Obama’s Foreign Policy Report Card

I’ve been asked to contribute to the latest edition of the Foreign Policy report card on the Obama administration.  I gave an A- after the first 100 days.   I’m not sure when the whole thing will be published, but here’s my contribution:

The administration has moved from the initial period of "reset" to the tougher period of implementation.  A lot of people focus on the inevitable lack of immediate progress — some because they want change and are growing frustrated, others because they oppose his agenda and seek every opportunity to declare failure.  I get frustrated, and I’ve been critical of some of Obama’s tactics and priorities.   But stepping back from the day to day triumphs and frustrations shows an administration which has come a long way in less than ten months.

This is a global perspective, but I’ll focus mainly on the Middle East.   Obama has transformed the tone and tenor of America’s relationship with the Islamic, downgrading the focus on terrorism and al-Qaeda in favor of a broadly-based outreach and engagement.  The Cairo speech isn’t enough, and the follow-up hasn’t been as visible and sustained as I’d like — but the fact is that al-Qaeda today is as marginal in Arab politics as it has been in a decade, and Obama deserves credit for that.  

Obama has done a great job of maintaining his committment to withdraw responsibly from Iraq despite all sorts of pressures and temptations to change his mind, and has not overreacted to each day’s new crisis. The engagement with Syria continues.  He has chosen to engage seriously with the decision-making about Afghanistan, and has run an impressively inclusive and thoughtful deliberation process despite the impatience of advocates for escalation or withdrawal.   And he’s done an extremely impressive job of building a global coalition towards Iran, and has made more progress on the nuclear front than most expected.

Obama has been less successful in dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian track. After an outstanding beginning which demonstrated his strong commitment to achieving a negotiated two-state solution and the correct decision to call for an Israeli settlement freeze, his team allowed Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to drag the process down into the tarpits to die.  He should have pivoted away from the settlements battle months ago, and now is paying the price.  The administration has also struggled with Palestinian politics, relying heavily on Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad but undermining their legitimacy and failing to do anything to alleviate the suffering of Gaza. 

 Nobody expected Obama to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace, end the Iranian nuclear standoff, or transform the Islamic world in ten months.  And he hasn’t.  But he’s accomplished quite a lot and has set the U.S. on a far better course in the region.  Impatience in the region is clearly growing, and skepticism is setting in about his ability to deliver.   He may well fail.  But for now, I think the broad contours of his policy are playing out reasonably well.   Grade:  A-