From Bad to Worse

Half-joking and half-serious, as is customary at the annual White House Correspondents Dinner with the president, Obama admitted that 2013 was not a good year at all for him. He did not speak of the first four months of this year, which foretell that 2014 could be a worse one. But is the criticism fair?

His opponents accuse him of weakening the world image of the United States and question his leadership abilities. Curiously, it seems that they criticize him because he does not resemble the previous president, forgetting that he was elected president precisely because the majority of the voters thought that he was different and did not want to repeat the costly and adventurous mistakes of his predecessor.

They criticize him for attempting to negotiate with Iran for a suspension of its nuclear weapons program instead of joining in with the crowd that calls for preemptive strikes against the sites where work is being done to develop nuclear energy. The fact of the matter is that in three months, a definitive agreement could be reached that would solve the crisis without a single gunshot, and with neither Iranian nor American bloodshed.

Also, for the stall in peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis — as if it were in his power to convince two enemies whose interests appear to be ever-increasingly irreconcilable — a shoddy fix may be better than a perpetual war. His critics that complain that he did not manage to democratize the Middle East after the [Arab] Spring, which lasted no longer than a day, are perhaps the most irrational because they prove the brutal ignorance of those who still fail to understand that democracy is not exportable; it either comes from the people or it doesn’t happen.

The shy response of the United States and the European Union to Vladmir Putin’s bullying in Ukraine has also stirred up criticism among those who long to resurrect the cowboy that would have gunned down the evil Russian bad guy. Do they really want to repeat the sort of sleepwalking that led to World War I and for the world to get tied up in World War III over a piece of land in Ukraine?

I will not write anything about his policy regarding Latin America; I don’t think that Obama has a policy regarding the region. In that sense, it’s encouraging to think that the most powerful nation in the world will allow the countries of the hemisphere to resolve their problems without foreign intervention, even in such painful cases as in Venezuela, where the authoritarian regime kills and imprisons its citizens who ask for a better government.

It’s true that there appears to be a divorce between Obama’s speeches and actions, but to me it is a sign of mental sanity that Obama did not commit the country to another absurd military adventure like the ones in Iraq or Afghanistan; not in Libya, nor Syria, nor Ukraine. This does not mean, on the other hand, that Obama is a pacifist. He was not afraid to attack terrorist suspects in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen or Somalia with drones — sometimes causing tragic and unwanted outcomes for innocent civilians — nor was he afraid to send in Special Forces to kill Osama bin Laden in Pakistani territory.

If the United States has lost its appearance of invincibility, the question that should be asked is if this is because of Obama, or because the country is making amends for the mistakes that it has made and continues to make. Three lost wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq have brought no benefit to the country. In the meantime, the country is plagued by a political system that is divided in two inflexible factions and incapable of solving its major domestic issues, faces a collapsing infrastructure, does not have energy independence or a long-term balanced budget, and has a lack of jobs and an immigration reform plan that is as good as dead.