Five Years after His First Election: Barack Obama’s Contradictions

This president won over the masses and was received quite favorably worldwide, but he lacks the versatility needed to be a good diplomat.

Soon five years will have passed since Barack Obama, just elected president of the United States, addressed an ecstatic crowd in Chicago on Nov. 4, 2008. Many people in Quebec and all around the world applauded the advent of an African-American as the head of his country. Everyone had high hopes: Everything was possible. Obama pledged to “promote the cause of peace.” His existence alone reaffirmed the American dream, and he showed a genuine drive to make changes while not hiding the challenges that lay ahead: “We know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime: two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.”

What a contrast to the pitiful performance the president of the United States offers us today! The cynicism and the doubt felt by those who then said, “We can’t,” seem to be well confirmed by the current situation. This president, who promised us peace, quietly continued the “war on terror” started by his predecessor George W. Bush by increasingly resorting to targeted killings and the shameless use of combat drones that terrorize local populations and do not spare the lives of innocent women and children. He got caught up in the war in Afghanistan, the longest war in United States history, to the point that he can no longer save face. He has left Afghanistan destitute and partially controlled by the Taliban enemies, at the cost of thousands of lives and unnamed ecological disasters. The infamous Guantanamo Bay detention center still exists. Obama has failed to establish a strategy for peace in the Middle East. He has let Russia take control of the civil war that is raging in Syria. He has nothing to be especially proud of as he celebrates the fifth anniversary of such an exhilarating win!

But, upon closer inspection, Obama is still true to himself. He is an intelligent and ambitious man beset by contradictions. He is both an idealist and a realist, a man who advocates peace but is a talentless diplomat. He strives to unify yet perpetuates divisions.

Both an Idealist and a Realist

Obama’s idealistic side was apparent during the major speeches he gave worldwide throughout the first year of his mandate. This was especially evident in Cairo, when we could say that he foreshadowed the Arab Spring. His speeches, marked by his bias for peaceful solutions, earned him the Nobel Peace Prize. Many people believe that Obama did not deserve the award because of the continued presence of American soldiers in Afghanistan. Obama explained himself during the award ceremony in Oslo in December 2009, showing that he was beset with doubts and contradictions: “No matter how justified, war promises human tragedy … But war itself is never glorious, and we must never trumpet it as such.”

Obama continues, “So part of our challenge is reconciling these two seemingly irreconcilable truths — that war is sometimes necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly.”

This idealism has rarely been held so high by an American president. This is, however, an idealism that is assuaged by a realism that — according to American analyst James Kloppenberg — is inspired by its support for the pragmatic philosophy of William James and John Dewey, who wrote that the morality of our actions must be assessed in terms of their practical consequences. As Gilles Vandal, author of “La Doctrine Obama” [“The Obama Doctrine”] and co-author with Sami Aoun of “Barack Obama et le Printemps Arabe” [“Barack Obama and the Arab Spring”] asserted, Obama’s way of thinking is also influenced by the Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr and diplomat George Kennan’s realist school of thought.

Obama wanted to both adopt the great ideals of liberal internationalism and continue to be the leader that the majority of Americans expect, concerned with defending the interests of his country, by force if necessary, while accepting the militarist position taken by Washington. A constant search for balance often manifests itself through never-ending doubt.

In the same vein, Obama announced last May that the United States would resort to stealth bombing less frequently than it had in the past while admitting his shame in having already used it. The drones, however, continued to attack thereafter. That was an event resembling a Shakespearean play, we can say: The president assures us that he won’t do it anymore, but he still does it! The military intervention in Libya can still be considered a way of showing us the position the United States wishes to take, a position that involved the use of a new method of attack, a method that was meant to be discrete — “leadership from behind” — while allowing its European allies to take the lead.

Finally, Obama’s stance concerning Syria reveals an insurmountable dilemma. He had a clear desire to escape the intervention’s quagmire by allowing a red line to be established with regards to Assad’s use of chemical weapons and by believing that he was forced to consider a military intervention. It’s Putin, the “bad guy,” who saved the president from an embarrassing situation. Obama ended up accepting the compromise proposed by Putin, who had just undermined him by granting political asylum to the American dissident Edward Snowden.

A Man Who Fights for Peace but Is a Talentless Diplomat

Thus Obama seems to be a talentless diplomat: one who never stops extolling the virtues of diplomacy, agreement and negotiation — even with people who are clearly hostile, such as those in the administration of Iran; one who tirelessly seeks to lead the Israelis and the Palestinians into discussion, at the risk of being subjected to Congress’s rebuffs and their zealous applause of Netanyahu, who is stubbornly resistant to authority.

This is where the current presidency’s shortcomings lie: Obama has a dismal record with regard to his relations with Congress. Even when his party controlled both the Senate and the House of Representatives, Obama was unable to maintain the same level of relations with the legislators as his predecessors. Despite his good intentions and his ability to address people in a way that is warm and friendly, Obama often remains haughty and cold in front of those whom he should be working to persuade. It has been said that a president should be above all a man of conviction, a “persuader in chief.” Obama succeeded in winning over the crowds and was received favorably on the international scene, but he has not been a man of compromise, of versatility and appeal, qualities that a diplomat should embody. He has had little success in this regard, either in his own country or abroad.

An Advocate of Unification Yet the Cause of Division

Yet he promised to be a man of unification. He wanted us to set aside party allegiances. Now he is left with a Republican Party that is against him.

We would be wrong to blame him. His intentions to set aside and go beyond internal struggles were laudable. This is without taking into account the endless opposition that doomed him right from the start in the name of a militant faction of the Republican Party. The tea party was established in the early hours after Obama’s administration came into being. From that moment on, these fanatics endorsed the popular and populist declaration made by radio host and political commentator Rush Limbaugh: “I hope he fails.” Bringing down this president, who many still call a “Muslim Socialist,” has become the ultimate goal, beyond any other cause, even the good of the country and the Republican Party.

It is not inconceivable that Obama will prevail against the opposition and bring together a large majority of Americans against the fanaticism of the tea party in circumstances similar to the division that occurred during the brutal Civil War 150 years ago. Nor is it inconceivable that Obama will make a dramatic diplomatic move by concluding an agreement with the Iranian government, which is more than ever willing to compromise.

Concerning the awful situation in which Obama finds himself at the hands of the formidable National Security Agency of the United States Department of Defense, it would certainly be more difficult for the president to make people believe that he himself did not authorize insolent electronic surveillance worldwide. It is also a terrible blow for new Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel as the NSA comes under the direction of the Department of Defense: Hagel had declared that the Pentagon would take on a more pacifistic and respectful demeanor. It’s no easy feat controlling the military machine, which has clearly become a state within a state!