The Efficacy of a Prudent Leader

U.S. President Barack Obama has been widely criticized for the poor results of his foreign policy, especially by Republican congressmen who would like the president to use more hard power to confront the enemies of his country in the world: currently, the Islamic State terrorists who are beheading North American journalists and the defiant Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, who annexed Crimea and has caused unrest in eastern Ukraine.

The chairman of the Intelligence Committee of the House of Representatives, Mike Rogers, has said that Obama’s foreign policy “is in free fall,” questioning the president’s reluctance to get involved with conflicts abroad, while the frustrated Republican presidential candidate, Senator John McCain, questioned whether Obama was capable of assembling a coalition against the jihadists. The criticism of the president emerged even in his own ranks. The leader of the democratic minority in the lower House, Dianne Feinstein, said that “this president is too cautious.”

The advances of the Islamic State, the murders of journalists James Foley and Steve Sotloff by the terrorist group and the ongoing fighting in eastern Ukraine showed, in effect, an indecisive and almost paralyzed Obama, especially after admitting that he still did not have a strategy against the jihadists. Obama consequently arrived at the NATO summit in Wales as a diminished and questioned leader. However, he has come out of the Atlantic meeting with a different image that shows the efficacy of prudent and sensible diplomacy. He not only recognizes the limits of the U.S. before these current international challenges, but also understands that, as a representative of the Western world and its democratic values, he can’t act alone but must respond in concert with his allies.

Obama, who withdrew American troops from Iraq and is preparing to do so in Afghanistan – the two wars that drove the U.S. economy into a billion dollar debt – does not intend to send soldiers to fight in Iraq, because he always maintained that the war shouldn’t have been fought in the first place. In that spirit, serious and measured, Obama has laid the foundation for an international coalition to fight against the Islamic State. At the same time, as the natural leader of the Atlantic alliance, he managed the reaffirmation of the defense principle of NATO partners, the creation of a quick deployment force and the threat of more sanctions to force Russia to moderate its conduct in eastern Ukraine, which, although it does not belong to NATO, has opted to join the West.

A truce is in effect and Putin himself has encouraged it to avoid furthering his isolation. To culminate the day, the Pentagon offered Obama the good news of the death of the al-Shabaab militia in Somalia. Obama, who is credited with being a good poker player, has once again shown that he can accompany luck with skill.