In this time of global tumult, the debate in Washington essentially boils down to two opposite positions: It is all President Barack Obama’s fault, according to his critics; no, it is not, according to his supporters, because these are events beyond his control.
According to a New York Times report, Americans often think of their president as an all-powerful figure who can command the tides of history — and presidents have encouraged this image over the years because the perception itself can be a form of power.
But as his critics have made the case that Obama’s mistakes have fuelled the turmoil in places like Syria, Iraq and Ukraine, the president has increasingly argued that his power to shape these seismic forces is actually limited.
“Apparently,” he said in frustration the other day, “people have forgotten that America, as the most powerful country on earth, still does not control everything around the world.”
While as a statement of fact Obama’s assertion may be self-evident, it was seen by adversaries as a cop-out and even by more sympathetic analysts as a revealing moment for a president whiplashed by international instability.
“At least since World War II, presidents have been unwilling to discuss deficiencies in capability because they’re expected to do everything and they like that sense of omnipotence,” said Jeremy Shapiro, a former Obama State Department official now at the Brookings Institution. “Obama has been trying to change that in the last year because he senses that the requirements of omnipotence have gotten so far out of whack with what he can actually accomplish that he needs to change the expectations.”
The risk, naturally, is that the president looks like he is simply trying to excuse his own actions or inaction as the case may be. “It’s become a refrain to the point where I think people are becoming quite critical that that’s his response to everything,” said Daniel L Byman, a former member of the September 11 commission staff now teaching at Georgetown University. “He’s not differentiating between things he can influence and those that he can’t.”
The bill of particulars against Obama is long. In the view of his critics, he failed to stanch the rise of the Islamic State when he rejected proposals to arm more moderate elements of the Syrian resistance. He left a vacuum in Iraq by not doing more to leave a residual force behind when US troops exited in 2011. And he signalled weakness to President Vladimir Putin of Russia, encouraging the Kremlin to think it could intervene in Ukraine without fear of significant consequence.
“He is responsible for actions and attitudes he took that have contributed to some of those crises — and he is also responsible for how he responds, or fails to respond,” said William C Inboden, a former national security aide to President George W Bush. “But”
Republicans are not the only ones voicing such sentiments. In her interview with the Atlantic, former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton said “the failure” to build up moderate Syrian rebels left a vacuum for the more ruthless forces of the Islamic State to fill.
