The Obama Doctrine and Middle East Democratization

Another flower has blossomed in the Arab Spring, which started in Tunisia last December. This wave of democratization has been toppling dictatorships one by one: Ben Ali’s 23-year presidency, Mubarak’s 30-year government and now, Gadhafi’s 42-year regime. The wave is only growing bigger and showing no signs of slowing down. Even though the rebuilding process will not be smooth by any means, it hopefully will not share the same fate as the Prague Spring, which was crushed by the Soviet army, and the Seoul Spring, which resulted in a coup d’etat by Chun Doo-hwan.

How will these developments affect the assessment of Obama’s foreign policy? In his speech during a visit to Egypt in June 2009, Obama extended a hand of reconciliation and promised a different approach from that of the Bush administration on Middle East issues. He stated that the relationship between America and the Arab world is not one of competition, but one of mutual interest and mutual respect.

Obama went on further and predicted a situation much like the present as he asserted that both America and the Arab world value democracy and human rights. His speech did not trigger the democratization movement, yet it turned out to be right.

Up until the beginning of his term in office, the expectation was that Obama will not have an active foreign policy. The paradox is that his domestic policy, which has been the focus of his efforts, is garnering nothing but criticism, whereas his foreign policy is receiving a fair amount of approval. Therefore, if he is successfully reelected next year, it will be because of the “Obama Doctrine.” The Obama Doctrine is so elusive, however, that there is controversy in Washington over what exactly constitutes the doctrine, or if it even exists.

The U.S foreign policy doctrine is said to reflect the president’s vision, his guiding principle and belief. When Obama first took office, he clearly revealed a plan to set himself apart from his predecessor Bush by departing from unilateralism and militaristic approaches, pursuing dialogue and multilateralism, concentrating on human rights issues and making denuclearization a reality.

In Obama’s case, though, he appears to be diplomatic more in style than in actual actions. So, even though he is clearly a moderate compared to his predecessor, some criticize that there is not much difference in the essence of their policies. This is why the precise nature of the Obama Doctrine is so elusive. In fact, the National Security Strategy released in 2010 is not much different from that of the Bush administration. Of course, the exact term “War on Terror” is no longer being used, and the emphasis is on human rights and democracy, but content-wise, the difference is insignificant.

Also, even though as a presidential candidate, Obama deemed the Iraq war a bad war and therefore opposed it, he cannot readily withdraw from Iraq. The same goes for Afghanistan — the troops might even remain until 2024, according to the latest news.

Obama’s foreign diplomacy accomplishments, nonetheless, are nothing trivial: The U.S. entered into a new nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia; bin Laden was shot dead, weakening the strength of al-Qaida; Middle East dictators, including Qaddafi, are being ousted. All the aforementioned facts will be definite pluses come election time next year. In any case, compared to the typical American foreign policy doctrines with their overarching morals and ideologies, Obama’s definitely stands out. While on the surface, he seems to be overly idealistic in his vision of upholding human rights, democracy and peace, in practice, he takes an exceedingly practical approach.

Despite being decisive about carrying out the intervention in Libya to support Middle East democratization, he remained silent with regards to the suppression and massacre in the Iran-Syria-Lebanon democratization movement, drawing criticism from the conservatives of the Republican Party. From a practical standpoint, however, the reason for this is simple: The probability of success from an intervention was higher in Libya. Frankly, upon a closer look, the framework that the U.S. had been adhering to up until now — that the U.S. superpower status and American exceptionalism can change the fate of other countries — has yielded inferior results. The U.S. has accomplished more when doing less.