and as time passes, the benefits of not being Bush are sure to diminish. They already have. In the early months of his presidency, Obama’s words were enough to lift spirits and make world opinion believe that here at last was a leader with a constructive approach to conflict resolution. Obama’s conciliatory and visionary speeches in Turkey and Cairo on relations with the Muslim world, and the urgency that he attached to finding a diplomatic solution for the Palestine/Israel conflict and Iran confrontation were indeed encouraging. The April 2009 speech in Prague projecting a vision of a world without nuclear weapons was another high point, given credibility by his acknowledgement, the first ever by a high-ranking American, that the United States had a special responsibility as it was the only state that had actually used the weapon. Against this background it becomes less surprising that the Nobel Committee in Oslo saw fit to award its coveted peace prize to Obama, although still unusual and imprudent to give recognition based on promises and hopes rather than achievements. There has been something of a boomerang effect since the Nobel recognition, especially in light of a major escalation of American force levels in Afghanistan. Afghanistan called widespread attention to the glaring disconnect between Obama’s words of peace and militarist deeds.

Clumsy efforts to address conflict

This negative impression was reinforced by Obama’s clumsy efforts to address the Israeli/Palestinian conflict after repeatedly insisting that resolution of the conflict was an essential part of his foreign policy agenda for rather convincing reasons of national interest. This rather abstract statement of intention was reinforced by an initial modest sense of hope when Obama called for a freeze on further Israeli settlement construction throughout occupied Palestine, including East Jerusalem, as a precondition for the resumption of a peace process. If understood, this call was little more than an insistence that if peace talks were to be held Israel had to show some minimal sign of sincerity by taking a symbolic step toward acknowledging Palestinian legal and moral rights. In this instance all that was expected from Israel was to stop, and then only temporarily, the expansion of its unlawful settlements. But even this seemed far too much to ask from a right-wing Israeli government, which reacted by stonewalling until Obama backed down. Eventually, Israel was actually praised by American leaders for agreeing to a partial 10-month freeze on settlement growth despite the fact that in East Jerusalem, public building, and housing construction under way were all exempted. Even this gesture was compromised as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasted little time reassuring settlers that as soon as the 10-month period expired, robust settlement growth would resume. Even so, some settlers commenced a series of violent attacks on Palestinian villages and land, including defiling a mosque, explicitly in retaliation for this minor deference by Tel Aviv to Washington’s promotion of peace negotiations. The White House remained a humbled spectator of these outrageous Israeli efforts to undermine their accommodating gesture. Even the normally supine Palestine Authority has held out for something more unconditional with respect to the settlements, at least demanding fulfillment of Obama’s original insistence on a total freeze.

Obama’s call for an immediate resumption of peace negotiations was always either naïve or worse. The conditions for meaningful negotiations did not exist. Palestinian representation remains extremely suspect, given the split between Hamas and the PLO and considering the compromised character of the Palestinian Authority. The picture was bleak on the Israeli side as well. The rightist coalition governing from Tel Aviv had made it clear that it was not ready to budge on its demand of total sovereignty over Jerusalem or its refusal to consider the right of return of Palestinian refugees, as well as its ill-disguised solidarity with the settler movement. Precious little was left to negotiate about given the presumed and increasingly discredited two-state framework, making any agreement flowing from such a process little more than a formalized surrender of the Palestinian struggle for a just solution in accord with the right of self-determination. One is left to ponder which of the two indictments of the Obama diplomacy is more convincing: either a failure to realize that the parties as now constituted were incapable of negotiating a favorable outcome or that once back at the negotiating table Washington felt it could pressure the Palestinians into accepting a humiliating denial of their rights, which would be proclaimed to the world as “peace.” Back in 1993 Edward Said viewed the Oslo framework, the first peace process, as a fraud because it could not possibly lead to a just reconciliation. One can only imagine the invective that Said were he alive would hurl at this projected Obama one-sided way of resolving the conflict.

An escalated commitment to Afghanistan

In some respects the approach taken by Obama to the Afghanistan War is as disturbing. True, unlike Israel/Palestine, Obama warned his followers during the presidential campaign that he would match a phased disengagement from the Iraq War with an escalated commitment to prevail in Afghanistan. According to Obama, the Iraq War should never have been started and needed to be ended as soon as possible, while the Afghanistan War was necessary for American and world security, and never should have been downplayed as it was during the Bush years. Against this background, it is probably not unexpected that Obama should have relied on the same secretary of defense, Robert Gates, and the same military commander, Gen. David Petraeus, who had the ear of George W. Bush, but it was certainly not a recipe for any constructive change. What is worse, Obama followed Petraeus’ advice by replacing a traditional military commander in Afghanistan with a counterinsurgency specialist, Stanley McChrystal, who had a dreadful human rights record compiled in Afghan areas under his control. By striking a treacherous middle ground between an even greater escalation of troop levels, 60,000 instead of 30,000, and gradual military disengagement, Obama was his usual thoughtful self, but in the process managed to displease both main participants in the policy debates. The Republicans had wanted the president to follow the recommendations of the military without any downsizing or exit scenario, and the anti-war base in the Democratic Party that had done so much to get Obama elected wanted the president to back away from the intervention. Both were displeased by the choice made, but the Republicans less so than the anti-war Democrats in Obama’s own party. Beyond the unpopularity of this militarist move, the Afghan policy is headed for almost certain frustration, followed by near certain failure.

Beyond the decision itself, was the refusal to seize the opportunity to change course. In a sense, the corrupt Karzai administration had totally discredited itself in the 2009 elections, which were stolen in a crude and primitive way. It should be evident from recent history that interventions on behalf of corrupt leaders without domestic legitimacy are almost always going to turn the population against any foreign military presence, which will be regarded not as benign assistance to a beleaguered government, but as an unwelcome foreign occupation that validates national resistance. This remains the unlearned lesson of the Vietnam War. It is a lesson that the American political establishment refuses to learn because it is beholden to a military-corporate-media-think tank complex that is biased toward military approaches to problem solving even when experience demonstrates that they do not work. As with Bush, Obama assumed that a Taliban victory in Afghanistan was more dangerous to American security than a continuing military occupation. This overlooked the fact that the Taliban was a national movement with no wider agenda, and that to engage it militarily would further destabilize Pakistan. Perhaps, the underlying structural influence of the military on American security policy makes it unfair to blame Obama. He could not expect to retain public confidence if he antagonizes the Pentagon, just as he is hemmed in on the Israel-Palestine conflict by a Congress that consistently does the bidding of the Israeli Lobby.

On climate change, the Obama instincts were positive about seeking to reduce carbon emissions, but again special interests have gotten in the way, and it looks like not much will happen. Obama did use his persisting international prestige to salvage a deal of sorts at the 2009 Copenhagen world conference, obliging governments to announce in public what they will be prepared to do over the course of the next several decades to cut harmful emissions. Such pledges are deliberately couched as voluntary undertakings, and it seems doubtful whether the overall effect will be sufficient to avoid the anticipated severe harm resulting from global warming, including further devastating droughts in Africa, dangerously rising sea levels and alarming acidification of the oceans. Obama has done what he thinks he can to push domestic legislation that will restrain corporate heat-warming behavior, but whether Congress can be induced to circumvent the lobbying of special interests remains in doubt, a further testimonial to the captive character of presidential politics. The American presidency is still the most powerful political job in the world, but what can be done by a president to adapt the most crucial policies to changing circumstances, priorities and values seems miniscule. The leadership is hamstrung by special interests and the capacity of powerful outside forces to paralyze government with the help of mainstream media.

The domestic picture is brighter but not by much. Obama, as he is quick to point out, inherited the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Again for a leader who promised change as the dominant theme of his electoral campaign, once in office Obama opted for continuity. He sold out Main Street America in a vain effort to gain the confidence of Wall Street bankers and financiers. As a result he presided over a recovery of the stock market but not of the citizenry, especially those who had lost their jobs and homes as a result of the economic meltdown.

The spectacle of a jobless recovery has led to much disaffection among Democrats and independents, evident in recent Republican victories in the state-level elections of two governors and a senator. Obama has reacted somewhat belatedly by finally highlighting his strong commitment to reducing double-digit unemployment even though he continues to coexist with scandalous multi-million dollar bonuses to corporate executives who were doing so badly they had to be saved from collapse by payments of taxpayer monies in the form of gigantic bailouts.

As with his appointments in the area of national security, so also in relation to economic policy Obama surrounded himself with precisely those individuals who were the architects and executors of the irresponsible policies that led to the real estate bubble and high-risk banking and investment (Bernanke, Geithner and Summers), and avoided altogether respected critics of the bubble economic policies of unregulated markets, including Nobel prize winners (Stiglitz, Krugman). Again it seems that the weight of Wall Street cancels the political will of voting majorities. In effect, an elected leader cannot hope to govern unless the money/investment community gives a thumbs up, which as with failed wars, means there is an institutional refusal to learn from past failure and a frightening tendency to opt for policies that virtually ensure a doleful repetition of failure.

This assessment of Obama’s limits as a global leader needs to be understood as partly a judgme nt passed on his policies and approach, but mainly a comment on the strength of the structural constraints on any American president. If all political leaders in the United States must satisfy the demands of the Pentagon, Wall Street and the Israeli Lobby, there is not much room for political innovation in those policy areas where reform is most needed. At times, Obama has hinted that he needs to be pushed from below if his performance is to match his promises for reform and change. Unfortunately, the grassroots energy displayed to elect Obama has not lasted. The American public is currently either passive or angry in a manner that makes it anti-government, and the Republican Party opposition has played up to this mood by devoting itself to making Obama look as bad as possible, irresponsibly attacking efforts by the Obama administration to achieve much needed reforms in the areas of healthcare and climate change.

There is reason to be pessimistic. Obama is as good a leader as the American people can produce at this stage. The alternatives waiting in the wings of power are clearly worse, either championing the distortions wrought by special interests or humbly submitting to them. What seems to be badly needed, but nowhere in sight, is a 21st century renewal of politics in America. This renewal would base domestic and foreign policy on two prime goals: the regulation of market forces for the sake of people and the downsizing of global militarism on the basis of human security. To move in such a direction would entail greater reliance on the United Nations and more respect for international law. Without these fundamental adjustments, it is a mistake to expect too much from a president even as decent and talented as Obama.

*Richard Falk is a professor emeritus of international law and practice at Princeton University.