Obama the Reluctant Leader

Toward the end of President Barack Obama’s first year in office, I had dinner with a senior White House official, and in the course of the meal I asked my friend whether Obama believed himself to be a "wartime president." I was trying to get a sense of the new president’s assessment of the priorities and burdens of his office and his view of national security issues. My dining partner responded defensively with a rather huffy and evasive answer that boiled down to "of course President Obama supports our troops." Even making allowance for the still-raw aftereffects of the 2008 presidential campaign and Obama’s strenuous efforts to distinguish himself from what he saw as the excessive militarism of the Bush years, our exchange was revealing. Yes, Obama would still quietly pursue an aggressive set of counterterrorism measures modeled on the Bush framework. Yes, he would surge a large number of new forces to Afghanistan. But he did not see himself, and did not want to see himself, as a "wartime president."

This exchange has come to mind in recent weeks as Obama has struggled with a new set of national security challenges. His National Defense University speech on May 23 may have been intended to gain the domestic political benefit of declaring an end to America’s wartime posture, but the new revelations of National Security Agency surveillance measures, the about-face on arming the Syrian rebels, and the looming crossroads with the Iranian nuclear program are all reminders that threats and conflict are not so easily spoken away.

In the case of arming the Syrian rebels, Obama’s evident reluctance and the limited, too little, too late nature of the aid show that this was hardly a great moment in presidential leadership. In New York Times correspondent Peter Baker’s description, Obama "had to be almost dragged into the decision at a time when critics, some advisers and even Bill Clinton were pressing for more action. Coming so late into the conflict, Mr. Obama expressed no confidence it would change the outcome." Andrew Sullivan, generally an effusive Obama supporter who opposes any Syria intervention, was even more scathing:

I hate to say it but this president looks as if he is worse than weak here. He is being dragged around by events and pressures like a rag doll. And this news that we are entering the war with military supplies is provided by Ben Rhodes, not the president. That’s nothing against Ben, but when a president is effectively declaring war, don’t you think he has a duty to tell the American people why and what he intends to achieve?

Obama’s Syria decision seems to have accomplished that rarest of feats in Washington: uniting virtually all commentators from left, right, and center in criticism of it. Whether the critics think this limited package of arms is too little to make a difference, or too much U.S. involvement, pretty much all agree that Obama doesn’t seem to believe in his own policy and that the policy holds little prospect for success.

Instead, we have Obama reverting to one of his least appealing tendencies in trying to explain his Syria policy: professorial lecturing. Thus in his Charlie Rose interview this week, Obama said, "If you haven’t been in the Situation Room, poring through intelligence and meeting directly with our military folks and asking, what are all our options, and examining what are all the consequences…. Unless you’ve been involved in those conversations, then it’s kind of hard for you to understand the complexities of the situation." As a professor myself (who has to guard against this same tendency), I often tell my students that one telltale sign of policy confusion and ineffectiveness is when a leader sanctimoniously describes the "complexity" of the situation.

Even more suspicious is when a leader invokes the "SitRoom excuse," as Obama also did, as a defense for not having a more coherent policy. Unfortunately for Obama’s use of the SitRoom excuse on Syria, many others who have spent a lot of time in the SitRoom — such as many of his own cabinet and staff members, let alone most members of Shadow Government including yours truly — also know that his Syria policy has been a failure.

There seems to be a profound disconnect between the Obama administration’s rhetoric of wars ending and the actual world it faces, let alone some of the administration’s ongoing (and necessary) counterterrorism policies. One of Obama’s biggest deficiencies as commander in chief is a reluctance to lead his own nation — another unfortunate variation of "leading from behind." If the country still faces the threat of jihadi terrorism (and it does), if it is intervening in Syria (and it is), then the commander in chief needs to explain to the American people why, and enlist their support. This applies to the ongoing measures for combatting terrorism as well as increased U.S. involvement in Syria. Rather, Obama seems to want to derive the political benefit of claiming to end war while simultaneously pursuing wartime policies. The White House can’t have it both ways.