Most
US Presidents use their retirement to construct their interpretation
of events transpiring during their service. They prefer to distance
their more candid, more personal observations from the people,
places, and activities that occupied their incumbencies. The
mythology of the magisterial presidency demands that nothing tarnish
the contrived imagery of sobriety, civility, and selfless governance.
Therefore, it is uncommon for a President to air differences and
confidences while still in office. That reticence makes President
Obama’s recent comments, as told to Atlantic writer Jeffrey
Goldberg (The Obama Doctrine, April, 2016), even more
interesting.
Now
Goldberg is no leftist. His commentary accompanying his interviews
shows him to be a reliable consumer and purveyor of the official,
self-serving Washington line on good guys and bad guys,
freedom-lovers and freedom-haters. For Goldberg, Ghaddafi, Assad,
Hugo Chavez, Putin, and the others who defied US diktat personify
evil, while despots who toe the US line get a free pass. The fact
that Obama does not unqualifiedly endorse this simplistic picture
makes the interview most interesting.
For
the vast majority of the entertainment-driven, scandal-seeking media,
Obama’s openly expressed disdain for those US allies that he
labeled “free riders” served as blood-soaked red meat. They
relished the gossipy blast at putative friends like Hollande,
Cameron, Erdogan, and the Saudis. But they never stopped to develop
the implications of his remarks, refusing to frame the comments in
the context of a new balance of power and shifting alliances.
For
a time, the Obama administration has been moving away from the
triumphant unilateralist (one dominant super power) position emerging
from the demise of the Soviet Union. Obama would like us to believe
that this is part of a rational, measured policy that he describes as
“realist” and “internationalist”—a rejection of both
“isolationism” and “liberal interventionism.” In fact, it is
a move imposed by events: the endless, unwinnable wars, the
intensification of nation-state rivalries, economic stagnation, and
the resultant international instability. The Obama foreign policy
vision reflects these new realities more than it shapes them.
Obama
was vetted and anointed by significant sectors of the ruling class,
and subsequently elected because his youth, dynamism, différence,
and “hope/change” slogan fit the needs of a country wounded by
economic crisis, political dysfunction, and military blunders. Just
as James Carter emerged as a clean, pure and decidedly different
candidate to legitimize the Presidential myth after the Nixon fiasco,
Obama was the best option to clean up the Bush mess. Obama obliquely
concedes this when he characterizes himself as a “retrenchment”
President.
He
embraced the responsibility with gusto, attempting to replace open
military aggression and occupation with bombs, drones and special
forces. The goal of advancing US national interests (really,
capitalist interests) is addressed best, he believes, with care and
deliberation: “We have to choose where we can
make a real impact.” Or as he put more crudely, “We don’t do
stupid shit.”-- An obvious allusion to the foreign policy of his
predecessor.
But
it is not only the hyper-militarized foreign policy of the Bush
administration that Obama rejects; it is also the shrewd, cynical
Clintonesque foreign policy of “liberal interventionism” that he
opposes.
Liberal
interventionism-- sometimes known as “humanitarian
interventionism”-- is the doctrine that disguises US regime change,
aggression, and meddling as inspired by the promotion of human
rights. Whether it's aiding in the dismantling of Yugoslavia, noxious
policies against Cuba or Venezuela, saber-rattling in the South China
Sea, threats to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, a coup in
Ukraine, or the wholesale dismantling of the state of Libya, the US
hides its moves behind a hypocritical appeal to the cause of
encouraging human rights and democracy. The self-serving US doctrine
of exporting human rights and democracy is a US counterpart to the
British Empire's previous mission of civilizing the non-European
peoples; both are a transparent cover for imperial design.
Within
the Obama Administration, the chief proponents of liberal
interventionism were Hillary Clinton, Samantha Power, Susan Rice, Ben
Rhodes, and Antony Blinken, according to Jeffrey Goldberg.
When
not sitting on an opportunistic fence, John Kerry will side with the
“humanitarians.”
Goldberg
traces Obama's “realist” foreign policy position to a speech the
then senator made before an anti-war rally:
“I
suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein,” he said. “He is a
brutal man. A ruthless man … But I also know that Saddam poses no
imminent and direct threat to the United States or to his neighbors.”
He added, “I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear
rationale and without strong international support will only fan the
flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best,
impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of
al-Qaeda.”
Certainly
Obama deserves some credit for anticipating the strong and enduring
resistance to an unprovoked invasion and occupation of a sovereign
country. But it's important to note that it is not a defense of
Iraq's sovereignty and right of self-determination that anchors his
argument, but a calculation. Obama, like all bourgeois politicians,
has not abandoned the imperialist project; he has only sought to
improve it-- a point lost on those worshiping him in the run-up to
the 2008 election.
The
decisive event spurring Obama to settle accounts in The
Atlantic interviews is the overthrow
of Ghadaffi and the destruction of the Libyan state. It has become
impossible to see the US, NATO, and Gulf states' war on Libya as
anything more than a criminal enterprise and a strategic disaster.
Obama is unconcerned about the criminality, but troubled by the
debacle as a blemish on his record. Thus, he goes to great lengths to
push responsibility onto his allies (Sarkozy, Cameron, etc.) and the
liberal interventionists in his administration:
“...as
tragic as the Libyan situation may be, it’s not our problem. The
way I looked at it was that it would be our problem if, in fact,
complete chaos and civil war broke out in Libya. But this is not so
at the core of U.S. interests that it makes sense for us to
unilaterally strike against the Qaddafi regime. At that point, you’ve
got Europe and a number of Gulf countries who despise Qaddafi, or are
concerned on a humanitarian basis, who are calling for action. But
what has been a habit over the last several decades in these
circumstances is people pushing us to act but then showing an
unwillingness to put any skin in the game.”
Since
we know from the Tony Blair phone transcripts (see my Journalists
or Courtesans?)
that on February 25, 2011-- barely two weeks after most journalists
date the beginnings of the Libyan “uprising”-- the US and NATO
were already threatening armed intervention, Obama's proclaimed
reluctance to act seems less than convincing. But his determination
to deflect the blame is certainly apparent. Despite his slipperiness,
the fact is that the US vigorously bombed the Libyan government into
defeat.
Goldberg notes Obama's reflections:
“When
I go back and I ask myself what went wrong,” Obama said, “there’s
room for criticism, because I had more faith in the Europeans, given
Libya’s proximity, being invested in the follow-up,” he said. He
noted that Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, lost his job the
following year. And he said that British Prime Minister David Cameron
soon stopped paying attention, becoming “distracted by a range of
other things.” Of France, he said, “Sarkozy wanted to trumpet the
flights he was taking in the air campaign, despite the fact that we
had wiped out all the air defenses and essentially set up the entire
infrastructure” for the intervention. This sort of bragging was
fine, Obama said, because it allowed the U.S. to “purchase France’s
involvement in a way that made it less expensive for us and less
risky for us.” In other words, giving France extra credit in
exchange for less risk and cost to the United States was a useful
trade-off—except that “from the perspective of a lot of the folks
in the foreign-policy establishment, well, that was terrible. If
we’re going to do something, obviously we’ve got to be up front,
and nobody else is sharing in the spotlight.”
With
the Libyan fiasco as a backdrop, one understands Obama's subsequent
hesitancy to bomb the hell out of Assad's Syria. Goldberg (and
others) make much of Obama's turn away from his “red line”
ultimatum on Syria: “History may record August 30, 2013, as the day
Obama prevented the U.S. from entering yet another disastrous Muslim
civil war...”
But
the truth is far more complicated. The rebuff of Cameron's
partnership by the UK parliament, US opinion polls, Merkel's
disapproval, and intelligence hesitance all played a large role in
causing Obama to throw the question of war into Congress's reluctant
lap. Rather than defying “Washington's playbook” and rebuffing
his own liberal interventionists, the President got cold feet.
Nonetheless,
in this election season, Obama's uncharacteristic criticisms of his
Administration mates do not bode well for the post-Obama era. Hillary
Clinton, the presumptive next President, departs little from the
“Washington playbook” on Obama's reckoning, seemingly willing to
unleash the bombers at the slightest provocation. In this, she
differs little from the Republican bullies. Only Sanders, with little
chance to win the nomination, shows some leaning toward Obama's
“realism,” his “enlightened” imperialism.
Obama's
pull-back from the Syrian intervention left many allies confused,
angry, even disgusted. It brought many existing frictions to a new,
more damaging level. The old Washington consensus-- a euphemism for
complete and servile Washington hegemony-- has been unraveling for
some time. The rise of new economic powers and power blocs, the
scramble for recovery and advantage after the trough of the economic
crisis, and the US continuing engagement in costly, multiple wars
sharply challenges US dominance.
Obama's
backing away from overt action in Syria and recent rapprochement
with Iran left the Jordanian leadership unhappy. Similarly, Turkey's
Erdogan, who Obama considers a failure and an “authoritarian,”
now challenges US leadership and authority in the region.
But
the long-standing Saudi relationship is nearly fractured; festering
differences only deepened with the Syrian and Iranian moves.
Criticism of Saudi actions in Yemen, the US jettisoning of Mubarak,
and the oil wars preceded the current hostility. With US energy
production nearing self-sufficiency, the Saudi grip on Obama's
foreign policy was loosened. One might speculate that Saudi Arabia's
decision not to put a floor on falling oil prices constituted a
response to the new-found independence. The US responded by removing
the ban on exporting US energy resources. For a recent account
appreciative of Obama's candor regarding Saudi Arabia in these
interviews see the always perceptive commentator on Middle Eastern
affairs, Patrick Cockburn, writing in Counterpunch.
Goldberg's
interviews show clearly a growing exasperation with the US's
traditional Middle Eastern allies and a yearning for new, more
promising relations on the part of Obama. Israel and Saudi Arabia--
traditional loyal cops for US aims-- often defy US orders, adding to
what Obama calls the post-Libyan “mess.”
Obama
makes it clear that he he would like to get past his Middle Eastern
mess, a task that he was elected to perform. He would like to focus
on his Asia pivot. He would like to shift his attention to dampening
Chinese influence and strengthening US economic links with other
Asian countries-- the policy of isolating the PRC embodied in the
Trans-Pacific Pact.
He
acclaims his “restraint” in South and Central America as a
formula for patient, but effective regime change, a formula that he
hopes to exercise in his new relationship with Cuba.
If
we take the Obama interviews as a kind of candid valedictory, we can
say that he bitterly regrets failing to fulfill his mission of
restoring a stability to the Middle East favorable to US corporate
interests. We also can say that, after Libya, he came to the
conclusion that tolerating the liberal interventionists in their
knee-jerk military responses to advancing US imperial designs is a
recipe for further entanglements and costly “messes.” He has
arrived at an alternative, measured, “rational” imperialism in
its stead, an imperialism that reflects the rise of new regional and
international powers, the weakening of US hegemony, and the need to
not be drawn into unconditional alliances.
Others
have seen the Obama valediction for what it is: a step away from the
New American Century war hawks and their “liberal” counterparts
who hide their war mongering behind human rights. The
Wall Street Journal responded to The
Obama Doctrine with a scathing
attack issued by Global View
columnist, Bret Stephens (Barack
Obama Checks Out, 3-15-16). Stephens
agitatedly charges Obama with giving interviews to Goldberg “...that
are.. gratuitously damaging to long standing US alliances,
international security and Mr. Obama's reputation as a serious
steward of the American interests...” Harsh words, indeed.
But
even more troubling is the pack of rabid candidates seeking a chance
to replace Obama. Neither Hillary Clinton nor any of the Republican
candidates shares Obama's professed sobriety in pursuing imperial
goals. All see military might and its ready exercise as the fulcrum
of foreign policy. None share Obama's preference for drones and
special operations over mass bombings and overt military operations.
None would call out the “free-riders” and trouble makers. If one
of them becomes President, we are back to the cowboy imperialism of
Bush, the younger. Obama-imperialism is bad enough.
Zoltan
Zigedy
No comments:
Post a Comment