The Iran deal just shows how badly Obama has failed

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Andrew J. Bacevich:

‘Yes, we can heal this nation. Yes, we can repair this world. Yes, we can!’ With these exuberant assurances, the young candidate, buoyed by an unexpectedly strong showing in the Iowa caucuses, vowed to carry on his crusade. One year later, in January 2009, the candidate became president and set out to make good on his promises.

That Barack Obama possessed the ability to heal the nation and repair the world seemed in many quarters all but self-evident. As he donned the mantle of the ‘most powerful man in the world’, the expectations that had lifted him into the Oval Office qualified as nothing short of messianic. A dark and depressing interval of American history, symbolised by place names such as Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, was ending. A new era of hope had begun. Nothing seemed beyond reach. So at least many Americans believed.

In surprising numbers, observers further afield shared these happy expectations. For a brief moment, Obama’s rising star cast its light well beyond America itself. He was, or appeared to be, everyone’s president. As if speaking for all humanity, the Nobel Committee ratified this proposition, awarding its annual peace prize on an anticipatory basis, the recently inaugurated president not actually having done anything to promote peace. Obamamania was sweeping the planet.

Well, going on six years later, the fever has long since broken. In beleaguered, war-torn Syria, polio may be making an unwelcome comeback. But the infection that was Obamamania is gone for good.

As for the President himself, the verdict is in: when it comes to repairing and healing, no, he can’t. In retrospect, it’s hard to fathom why so many people succumbed to the illusion that he could.

In Washington, members of the commentariat have now essentially written off the Obama presidency. The astonishingly inept roll-out of the administration’s signature healthcare reform programme has fostered the image of a chief executive who is disengaged, lackadaisical and not fully in command — perhaps more interested in basketball or golf than in governing.

The ongoing intelligence scandal reinforces this impression. Did Obama know that the NSA was eavesdropping on German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other allied leaders or not? To answer that question in the affirmative is to raise serious questions about the president’s judgement. To answer in the negative is to suggest that someone other than the putative commander-in-chief is at the helm of the world’s most powerful national security establishment.

Then there are the disappointments on the international scene, above all in the Islamic world. Remember the hopes raised by Obama’s Cairo speech of June 2009? Entitled ‘A New Beginning’, the speech offered a wide-ranging vision of reconciliation between civilisations and peoples long at odds with one another. In practical terms, that vision has yielded little of note. However necessary and even commendable, Obama’s principal foreign policy achievements — withdrawing US troops from Iraq and ‘getting’ Osama bin Laden — have paid few strategic dividends. Indeed, Iraq shows signs of unravelling while al-Qa’eda has shown a remarkable capacity for opening up new franchises. With regard to the events that are actually shaping the future of the region — revolutions, coups and uprisings along with various unhelpful actions by the government of Israel — the President has been more bystander than architect. The deafening applause that greeted Obama’s brief phone call to Iran’s President Rohani and the subsequent deal to kinda, sorta curb that country’s nuclear programme offer one measure of the diminished expectations that are now the administration’s signature. Look, they don’t always fumble!

Oh, and lest we forget: the prison at Guantánamo that Obama fervently vowed to close within a year remains open. Most of its detainees have still not been charged with any crime despite having spent up to 12 years behind bars and in solitary confinement.

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People forget that at least some of the look of worldwide Obamamania was really crowds there for FREE CONCERTS.
He did it in Europe as well as in the USA.
He is as created an image as any slogan Darren Stevens came up with every week between stiff drinks on Bewitched.

The only thing Obama has never been good at is dividing people.