UNITED STATES

President Obama gave his valedictory speech on Tuesday 10 January, 2017. Despite critics, he has achieved much on foreign policy.

Intro: Critics of Mr Obama’s foreign policy also often fail to acknowledge some of the significant accomplishments the President has achieved

Barack Obama has given his farewell address as US president from McCormick Place in Chicago, the venue for his election victory speech in 2008. This is the first time in US history that a president has returned to his hometown to deliver a valedictory speech to the nation, and Mr Obama vacates office on a seven-year high approval rating of 56 per cent (according to a poll conducted by Gallup).

Traditionally, farewell addresses have represented a legacy-defining opportunity for presidents to set out their accomplishments and by articulating a vision for the future. In many cases, the outgoing head of state has focused in large part upon foreign affairs, especially in the post-war period of US international leadership. This, too, became a central point of Mr Obama’s speech.

Harry Truman, for example, used his address in 1953 to talk about the emergence of the Cold War on his watch. On his departure from presidential office he said not a day had passed which had not been dominated by the conflict between those who love freedom and those who would have us return to the days of slavery and darkness. President Truman also outlined his rationale for using atomic weapons in Japan.

George W Bush defended his foreign policy and wider national security legacy in 2009. Despite approval ratings of just 34 per cent on leaving the White House, Mr Bush included in his triumphs that Afghanistan was no longer ruled by the Taliban. He also cited changes to the US security apparatus that he said contributed to the homeland avoiding attack in the seven years after 9/11.

Referring to some of his controversial calls, including the highly contentious decision to invade Iraq, Mr Bush said that he hoped people would understand that he was willing to take tough decisions.

Mr Obama’s farewell speech has been given at a time when there is rising criticism of his administration after Russia’s successful intervention in Syria to shore up the Assad regime, and the unravelling of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) which has caused angst with allies in the Asian Pacific. Critics have asserted that Washington has become significantly diminished on the world stage with weak presidential leadership responsible for the collapse of the TPP.

Others, however, will argue that this is too simplistic. For instance, while Mr Obama has not advanced his Asian “pivot” as fully as he would have hoped, it is actually President-Elect Donald Trump’s opposition to TPP that looks to have consigned the trade deal to history, not the Obama team (which has tried to cultivate it for years).

While Mr Obama has made multiple mistakes in the Middle East, his strategically political decision to downsize the US presence in the region was taken in the context of the mandate he perceived himself to have won after his election victory in 2008 – when a war-weary nation seemed to endorse his call that the Iraq conflict had been a costly mistake, and that the United States was militarily overstretched during the Bush presidency.

Critiques of the Obama doctrine on foreign policy also tend to omit that, whilst the United States is still regarded as the most powerful country in the world – certainly in a military sense – it is not by any means an all-powerful hegemonic power. This core fact has been demonstrated recently in Ukraine and Libya, but was also true of America following Somalia in 1993 and of Iraq and Afghanistan post 9/11.

Current geopolitical fault lines – where there are no easy, quick fix ways for the U.S. to enforce its policy preferences – are wide and varied. They include tensions with China over territorial claims in the South China Sea; the nuclear stand-off in the Korean peninsula that may yet intensify following impeachment proceedings of South Korea’s president; continuing instability in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya; the bleak prospects facing the Israeli-Palestinian peace process; and terrorism remaining a significant international concern a decade and a half after 9/11.

Critics of Mr Obama’s foreign policy also often fail to acknowledge some of the significant accomplishments the President has achieved, particularly given the backdrop of the high-risk political and economic landscape in which he has operated. One big positive, for instance, was the leadership taken by the United States in tackling global warming. Mr Obama’s efforts led to the climate change deal agreed in Paris in 2015 which was signed by more than 170 countries. Crucially, the deal will form the basis of a new post-Kyoto framework, essential if global warming is to be properly tackled. The Paris agreement was ratified and came into effect last November.

Another example is the 2014 nuclear deal with Iran and six other powers. The agreement, which Mr Trump has criticised, could enhance global nuclear security, as well as constituting an important win for longstanding efforts to combat nuclear non-proliferation.

Despite the incoming president’s rhetoric, there are many senior Republicans on Capitol Hill, including the Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who openly recognise the benefits the nuclear deal with Iran will bring. They are calling for it to be more strictly enforced, rather than being scrapped.

The resetting of relations with Cuba was also instigated on Mr Obama’s watch. In December 2014, the two countries announced they would restore diplomatic relations, and Mr Obama became the first US president to visit the country in 90 years. He announced a new suite of measures that further eroded the bilateral sanctions regime introduced during the Cold War era. The President-Elect has threatened to reverse all progress that has been made with Cuba.

In his speech on exiting the White House, Mr Obama robustly defended his foreign policy record at a time of growing unease and criticism. The outgoing president has achieved significant accomplishments, but, he knows much of his legacy now risks being rolled back. Mr Trump will have a very different vision and agenda to how he sees America shaping the world order.

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