Worldmaking (91 page)

The Republican candidate was rarely less convincing than when seeking to outhawk Obama on facing down Iran, Russia—“without question our number one geopolitical foe” (a designation that appears less hyperbolic now than it did then)—and China.
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Romney's bluster was just that. There were in fact fewer differences between the candidates than either was willing to concede. In October 2011, Romney delivered a speech at the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina, that was widely reported for its bellicosity on Iran. During the speech, however, he also made an important cautionary point: “Our next President will face many difficult and complex foreign policy decisions. Few will be black and white.”
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Obama could hardly dispute the wisdom of this remark. He voices a variation on the same theme regularly.

That there were few substantive differences between the candidates on foreign policy owed everything to the temper of the times. George W. Bush was an electoral pariah, his costly and adventurous foreign policies now were unpopular with the majority of Americans. A CNN poll in the summer of 2012 found that 54 percent of Americans viewed Bush unfavorably—the same proportion that viewed Jimmy Carter favorably.
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For understandable reasons, Romney had to explain just how different he was from the previous Republican president. This meant he had to struggle to find substantive grounds on which to differentiate his own approach from Obama's.

On Iran, for example, during the final presidential debate Romney attacked Obama for allowing Tehran to move “four years closer” to acquiring a nuclear weapon. But when pressed to state precisely what he would do differently, Romney had little to say beyond generalities about toughening the existing sanction regime.
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How could he? After trying to engage Iran and receiving nothing by way of a constructive response, President Obama had imposed suffocating sanctions and kept all military options firmly on the table. As David Sanger wrote in
The New York Times
, “The economic sanctions Mr. Obama has imposed have been far more crippling to the Iranian economy than anything President Bush did.”
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That Romney failed to establish any clear differences with the president showed how much America's foreign-policy options were being narrowed by its economic distress. He never followed through on his vague criticism of Obama's approach toward Syria. A Republican presidential aspirant talking up another military engagement in the Middle East was not manna from electoral heaven. Foreign policy played a peripheral role in the election of 2012. There was no edge to the exchanges on any issue beyond the Obama administration's alleged obfuscation regarding the attack in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Stevens. Obama and Romney could find little to argue about. This scenario worked out fine for the incumbent. Handsomely assisted by Mitt Romney's varied political failings—including a series of remarks at a fund-raiser in which the presidential aspirant dismissed 47 percent of the American people as “dependent” on government handouts and stated that “my job is not to worry about those people”—Obama comfortably secured reelection.

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Barack Obama has sharply reduced America's military commitments during one of the nation's most painful economic contractions. But this is no mere temporary lull in the nation's global activism. Moderation and retrenchment is the present and the future. In December 2011, Obama withdrew the last remaining American troops from Iraq. A month later, he unveiled a new statement of intent, the Defense Strategic Guidance, which explicitly repudiated the democracy-enlarging Wilsonian logic presented in the Bush administration's NSS 2002. Obama announced that the standing army would be cut from 570,000 to 490,000. The existing policy, which held that the nation should possess sufficient military resources to win two concurrent wars in different theaters, was abandoned. America's declared policy is now to be able to win one war while merely stymying a potential assault elsewhere. “This country is at a strategic turning point after a decade of war,” Obama's preface to the document declared, “and, therefore, we are shaping a Joint Force for the future that will be smaller and leaner, but will be agile, flexible, ready, and technologically advanced.” The document called for the Pentagon “to reduce the ‘cost of doing business.'”
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A month in advance of the publication of the document—to prepare the Pentagon for the pain that would inevitably follow—Obama invited the Joint Chiefs and the military's most prominent figures to a ceremonial dinner at the White House's State Dining Room. From 2001 to 2011, the Pentagon's budget had grown by 67 percent in real terms. Its annual budget of $700 billion exceeded that of the next twenty nations combined. Obama told the assembled brass that this was unsustainable, that the defense budget would contract by $500 billion over the next ten years. He torpedoed the Pentagon's proposal to keep one hundred thousand troops on standby to engage in “stability operations” of the type the United States had been engaged in in Afghanistan and Iraq for close to ten years. Obama was indicating that the expensive business of counterinsurgency and overseas nation-building was over. “This was the end of an era,” one commander told David Sanger afterward, “and that was a hard concept for many in the room to accept.”
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Obama's decision not only ended an era inaugurated by the second Bush administration, it also shut out the maximalist crisis logic contained in Paul Nitze's NSC-68.

In his January 2012 State of the Union address, Barack Obama echoed Madeleine Albright in emphasizing the nation's pivotal world role: “America remains the one indispensable nation in world affairs—and as long as I am President, I intend to keep it that way.”
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His words were both sincere and accurate. Britain and France had agitated for intervention in Libya but could do nothing without U.S. participation. The same is true in respect to Syria. In spite of swinging cuts to the Pentagon's budget, the United States has no genuine peer competitor in the military realm.

But there was something new. The concept of “opportunity cost” had become central to American decision making on matters of diplomacy. R. Nicholas Burns had served as a high-level diplomat for thirty years prior to Obama winning the presidency. Through that tumultuous era, he said, “No one ever stopped and asked, ‘How much will this cost?'” Now it is the first question posed. In a major set piece speech on the Arab Spring in May 2011, Obama mooted the possibility of forgiving $1 billion of Egypt's debts and establishing a “Middle East Fund,” seeded with another $1 billion to support reform across the region. This is small change in development terms. The Marshall Plan cost $150 billion in real terms. But how could Obama justify spending more to the American people?
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Further steep cuts in the defense budget were made in 2013 and 2014. In January 2013, Barack Obama nominated Chuck Hagel to replace Leon Panetta as secretary of defense. Senate Republicans objected strenuously to the appointment of Hagel, a Republican, to head the Pentagon. A decorated Vietnam veteran, Hagel had served on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and as cochair of the president's intelligence advisory board. In 2006, however, Hagel had caused controversy by observing that the “Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people” in Congress. Hagel had also publicly supported the launch of meaningful dialogue with Iran on its nuclear capabilities and had voiced skepticism about the efficacy of a military strike against Iranian facilities.
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Fellow Republican Lindsay Graham observed that Hagel, if confirmed, would be “the most antagonistic secretary of defense toward the state of Israel in our nation's history.” Senate Republicans filibustered his nomination—emboldened by Hagel's uncertain performance during his confirmation hearings—for as long as they could. Provocatively, Ted Cruz of Texas mused that if Hagel was unable to provide the source for some of his speaking fees, then it was “relevant” to wonder if those monies in fact came from America's enemies, such as North Korea. James Inhofe of Oklahoma suggested that Hagel was “cozy” with terrorist regimes such as Iran. But reality eventually caught up with the chamber, and the Senate voted for cloture on February 26, confirming Hagel by the narrow margin of 58 to 41.
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A year later, in February 2014, some of the GOP's fears regarding Hagel's alleged irresolution appeared to be realized. The Pentagon leaked a preview of its 2015 budget, which would necessitate a cut in the size of the Army from 522,000 to 440,000 troops, the lowest level since the Second World War—and 50,000 fewer than the proposal announced in 2011. Dick Cheney intemperately observed that this decision showed that President Obama “would much rather spend money on Food Stamps” than on keeping the nation strong. John McCain denounced the proposed reduction as a “serious mistake.” But like most political disputes in Washington these days, this contretemps is blighted by histrionics. The United States still possesses eleven aircraft carrier groups—where Russia and China have just one each, fitted with significantly poorer technology. The United States still spends more on defense than the next ten nations combined. This remarkable scenario far exceeded the wildest expectations of any number of individuals who have strenuously advocated “preparedness” in recent history, including Alfred Thayer Mahan, Walter Lippmann, and even Paul Nitze. The “correlation of forces” is still strongly tilted in America's favor, even if the “correlation of economic forces” is more diffuse and complex. On the latter point, America's place in the world is substantively different from ten years ago, which Barack Obama clearly understands.

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The civil war in Syria is one of the gravest crises confronting the Obama administration, and indeed the world. In February 2013, the UN high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, confirmed that 70,000 had been killed in Syria since the uprisings began two years previously.
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A year later, in March 2014, the British-based anti-Assad group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimated that some 146,000 Syrians had died.
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The humanitarian imperative is acute. But toppling Assad's regime could also bring numerous strategic benefits. Iranian influence in the region would be diminished; the Middle East would be shorn of another ruthless dictator; Israel's position would be strengthened.

China and Russia—the latter a long-standing ally of Damascus—were resolved to veto any Security Council measure to attack Assad's substantial military capabilities, the only action that would realistically stem the bloodshed. But even with Moscow and Beijing's abstention, Syria represents the most painful of dilemmas. The opposition to Assad contains a substantial extremist element. Were Assad removed from power, a bloody sectarian reckoning would inevitably follow. And Syria is a hugely challenging environment in which to launch a military campaign. It is doubtful that air strikes would be sufficient to topple Assad as they did Gaddafi. Reflecting on how the Libyan parallel flattered to deceive, one State Department official observed, “The only reason that we're not doing the same for the Syrians is that it is hard.” A senior adviser to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told David Sanger, “There is no way to do this other than a full-scale war.”
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In June 2013, with great reluctance, Obama decided to begin arming the rebellion in Syria, primarily through the provision of antiaircraft weaponry. Too many “red lines” had been crossed. After receiving disturbing intelligence for a number of months, the president had concluded with certainty that Assad had used chemical weapons “on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year.”
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The likes of Paul Wolfowitz, John McCain, and Anne-Marie Slaughter had been urging the president to arm the rebels since the conflict commenced. A week before Obama made his announcement, in a “closed press” dialogue with Senator John McCain (subsequently published on
Politico
), Bill Clinton called for intervention in Syria to assist the rebellion. The former president observed that Obama ran the risk of looking “like a total wuss” if he heeded skeptical public opinion by refusing to intervene. “Sometimes,” Clinton said, “it's just best to get caught trying, as long as you don't overcommit—like, as long as you don't make an improvident commitment.” He elaborated on the reasons why a U.S. intervention might be provident in the circumstances, paying reference to his own procrastination in Bosnia and Rwanda, and reflected more broadly on the lessons of history:

My view is that we shouldn't over-learn the lessons of the past. I don't think Syria is necessarily Iraq or Afghanistan—no one has asked us to send any soldiers in there. I think it's more like Afghanistan was in the '80s when they were fighting the Soviet Union … when President Reagan was in office [and] got an enormous amount of influence and gratitude by helping to topple the Soviet-backed regime and then made the error of not hanging around in Afghanistan.
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The former president's Afghanistan analogy was dramatic, suggesting a costly long-term U.S. commitment to Syria when Assad is removed from power. And for all Clinton's tough talk about ignoring public opinion, there is a good reason why sitting presidents—as opposed to ex-presidents—don't allow significant gaps to emerge between diplomacy and what the public can bear. It tends to end badly for the political party the president leads.

That Obama was mindful of this fact was borne out two months later. On August 21, rockets containing the odorless and invisible nerve agent sarin rained down on Eastern Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus. Médicins Sans Frontières reported at least 3,600 Syrians had been treated for “neurotoxic symptoms” at hospitals it supported, and 355 of them had died. A preliminary U.S. government assessment placed the death toll at 1,429 (including 426 children). The White House said that the relevant agencies had ascertained “with high confidence” that the Syrian government was responsible. A French intelligence assessment baldly stated that the attack “could not have been ordered and carried out by anyone but the Syrian government,” observing that “the launch zone for the rockets was held by the regime while the strike zone was held by the rebels.” For his part, Russian president Vladimir Putin described the American and French assessments as “utter nonsense,” instead concurring with Assad's version of events: that the rebels had launched the chemical weapons attack to provoke a U.S.-led military intervention against his government.
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