The Collapse of Obama's Diplomacy

Is diplomacy made up of good intentions and great speeches? No. And one doesn’t have to read Sun Tzu, Thucydides or Machiavelli to know this. We have been reminded once again of the disaster that is the foreign policy of the Obama administration.

Obama has, however, delivered some nice speeches. In July 2008, having just assumed office, in front of an ecstatic crowd of 100,000 people in Berlin who came to acclaim him, he promised “to rebuild the world.”* In June 2009 in Cairo, the president of the United States announced a “new beginning” in the relations between America and the Arab-Muslim world and offered a “greeting of peace.” In September 2009, this time in front of the United Nations General Assembly, he affirmed, “No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation.” And a few days later, Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

Less than five years later, these good intentions lie in the dungeons of history, swept aside by setbacks, concessions, humiliations and forgotten promises. The instances of weakness make a long list for an America that remains the biggest economic and military power in the world. We had almost forgotten.

A Succession of Failures and Concessions

The Arab revolutions, supported by Washington, foundered with the sole exception of Tunisia. The United States will have seen in passing their Egyptian, Saudi, Turkish and Israeli allies distancing themselves or turning their backs on them. And what to say of their mistakes and of their impotence, finally, regarding the torturer of Damascus, Bashar Assad, in spite of their proclaimed will to see him leave office? And of the announced “red line” regarding the use of chemical weapons against its civic population? There has been more saber rattling and constant concessions regarding the Iranian nuclear program. The difficult negotiations in progress in Geneva should allow an agreement of frontage with Tehran, and the end of economic sanctions against a control of the Iranian nuclear sites because the White House wants an absolute success. But it will simply be a facade without the dismantling of the Islamic republic’s secret military program of nuclear armaments. Since the beginning, the parties involved in the negotiations have acted as if it didn’t exist.

And what to say about the impotence, less surprising than it is obvious, in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Secretary of State John Kerry had to go to Israel and Palestine 12 times during the last nine months to realize that the Netanyahu government has no intention of negotiating and that President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas has neither the capacity nor legitimacy!

Not astonishing under these conditions then, that Beijing more and more openly expresses its military and territorial ambitions in the China Seas and that the Asian powers are embarking on an arms race, Japan included.

Still Surprised by Putin

Nature doesn’t like vacuums; the repeated absence of Washington has allowed Vladimir Putin to realize his dream and restore Russia to the status of an international power which doesn’t correspond, however, to economic, demographic or technological reality. But Russia has supported and saved, against all odds, their last allies: Syria and Iran. They have even re-established a pied-à-terre in Egypt for the first time in 40 years. The U.S. Army doesn’t inspire any fear in them anymore, which has become vividly evident since the Ukraine crisis. They have annexed Crimea and will do likewise with the east of the country, whose borders they guaranteed in 1994 with … the United States.

The White House was taken by surprise and the analyses of Barack Obama and John Kerry have verged on the ridiculous for months. Thus, the strategy of Vladimir Putin would be a simple resurgence of the past when Barack Obama advised him to “finally overcome the Cold War.”** Vladimir Putin, however, does not refer to the USSR, but to Russian history. And it is extremely clear: “After the revolution, the Bolsheviks, for a number of reasons — may God judge them —added large sections of the historical south of Russia to the Republic of Ukraine,” he declared on March 18. And he wasn’t referring to Crimea, which he had just annexed and which was incorporated into Ukraine in 1954, but to Eastern Ukraine — namely the areas of Kharkiv and Donetsk, where disorder broke out a few days ago. How can we be surprised?

But for Obama, Russia is “a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors — not out of strength but out of weakness.” They nevertheless succeeded in taking control of Crimea within three weeks, and without firing a single shot. And the only consequence has been some economic sanctions that are so lenient as to make them laughable.

The only nonmilitary way to counter Putin would be to vividly strengthen Kiev’s power, through economic and financial support, and helping them form an energy plan as well as selling them military equipment. Washington should have taken the lead in [creating] a coalition that included the principal European powers in support of the pro-Western powers in Ukraine. They should have created a Marshall Plan for Ukraine — an airlift.

To Gain Allies and Build Coalitions

Since 1945, the 11 presidents who succeeded one another in the White House had to absolutely protect the United States’ allies from hegemonic attempts by regional powers. One of the characteristics of American diplomacy has been to augment itself via allies and the building of coalitions.

Not only has the Obama administration lost many of its allies since 2008, but it has also been unable to create new ones. Openings made toward India, Brazil, Indonesia and even Russia in 2008, when Obama evoked a “reset” — a restoring — of relations with Moscow, were rebuffed with scorn. And that’s without mentioning the disaster for the United States’ image done by the revelations of the extent of the interceptions of communications in the world carried out by the NSA, including of leaders of the main allied countries that remain …

It is true that in a world that has become multipolar (to employ the expensive jargon of the Quai d’Orsay, which worried for a long time about the American hyperpower before watching it sink), the United States no longer has the same ability to influence world affairs as it did 20 years ago, in the wake of the implosion of the Soviet Union.

It is also true that the Obama administration has taken an opposite course to the mistakes and the adventures of George W. Bush in Iraq and Afghanistan, while continuing with the same contestable methods regarding the war on terror.

But by changing doctrines, Barack Obama has in passing given up the role that has belonged to the United States in world affairs for 70 years. The extent of the consequences is yet to be seen, even if they are already felt from Kiev to the China Seas.

Rearmament in Asia and the Middle East

The allies of the United States have now lost all confidence in America. The Arab countries of the Persian Gulf and Saudi Arabia in particular, just like Israel, have the feeling they’ve been “released,” and that their mortal enemy — Iran — will soon have a nuclear arsenal … without sanctions.

Riyadh is tempted to equip itself with atomic weapons as well, and Israel is tempted to take military intervention against Tehran, with unverifiable consequences — [actions] the United States has already blocked at least twice.

In Asia, [the nations of] Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines are worried about America’s attitude if China were to follow the example of Putin’s Russia. Tokyo and Seoul could also look to obtain weapons of deterrence in the near future. It must be said that today, Ukrainians bitterly regret having abandoned their nuclear arsenal in exchange for a guarantee of their territorial integrity: a piece of paper signed 20 years ago by the United States.

*Editor’s note: The original quotation delivered by Obama is slightly different: He announced his intentions to rebuild America’s “moral stature in the world.”

**Editor’s note: The original quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.