Obama and the 'Wimp Factor'

Is Barack Obama a weakling when it comes to foreign politics? Incapable of standing up to Vladimir Putin in the Ukrainian crisis. Incapable of stopping the Syrian tragedy. Incapable of imposing his will on Israelis (and Palestinians). Incapable of preventing Libya from teetering into Jihadism. Incapable of coaching Europeans in an organized plan, here or there, etc. The list of the good and bad proceedings filed against the American president is long. The feeling most willingly expressed is that of deception — small for some, large for others.

In a way, nothing is more normal: Barack Obama is the victim of his own talent for speaking. His big speeches on the state of the world are brilliant in form, intellectually powerful and marked with a universally spanning humanism. In the light of such flair, diplomatic action fades — struggling, slipping and faced with the resistance and complexity of reality.

In Washington, the neoconservatives feel that Obama is diminishing the status of America. They flirt with the utmost accusation that was once infamously, and mistakenly, made against Bill Clinton: that the president is suffering from the “wimp factor” —meaning, broadly speaking, that he demonstrates wimpy behavior. His policy of a hand outstretched to Russia — the “reset” — is a failure.

Obama has stepped up actions to address Moscow: no extension of NATO membership to Ukraine or to Georgia; the shutdown of a part of the American anti-missile system in Europe; no substantial support for the Syrian rebellion; no military comeback after the employment of chemical weaponry by Russia’s protector, Bashar Al-Assad — rather a “red line” produced by the White House. The big picture, neoconservatives say, is perceived by the Kremlin to depict many signs of weakness.

Followers of the realist school of thought, which advocates realpolitik and distrusts the angelic, are more nuanced. James Baker, who acted as secretary of state during the Cold War, approves of Obama’s Ukrainian policy. To the journalist Charlie Rose, who asked him on CBS if he believes that “Vladimir Putin thinks Barack Obama is weak,” Baker responded: “No I don’t … but I worry that he might feel that he’s inconsistent.” The former secretary of state denounced Obama’s dilly-dallying in Syria: “We take a position here one day… to bomb Syria and then the very next day, no, we’re going to send it to the Congress for resolution.”

The president, a former law professor, who restricted the limits of the use of force in Iraq and Afghanistan, prefers diplomacy to confrontation. From this, his Russian counterpart — ex-officer of the KGB, nostalgic about the USSR — who believes only in power struggles, would have drawn the conclusion that Washington was giving him free reign in Crimea.

“Credibility” Problem

Since the Syrian incident, Obama’s diplomacy seems to suffer from a “credibility” problem. The spinelessness shown by the White House at the time of the use of gas in Syria may have had a disastrous ricocheting effect, encouraging the adventurism of the Kremlin in the Ukraine. The annexation of Crimea by the Russians has no doubt evoked doubt in American allies in Asia — the allies who are currently wondering about the solidity of their military alliance with the United States, faced with China’s rise in power. And Barack Obama should have “struggled” the whole previous week, from Tokyo to Manila, to reassure them.

This scenario was dealt with in a seminar at the Brookings Institution in Washington. One of the participants, Rémy de Gournava, reported on the seminar on Boulevard Extérieur, the (French) foreign policy website led by Daniel Vernet. There was not one expert called upon by the Brookings Institution who denies the importance of these perceptions on the international stage. But the majority of them approve of Obama’s Ukraine policy: recognition of the Russian interests in the Ukraine and the permanent offer of dialogue with the Kremlin, coupled with a progressive sanctions mechanism.

This prudence, they believe, cannot be interpreted in Peking as a message of weakness. Formally, the Ukraine is not an ally of Washington. Japan and South Korea, among others, are themselves members of a system of alliances with the United States, which would compel them to react in a case of aggression. “It’s a different situation and I think the Chinese are very clear about those differences,” stated Kenneth Lieberthal, former advisor of President Clinton.

This impression of indecisiveness, of hesitation in the conduct of American foreign policy, remains. It casts doubt over the United States’ ability to enforce an international order based upon a minimum of standards. Perhaps it portrays Obama as more an analyst than a leader?

It is mostly the reflection of a world that is no longer the one that immediately followed the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. For a few years, a brief interlude, America knew a time of “ultrapower,” masking the arrival on the international scene of emerging countries (China, India, Brazil, etc).

The United States is today a superpower with unrivaled advantages, but it must count on the other burgeoning superpowers of the era. Yet these superpowers deny the United States all “moral superiority.” They do not necessarily like what Putin is doing in Ukraine, but they challenge the United States’ right to “sanction.” Obama is not weak. He is managing his foreign policy in a post-Western world.