President Obama is leaving the White House much as he entered it. An article in the Harvard Law Review. A big speech in Chicago next week (setting forth his vision for the United States, once again, I suppose). A major foreign policy speech on Israel between Christmas and New Year's day (with Secretary of State John Kerry playing Charlie McCarthy to President Obama’s Edgar Bergen). But mostly, President Obama seems to be leaving the White House with the same views that he came in with.
Some presidents change in office. The presidency and events change them – and change their views of the world. George W. Bush is a recent example. People see George W. Bush as the bumbler who got us into Iraq. But David Rothkopf, CEO and editor of the FP Group, sees a different George W. Bush:
“Admittedly, the idea that Bush finished strong in office is not part of the common narrative of a presidency much more defined by its actions in the wake of 9/11, the errors associated with the Iraq invasion, the rendition and torture of prisoners, Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, and the related alienation of important allies worldwide. But during his second term, Bush and his team produced another, underappreciated story. …
Beyond traveling up the learning curve of a new, challenging period in U.S. foreign policy, Bush realized his team needed to change and began making both subtle and significant changes. …
[Secretary of State Condoleezza] Rice knew that there was another factor that would shape the new national security team: Bush himself. He was no longer a neophyte president. In Rice’s words, ‘The president had grown.’ …
Noticeably, Bush changed course on key issues. Not only did he show courage on some of those changes – adding troops for the surge was hugely unpopular, for example – but he also showed a willingness to get personally involved to try to make things work. In some ways, this meant that he simply rolled up his sleeves and did the work of a manager. For example, he instituted weekly videoconferences with his team in Iraq, as well as regular exchanges with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.”
There wasn’t that kind of change for President Obama. He is leaving office with pretty much the same views he came into office with. He never wanted the United States to be in Iraq, and he acted like it as president, involving himself with Iraq as little as possible. Not for him the weekly phone calls with his team in Iraq. And the essential policy has stayed the same throughout his presidency: do as little as circumstances allow. If we have more “boots on the ground” in Iraq than we did a couple of years ago, it is because we had no choice, not because of any rethinking of policy.
In the rest of the Middle East, the President seems to take whatever happens as proof of the correctness of his policy of backing off and doing as little as possible.
David Rothkopf said this of President Obama’s foreign policy in September of 2014: “It is hard to think of a recent president who has grown so little in office.” George Will said much the same thing earlier this week: “A former colleague of Obama’s on the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School described him as someone who never learned anything from anyone with whom he disagreed.”
In line with Valerie Jarrett’s comments on the President, I would say it this way (as I did in the title of this post): Barack Obama: A man so smart when he entered office, that he learned nothing while he was in it.
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