Five Years of Obama in the White House

We analyze the five key episodes that sum up the leadership of the first black president of the United States

Barack Obama reaches the fifth anniversary of his historic election victory with one of his lowest approval ratings. On Nov. 4, it will be five years since he defeated the Republican [Sen.] John McCain [Ariz.] with a lead of 10 million votes and six percentage points. He entered the White House with an approval rating of 68 percent. But this political capital has been diminishing: When he was re-elected last year, his lead over [former governor of Massachusetts] Mitt Romney had been reduced to only half of his previous margin, and current polls put his approval rating at 42 percent (WSJ/NBC and Gallup). Obama’s second term is progressing without significant advances in his domestic reform program. He is struggling to implement his plans for health care reform against tireless opposition from the tea party. Meanwhile, U.S. foreign policy is becoming more and more restrained, and Obama is clearly determined to renounce world leadership in order to focus on reform at home. His plans are not messianic. He will be satisfied if he gets health care and immigration reform off the ground, revitalizes the sluggish economy and escapes the hornets’ nest that is Afghanistan. But there is no guarantee either that Obama will manage to reform his country or that the U.S. will be able to remain on the sidelines internationally.

1. The First Black President: He Has Never Based His Policies on Race Issues

Since the night of Nov. 4, 2008, Barack Hussein Obama has been assured of a place in the history books. That night, he became the first black president of the United States, a country where slavery and racism have marked both political and social development. Although he has often referred to this reality in his public discourse, and the African-American community backed him overwhelmingly in both elections, Obama has never based his political image on the issue of race. In fact, it is an area in which he is not completely comfortable: He would prefer to be judged by his actions, just as a white president would be. With a different background from most black Americans (he is not descended from slaves; his father was Kenyan, and he was brought up by his white mother and grandparents), Obama has not always been in tune with this community.

“It has, at times, been painful to watch this particular president’s calibrated, cautious and sometimes callous treatment of his most loyal constituency,” complained black radio and TV presenter Travis Smiley during the most recent electoral campaign. However, these traits form part of Obama’s reserved character, and his social agenda has in fact benefited African-Americans.

2. Premature Nobel Peace Prize: Countering Bush’s Strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan

Obama had only been in the White House for eight months, hardly enough time to deploy the strategy that had seen him elected to the U.S. presidency, when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. It was a political declaration by the Nobel Committee against the policies of [former U.S. President] George W. Bush and in support of Obama’s wish to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq and Afghanistan as quickly as possible. In fact, Obama increased the number of U.S. troops on Afghan soil, although he did also define a clear exit strategy, with the withdrawal from Afghanistan set to be complete by the end of 2014. It is not yet clear how many U.S. soldiers will remain in the country to train and support Afghan forces, as this depends on Afghan leaders’ approving the extrajudicial nature of the contingent as well as on the U.S. government. Obama was criticized at the end of 2011 when, in his hurry to withdraw from Iraq, he failed to explore the possibility of maintaining a base there to provide the U.S. with greater operating power in the region. His credibility has also been questioned after threats to attack Syria and Iran.

3. The Hunt for Osama bin Laden: A Success, Followed by the Resurgence of al-Qaida in Asia and Africa

Among the achievements of the Obama presidency, the death of Osama bin Laden was one of the standout moments. After 10 years on the run following the 9/11 attacks, bin Laden was eliminated on May 2, 2011, in a risky operation on Pakistani soil. While no one doubts that the credit for this decisive action lies with Obama, his prompt subsequent proclamation that al-Qaida was then on its knees, as he assured audiences during his 2012 campaign, has now come back to haunt him. The resurgence of groups affiliated with al-Qaida in Africa and their increased presence in Iraq and Syria indicate that the terrorist threat has not receded. In addition, the operative success of attacks using unmanned aircraft (drones) against terrorists in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen has come at the price of growing criticism over the civilian casualties that this type of attack entails, as well as the secrecy with which such attacks are carried out. Obama has admitted that there are ethical issues involved and has signaled his intention to introduce some changes, such as handing over control of the attacks from the CIA to the Pentagon.

4. The Political Struggle To Implement His Reforms: A Firm Hand Against the Tea Party at Its Most Combative

In his second inauguration speech, Obama laid out the policies he plans to implement: greater controls over the buying and selling of weapons, immigration reform, fiscal reform and improvement of the economy. But the president has already used up a large part of his first year without having managed to advance his agenda, and he only has one “strong” year left to try to do so; during the second half of a second term, presidents become “lame ducks,” as the political class and the administration itself become occupied with preparations for the next presidential election. With the political process interrupted by crises such as Syria and the government shutdown, Obama has had to concentrate on pushing ahead with his principal mandate: health care reform, to provide medical care to everyone in the country. The reform bill was passed in 2010, by a majority Democratic Congress. However, at the end of that year, the Republicans, dominated by the tea party, took control of the House of Representatives, from which they blocked the president’s agenda. In addition, economic recovery is progressing more slowly than expected.

5. The Labyrinth of Mass Espionage: The Policy that Did Continue Bush’s Legacy

The Obama administration’s most recent controversy — the enormous volume of surveillance carried out all over the world by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) — is tarnishing the promise of transparency with which Obama won the presidency five years ago. If his determined use of drone attacks and his eagerness to attack Syria without the backing of the U.N. Security Council have already destroyed the image of the “anti-Bush” that Obama himself presented, now the NSA surveillance suggests an arm’s length relationship with Europe and a lack of sensitivity to U.S. citizens’ demands for privacy. The controversy has provoked tensions between the U.S. and its European allies, some of which have threatened to expel U.S. diplomats involved in the spying. Polls suggest that most U.S. citizens accept surveillance by the NSA if this helps in the fight against terrorism, but Obama seems less and less different from Bush, and this change is contributing to increasingly positive feelings toward the ex-president.