Obama: US Isolationism Not an Option
U.S. President Barack Obama, in seeking to counter unrelenting criticism of his foreign policy, outlined his vision for America’s role in the world during a commencement address at the U.S. Military Academy on Wednesday.
The speech in West Point, N.Y., came one day after the president put forward a blueprint for ending U.S. military engagement in Afghanistan by the time he leaves office.
Republicans in the Senate, most vocally John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Kelly Ayotte, called Obama’s decision on Afghanistan a monumental mistake on Tuesday, saying the response was a victory of politics over strategy.
Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking to Good Morning America Wednesday, bristled at the criticism.
“Well, I just flatly disagree. There seems to be an industry of automatic opposition to anything, but the fact is that everything that has been accomplished in Afghanistan in the last five years has been accomplished with a deadline,” Kerry said.
In defending the decision regarding troop levels in Afghanistan on CBS This Morning, Kerry said, “What it really is is a statement of transition that is appropriate to the timing as expressed by the military and the generals and by the situation on the ground in Afghanistan.”
Kerry said the U.S. understands “its role of leadership in the world,” adding that the U.S. is continuing to lead in Iran; Syria, where the U.S. is increasingly offering assistance to the Syrian opposition; and in “Maghreb, in the Sahel, in the Levant, in South Asia and in East Asia.”
“The fact is, the United States is more engaged in more places than it has ever been at any time in history,” Kerry said.
Diplomacy efforts
The speech Wednesday comes as Obama has been increasingly under fire from many foreign policy specialists for his handling of issues like the civil war in Syria, the political crisis in Ukraine and the struggle against terrorism, according to a report in The New York Times.
Critics, the report said, have complained that Obama has not exerted enough leadership in a world they see as still dangerous more than a dozen years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The president’s broad vision for America’s role in the world – one that is reliant on international diplomacy and avoids over-reaching or unilateral action – has drawn fire from opposition Republicans in Congress and various foreign policy pundits, who would prefer a more robust approach.
Obama’s efforts to pull the U.S. out of the lengthy and expensive conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have largely defined his foreign policy for much of his presidency. But he has at times struggled to articulate how his response to a new set of challenges in places like Syria, Ukraine and Iran fit into an overarching foreign policy philosophy.
“Rather than leading countries to do things, Obama announces ideas and concepts and then at the end of it you wonder, some months or a year later, well, what actually got executed? Where did the president’s words take the form of a program that showed real leadership?” said Anthony Cordesman, a national security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Non-military solutions
White House officials bristle at the charges, saying Obama’s critics reflexively suggest military solutions at a time when Americans are weary of war after more than a decade of costly conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan.
They portray Obama’s handling of Syria as positive, pointing out that President Bashar al-Assad was forced to give up chemical weapons. The threat of sanctions against Russia has prompted President Vladimir Putin to think twice about moving deeper into Ukraine, and the United States has voiced strong opposition to Chinese steps in the South China Sea, they say.
Still, Obama’s foreign policy style has left him open to intense criticism from opponents who argue he has squandered America’s global leadership and lacks the credible threat of action that can stop international foes.
It has prompted many foreign diplomats privately to bemoan what they regard as a lack of leadership from Washington after more than five years of the Obama presidency, much of which has been taken up with reviving a deeply troubled economy at home.
“There’s an extreme indecisiveness and cautiousness that just worries people,” Senator Bob Corker, the senior Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Reuters.
“I’m not for policing the world but I do think that our lack of leadership has created a vacuum and I think that into that vacuum problems are being created,” Corker said.
That criticism has deeply frustrated the president and is a driving factor in his decision to deliver Wednesday’s speech.
$5 billion effort
Obama’s new approach for the U.S. includes $5 billion to help other countries fight terrorism and to expand funding for Defense Department intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, special operations and other activities.
White House officials said Obama will argue that the U.S. is a linchpin in efforts to seek international cooperation, a posture that puts the nation on stronger footing than when it acts alone, the AP reported.
Officials point to U.S. actions involving Ukraine, with Washington rallying European nations to join the U.S. in enacting economic sanctions on Russia after Moscow annexed the Crimean Peninsula. And with Iran, the U.S. led secret talks with the Islamic republic that spurred broader international nuclear negotiations.
The crisis in Syria continues to be among the most vexing problems facing the White House.
Even as Obama contends that an agreement to strip Syria of its chemical weapons was a success, that deal has done nothing to end the bloody civil war, which is now in its fourth year and which, according to activists, has left more than 160,000 people dead.
Obama is expected to cast Syria as a counterterrorism challenge in his speech Wednesday, making clear the U.S. continues to believe the right approach is strengthening the moderate opposition fighting forces loyal to Assad.
Administration officials said Obama may soon sign off on a project to train and equip those rebels, though it appeared unlikely that program would be ready for him to announce at West Point.
The president is also expected to discuss the counterterrorism threat facing the U.S. more broadly, arguing as he often has that core al-Qaida has been weakened even if splinter groups become a growing menace.
Some information for this report provided by Reuters and AP