Obama's foreign policy isn't very exciting, but it is working [View all]

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http://www.vox.com/2014/8/8/5981543/obamas-foreign-policy-isnt-very-exciting-but-it-is-working


Obama's foreign policy isn't very exciting, but it is working
Updated by Matthew Yglesias on August 8, 2014, 3:00 p.m. ET


A fascinating paragraph in a recent David Remnick profile of former ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul pronounced Barack Obama's foreign policy leanings mysterious, inscrutable, and almost hypocritical:

Obama’s advisers and the Washington policy establishment have all spent countless hours trying to square the President’s admiration of George H. W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft—classic realists—with his appointments of interventionists like McFaul, Rice, and Samantha Power. In the end, one leading Russia expert, who has worked for two Administrations, told me, "I think Obama is basically a realist—but he feels bad about it."

This goes to show mostly that the Washington policy establishment engages in a lot of tedious conversations. It's pretty clear to me that Obama is a realist, as are almost all leaders of almost all countries, and that he doesn't particularly feel bad about it at all. Nor should he. He's actually quite good at it.

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Which brings us to Iraq. A policy of assisting Kurdish forces against ISIS while declining to do much to help the Iraqi government reconquer the rest of the country packs a lot less emotional punch than a stern declaration of America's commitment to fighting this truly evil group would.

And yet it's the right call. The Kurdistan regional government is friendly to the United States, is viewed as legitimate by the Kurdish population, and has demonstrated considerable fighting skill in the past. A relatively small amount of American military assistance should be able to secure their continued autonomy, a useful and humane objective that is achievable at low cost. For the Iraqi government to entirely reconquer its lost Sunni hinterland, by contrast, would be considerably more difficult. It is also not entirely clear what the point would be, in terms of concrete American interests. It's far from obvious that a strong unitary Iraqi state is in the interests of the United States or reflects the desire of the Iraqi people.

As in Syria, stalemate between Sunni-held and Shiite-held territories could be ugly — but an acceptable form of ugly. Don't expect to hear it in a Rose Garden speech, but the main oil fields are down south near Basra in firmly government-held territory.

Meanwhile, democracy marches on. The Arab Spring has mostly been a disappointment, but the new regime in Tunisia is real enough. Indonesia is poised for its first peaceful, orderly, transition of power to an opposition presidential candidate. China is friendless in East Asia. "We'll do what we can, when we can do something useful on the cheap" doesn't quite have the glorious ring of JFK's vow to "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship." But it does have the advantage of being a sustainable, sensible approach to 21st century world affairs.

And it's working.