29 September 2015

The naiveté of Obama’s UN speech

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Barack Obama has delivered seven major addresses to the UN General Assembly during his tenure at the White House – he will give his final address next year before departing office in January 2017. Much like his campaign appearances, Obama’s UN speeches contain a great deal of fanciful, soaring rhetoric, but little of actual substance. To say they are increasingly dull would be an understatement. So dull in fact that this year all the cable news networks, including liberal-leaning CNN and MSNBC, ditched the traditional in-depth post-speech analysis in favour of a news conference on a presidential candidate’s tax plans.

President Obama’s address to the UN on Monday was tired, weak, and completely lacking in ideas and strategy. It exemplified the “leading from behind” mindset that has come to symbolize the Obama administration’s lackluster foreign policy. Instead of offering a bold vision for American leadership on the world stage, Mr. Obama offered yet again a reheated bowl of mush that will do nothing to intimidate America’s enemies or reassure America’s allies.

The president lauded the first 70 years of the United Nations, established in the aftermath of World War Two, praising the post-war international system as the defender of global security, but warned against the “dangerous currents (that) risk pulling us back in a dark more disordered world.” There were jabs at Vladimir Putin over Russia’s intervention in Ukraine, as well as condemnation of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. But in neither case were any solutions offered.

Under the Obama administration’s “Russian reset,” Moscow has begun to flex its muscle again in eastern Europe, while the United States has reduced its military footprint across the Atlantic, closing a series of strategically important bases in Europe. In the Baltic States, Poland and a host of nations that only recently freed themselves from the grip of the Russian bear, there is rising concern about Russian designs in what Putin views as his own backyard. A more robust president, such as Ronald Reagan, would have used a moment like this to warn the Russians of the consequences of their imperial ambitions, demanding a complete withdrawal from the Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

In contrast President Obama offered only empty rhetoric, and chose to ignore altogether the immediate issue of Russian intervention in Syria to support the Assad regime. While Obama spoke at the UN, Russian tanks, aircraft and military personnel were pouring into Syria, and Moscow was cutting deals not only with Damascus but also Tehran as well. In the absence of clear US leadership over the Syria crisis, America’s adversaries are pooling resources and putting in place a joint chain of command, with the goal of keeping Assad in power, and entrenching Russia, and not the United States, as the dominant Western power in the Middle East.

While proposing little in the way of an overarching US strategy in Syria, Obama made only brief reference to the tremendous threat posed by ISIS (or ISIL as the Obama administration calls it), painfully avoiding describing it as an Islamist organization, while conceding, borrowing David Cameron’s language, that it is driven by a “poisonous ideology.”  There was no mention in Obama’s speech of the campaign of genocide being carried out by ISIS against Christians in Iraq and Syria, and no rallying cry for the free world to aggressively confront and defeat the Islamist terrorist threat. Nor was there any reference to the barbaric slaying by ISIS-inspired terrorists of several French journalists in the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris earlier this year, an event that shocked the world and brought into sharp focus the grave threat posed by Islamist terrorism.

Talking of America’s enemies, President Obama was quick to praise the nuclear deal signed with Iran, while completely ignoring the fact that Tehran continues to call for Israel to be wiped off the face of the earth, is building (with Russian support) an intercontinental ballistic missile program that threatens the West, and suppresses any political dissent, imprisoning thousands of dissidents. He called out Iran’s leaders for shouting “death to America,” but failed to explain why a regime that stands for everything the United States does not, can be trusted to implement a nuclear agreement that will free $150 billion for use by the world’s biggest state sponsor of international terrorism.

As is often the case with Barack Obama’s speeches on the international stage, the president could not resist the temptation to condemn the earlier (pre-Obama) actions of his own country, as he did yet again with the war in Iraq, while taking swipes at ideological opponents at home, whom he suggested were obsessed with military force, and wanted to reignite the Cold War. At times his UN address sounded more like a political stump speech than a serious attempt to outline a big picture vision for US policy on the world stage. Forever in campaign mode, President Obama spoke with one foot firmly planted in the upcoming presidential election, despite the fact that he cannot serve a third term.

It is unfortunate, with the world in flames from Syria to Ukraine that the leader of the free world simply cannot lead, and after seven and a half years in office is still without a coherent US foreign policy. President Obama projects an image of weakness and naiveté, combined with a striking lack of strategic thinking. This is in part the product of a presidency obsessed with domestic politics and the recrafting of America as a European Union-style big government society, with an ever-rising role for the state. It is also the result of a White House that is happy to see others lead while the United States retreats. An inward-looking America, however, is the last thing the world needs at this time of growing threats to international security. The next US president must be willing to restore American leadership in the world, confront America’s enemies with resolve and determination, and stand with her allies in the defense of freedom.

Nile Gardiner is the Director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C.