US President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference with John Brennan (R), and Chuck Hagel (L) on 7 January 2013 in Washington, DC. Source: Mark Wilson/Getty Images [/caption]
With the unveiling of the second-term national security team, Senator John Kerry, former Senator Chuck Hagel, and John Brennan—a group of men who are noted for their opposition to America’s engagements in the Middle East during the Bush administration—Obama’s second term is unlikely to see a change of course or new thinking towards the region.
In many ways, President Obama has chosen experienced hands to execute foreign policy more than shape it. Although a veteran of American diplomacy after his tenure as Chair of Senate Foreign Relations, Senator Kerry is unlikely to ever embody the persona of Secretary Hilary Clinton, both in terms of miles travelled and in terms of her distinctive brand of diplomacy. This change of guard is not necessarily a negative development, but those looking to State and Defense as a sign that President Obama is taking new initiatives on the Middle East will likely be left wanting.
All signs indicate that President Obama and his trusted National Security Advisor, Thomas Donilon, will continue to push for a restrained American engagement with the Middle East. The underlying fear and hesitancy of Obama’s tenure as president is becoming defined by another costly American intervention in the region. It cannot be stressed enough how symbolically important Benghazi has been, both in re-enforcing the current strategy and deterring any active American engagement in the region despite pressure from his more vocal advisors, Samantha Power and Ambassador Susan Rice, that could burn his legacy.
In many senses, Ambassador Rice—one of the main proponents of America’s intervention in Libya—paid the price for the blowback on Obama’s most active response to the Arab uprisings when she withdrew her name from consideration for secretary of state. While counterfactuals are usually the obsession of historians, one may ask, would President Obama have undertaken a more confident Middle East policy had Benghazi not become such a political storm?
This retrospection is not to say that President Obama’s restrained engagement has been entirely misguided; it has afforded him more realistic opportunities in a more multi-polar, fiscally-constrained world. Unlike his predecessor, who rode too fervently into war, President Obama correctly chose to take a more measured approach to Libya. Obama has also tried to use American soft and hard power to engage the new political leaderships emerging in Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen, as well as maintaining relationships with America’s long-standing allies in the region in the Gulf, Morocco, Algeria, and Jordan.
Benghazi aside, the rising challenges facing Obama require a deeper vision for America’s role in the Middle East so that America can seek to be a credible and positive voice in the region. As much as the president was initially hailed after his Cairo speech in 2009, his vision for the region in his rhetorical speeches has become orphans to political expediency and pragmatism.
As the growing crisis in Syria has the potential to destabilize its neighbors, President Obama has preferred to act with restraint and pragmatism instead of with urgency and more active leadership. This restrained approach has not produced the results he seeks and has the potential to destabilize the region and foil his intention to tilt America’s focus towards Asia. Whether the president seizes this moment in his second term will be something to watch in the coming months, but the signs so far are nothing extraordinary.
