Obama, Between Bush and Bush

Worried since the launch of his campaign about how to differentiate himself from Bush, Obama has finally managed to establish these differences using an alternative strategy, and curiously, he does so while resembling Bush. This is not just a play on words; it is a lesson in recent history.

Since his time in the Senate, Obama has been a vehement critic of his predecessor. He outlined a different vision, especially regarding the most important issues facing international policy and the security of the United States: terrorism, Afghanistan and Iraq, all the while knowing about the problems in Guantanamo. In fact, he managed to become president with the Nobel Peace Prize in his hands. However, he was not able to convert his legislative and campaign speeches into a viable and coherent international policy.

If Bush’s years were made up of an overreaching unilateralism — inspiring the notion of an “imperialistic presidency,” among other concepts — the Obama administration has often been criticized for its supposed isolationism and passivity. Some of that criticism is apt, as the label of “reticent president” illustrates in reference to the president’s continued vacillations when dealing with the crises in Syria and Ukraine.

However, that seems to have changed with Obama taking center stage at the United Nations and for the first time in six years, successfully practicing that multilateralism about which he had preached so much. What is emerging, to be sure, is a much less liberal multilateralism, characteristic of former Democratic presidents, from Kennedy to Clinton, and including Carter. On the other hand, on the Security Council’s stage, the dominant script was a realistic multilateralism, evocative of George Bush’s presidency — George Bush, Sr., that is.

The surprise in this familiar paradox is relative. It cannot be forgotten — actually, today, it is particularly remembered — that candidate Obama brought with him a good part of George H. W. Bush’s defense and international policy team, and not just Colin Powell, military strategist from the first Gulf War, and later secretary of state during George W. Bush’s first term and a timid critic from there on. Senators Lugar and Hagel, the current secretary of defense, in addition to various members of Bush, Sr.’s [National] Security Council were also united.

However, the Republicans’ realistic multilateralism of the 1990s adopted by Obama did not translate into concrete international policy until the Islamic State began to exhibit its exceptional cruelty against European and American citizens. Public opinion, which since the Iraq fiasco has rejected any war-based thought, began to change. The military strategy was legitimized overnight.

The Security Council evoked the memory of Bush, Sr., who depended more on a coalition with Islamic countries and on U.N. mandates than his son, whose invasion of Iraq was backed by a mere coalition of volunteers — “coalition of the willing” — and without the support a single state in the region. Obama is concluding his paperwork in the Council with a unanimous resolution against the Islamic State group that has the support of no less than the Arab League, in addition to that of various European countries.

The great strategy against the Islamic State group is beginning to take form in that way despite various topics that remain to be resolved. Obama insists that he will not accept Bashar al-Assad, who is also threatened by the Islamic State group, into his coalition. Instead, Obama will continue to support the moderate rebels. The proposal could very well be naive: first, because it is difficult to imagine a definition of “moderation” in that part of the world today, and also because it is always more predictable to coordinate with a state — which Syria, fragmented and all, [still] is — than with a gang, as moderate as it may be.

Additionally, Syria is necessary since it is a client for Iran, just like it is for Russia. Both Iran and Russia, endowed with large and well-equipped armies, could be as essential as Saudi Arabia in this new war. At the same time, the issue of not having land-based troops, a strategy with little probability of military success, remains to be elucidated.

Beyond the somewhat confusing small print, the stage has changed extraordinarily with these new agreements. In the last quarter of his 8-year presidency, a different Obama is emerging: one who is marking the path and defining the strategy to face the Islamic State group’s unfathomable and frequent threat. Two years could be a lot or a little, depending on the path he takes and the success that follows.

Now, Obama’s true legacy is on the line. His presidency will not end like it began, with a Nobel Peace Prize, but rather with a war. However, it could be a war that allows him to leave office in a more secure world. That would be a great legacy.