Allies right to worry about passive Obama

U-T San Diego Editorial Board 05:00p.m. Aug 24, 2014

After five years in office, presidents don’t change much, so it’s unrealistic to expect a sea change from Barack Obama on foreign policy. But as crises build in the Ukraine and the Middle East, questions are growing about the U.S. reluctance to play its traditional lead role in world affairs — and doubts are building about whether the U.S. will honor its security commitments. These concerns come not just from neoconservative militarists but from Obama’s first secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, and such longtime allies as Great Britain, France, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Obama entered office with a clear agenda of pulling the U.S. back from the wars that George W. Bush launched in Afghanistan and Iraq. He did enough on this front that in 2012, one of his main re-election themes was that he had wound down the wars while keeping the terrorist threat to the U.S. in check.

Yet the president doesn’t seem to notice that the foreign policy he considers a success has few fans outside partisan Democratic circles. In particular, few leaders of Western nations have any faith in the idea that the U.S. can defeat radical Islam with a sluggish containment strategy.

These concerns are fueled by Islamic State’s rise. In 18 months, the terrorist group has gone from being a footnote in Syria’s internal chaos to a behemoth that “controls a volume of resources and territory unmatched in the history of extremist organizations,” a Pentagon official told The New Yorker.

Yet the Obama administration has depicted itself as being surprised by this development — and annoyed. After the terror group beheaded American journalist James Foley last week, Obama said Islamic State “has no place in the 21st century.” This echoed Secretary of State John Kerry’s comments that Russia’s tormenting of the Ukraine is “19th century behavior in the 21st century.”

If the stakes weren’t so high, this would be the stuff of high comedy. Where did Obama and Kerry get the idea that the world has collectively emerged with a higher consciousness that inspires terrorists and nations alike to eschew barbarism and bullying?

There has to be a middle ground between reflexive U.S. military interventions around the world and a passive, reactive U.S. government that does little even as the greatest terrorist threat to the West emerges and as Russian dictator Vladimir Putin invades Crimea and menaces the Ukraine.

That middle ground won’t be found unless the president stops ridiculing his critics as people who “say that every problem has a military solution” and believe that “working through international institutions ... is a sign of weakness,” as he said at West Point in a May 28 speech.

Obama needs to put away the straw men — and to take the criticism of U.S. allies seriously. They believe the world is a more dangerous place when America “leads from behind.” Events of the past year bear them out.