Bob Beck's Foreign Policy Blog

This is the third in a four-part series on U.S. foreign policy in the 21st century, the focus of which will be to explain how America went from being the self-proclaimed “indispensable” leader of the free world in the 1990s to today’s more conflicted, hesitant, and introspective great power. 

“I’ve come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition.” So spoke President Barack Obama in a major speech in Cairo on June 4, 2009, a mere five months after succeeding George W. Bush. 

It can be argued that the aforementioned address represented the high point of Obama’s relationship with the Muslim world. Events beginning in 2010 in a provincial town in central Tunisia would cast an enduring shadow over the President’s lofty Cairo rhetoric and present unforgiving foreign policy challenges to his administration. 

The junior senator from Illinois arrived in the White House facing a surfeit of seemingly intractable problems. From the 2008 global financial crisis to the forever wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the young president inherited an overflowing geopolitical inbox. As is often the case with new denizens of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, despite their political victories in the domestic policy realm, foreign policy would become the great equalizer in Obama’s stay in the White House. 

His main headaches, not surprisingly, emanated from the dreaded arc of instability running from North Africa to the Hindu Kush mountains. Starting with the post 9/11 wars, Obama pursued a concerted, and ultimately successful, policy to end the fighting in Iraq, which he had criticized virulently as a candidate in 2008. As such, the final U.S. combat forces departed Iraq in December of 2011, only to see the security vacuum filled by the Islamic State (ISIS), forcing the administration to again militarily engage in 2014 to stem the advance of this new gang of vicious jihadis. 

Meanwhile, the administration initially doubled down on Afghanistan, approving a surge of troops in 2009 with American forces in the country numbering over 100,000 by 2011. During his second term, however, Obama withdrew the bulk of the GIs, leaving only a residual contingent at the end of his presidency of less than 10,000 for training and counter-terrorism. Those troops would not be completely withdrawn until President Biden’s controversial decision to, once again, leave the battlefields of Afghanistan in America’s rear view mirror.

One resounding victory for the Obama presidency occurred in May of 2011, nearly ten years after the 9/11 attacks, when U.S. special forces raided a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, killing al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. The strike was the result of long and painstaking work by the U.S. intelligence community and highlighted Obama’s capability for decisive action in the global war on terror.  

More than any other international crisis, the Arab Spring of 2011 and its consequences proved to be the most exigent of the Obama years. America’s fledgling statesman was faced with the unenviable choice of supporting sclerotic, pro-American autocrats versus the will of the oppressed Arab masses who were significantly influenced by Islamist political parties. This was a classic “pick your poison” scenario and Obama tried to split the difference. Initially playing a key role in 2011 in pushing Egypt’s long time ruler, Hosni Mubarak, to the sidelines, the White House turned a blind eye two years later when the Egyptian military took power in a coup, ousting the democratically elected but openly Islamist Mohamed Morsi from the presidency. 

Consequently, Obama alienated many long-standing Arab leaders in the region by throwing Mubarak under the revolutionary bus while, soon after, disappointing much of the “Arab street” by not condemning the 2013 military coup in Egypt. Furthermore, the turbulence in the region produced a wave of refugees that descended upon Europe in 2015, straining the coherence of the European Union and providing the fodder for the growth of populist parties across the continent, a phenomenon that would emigrate to America. 

Compounding Obama’s standing in the Middle East was his response (or lack thereof) in the infamous “red line” crisis in Syria in 2013. In 2012 Obama proclaimed that Syria’s use of chemical weapons against its opponents would constitute a red line that would prompt a response.  A year later the Syrian regime killed over 1,000 civilians in a sarin gas attack on a suburb of Damascus. While Obama considered responding militarily, he eventually developed cold feet, kicking the issue to the U.S. Congress which, true to form, punted. The red line was crossed with seeming impunity and America’s reputation in the region suffered a weighty blow. 

As the Middle East, the war on terror, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan consumed the U.S. foreign policy establishment, America’s historic and emerging great power competitors took advantage of Washington’s diverted attention. In China, Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, ushering in a more forceful and global foreign policy, harkening back to the perceived historic glories of the Middle Kingdom. Over the next decade China would expand its commercial and diplomatic influence over much of Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia while flexing its military muscles in east Asia.  

At the same time, the Russian bear officially came out of hibernation, occupying the Crimea in early 2014, starting a shooting war in eastern Ukraine later that same year, and becoming a significant power broker in Syria and parts of Africa. The Ukraine conflict, which in reality started on Obama’s watch in 2014, represents the greatest threat to European security since World War II, and continues to flummox western capitals from Washington to Berlin. 

While assigning causality in politics is generally a losing proposition, one can reasonably posit that Obama’s struggles in the international realm contributed substantively to the rise to power of Donald Trump, the repercussions of which are echoing across the globe to the present day.

Note: This article was published by the Brattleboro Reformer on 20 October and by the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript on 23 October.