Bacevich Bashes Obama in Ethics Lecture

Last Tuesday, the Center for Ethics hosted Andrew Bacevich as part of this year’s theme, “War and Peacebuilding.” According to the program’s description, this theme intends to focus on exploring the ethics of war and conflict, and also how public policy and popular culture shape peacebuilding. Bacevich, a military historian and professor of International Relations and History at Boston University, chose a narrower topic to lecture about--evaluating the foreign policy legacy of Barack Obama.

Presenting to a packed Miller Forum, Bacevich seemed to engage students, faculty and Allentown locals alike.

“Generally speaking, I found the lecture to be a breath of fresh air on Muhlenberg’s campus, although I didn’t necessarily agree on many aspects of it,” said Hamilton Wilde ‘17. “I never imagined that I would hear half the thing[s] that came out of his mouth, and I don’t expect to hear them again during the rest of my time at this school.”

Bacevich’s talk, entitled “An Education In Statecraft,” began with a scathing review of President Obama as commander-in-chief and his participation in the wars in the Middle East. Obama inherited two wars from his predecessor, George W. Bush, and during his candidacy for president in 2008, Obama promised to end the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Bacevich argues that he failed on both counts.

“In retrospect, expectations-his and ours-that he would make good on those promises appear embarrassingly naive,” said Bacevich, “Elect a rookie to fill the most powerful post in the world and you’ll get rookie mistakes, with American soldiers paying in blood to educate their commander-in-chief.”

He goes on to point out how Obama, as well as Bill Clinton and “the younger Bush,” were elected into office despite their lack of state-building skills. To counter this they recruit “impressively credentialed wise young men and women,” but Bacevich downplays that move by stating that résumés do not connote actual wisdom. His real critique of Obama’s handling of the wars in the Middle East begins here.

“In Afghanistan, the President signed off on a reapplication of the surge formula,” said Bachevich, “Surge 2.0 fizzled, taking with it any further enthusiasm for counterinsurgency. The Afghanistan war has now become a conflict that the United States no longer expects to win, but merely hopes to manage. Worse still, back in Iraq, the gains made by surge 1.0 [surge led by General David Petraeus] proved to be partial and reversible. At the end of 2011, adhering to the schedule established by his predecessors, Obama withdrew the last U.S. troops from that country, assuring Americans that, quote, the tide of war is receding. The President spoke too soon; and soon enough the tide reversed itself.”

No talk about war and peacebuilding can occur without mentioning the imminent and harrowing threat that is ISIS, and Bacevich pointed to its emergence in 2014 as another failure of not the Obama administration, but Obama as a single person. Poignantly referred to as the “bastard child of Bush’s Iraqi Freedom,” this organization targeted the Iraqi army that the U.S. spent years rebuilding. In turn, Iraq morphed back into an “American bombing range” and American troops were deployed yet again. Not only did the Iraq war seemingly resume, but the conflict became intermingled with the multi-sided civil war that continues to this day in Syria.

Bacevich argues that Obama failed to shut down the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and did himself few favors in fostering a “new beginning,” with the Islamic world and elsewhere in the Middle East. While it is true that in his two terms in office, Obama failed to fully end those wars, Bacevich failed to mention in his argument that his predecessor did as well. Bush began wars that he did not finish, which he passed onto Obama, who will now pass them on to the new president, and so on. There’s a vicious cycle of presidential-passing-on of both negative and positive situations; more and more now those passed-on situations can be traced back to the actions of presidents decades before. In a cycle like this, it’s often difficult to pinpoint who’s actually to blame-if one person can be-and the responsibility often falls on whoever occupies the office at that time.

Muhlenberg students tended to agree with Bacevich on Obama’s failure overseas.

“His analysis of President Obama’s failed policies in the Middle East was spot on,” said Hamilton Wilde ‘17. “Certainly Obama inherited a terrible situation, and Bacevich did a great job of contextualizing his criticism of Obama’s policies in the similar failures of both Clinton and the younger Bush, but further engaging in violent nation-building crusades was never a policy that could succeed.”

Wilde continued, “I tend to view Obama’s foreign policy legacy as failure in the Middle East and pathetic in regards to Russia, which has the potential to be a great ally. However, I find the restoration of diplomatic relations with Cuba commendable.”

Dan Amouyal ‘18, an international student from Israel, shared Wilde’s view on the Obama administration in the Middle East. “I agree that Obama failed in the Middle East by creating a vacuum in Iraq by not reinforcing the Iraqi army.”

Amouyal goes on to analyze how Obama’s policy gave rise to Russian power, by matter of dictating Syrian policy, and if other NATO countries can intervene in the fighting in Syria, Putin begins to call the shots. He also believes that Obama made poor decisions with Israel in Operation Protective Edge, in which he [Obama] decided that the mediators for the ceasefire would be Turkey and Qatar, who are both avid supporters of Hamas.

Elie Skolnick ‘17 had more to say on Obama’s foreign policy failure. “Colonel Bacevich said people are making assessments of Obama’s foreign policy legacy based on presumed outcomes. That being said, some of his policies have already been under scrutiny and are viewed to be heading in the wrong direction.”

Skolnick explains that one example of this is the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which hopes to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. The issue with this deal is the fact that Iran may already be cheating it. Reports stated that the Iranian government planned to obtain nuclear technology from German companies. According to Skolnick, one of the largest concerns with Iran cheating this deal is the Obama administration’s lack of acknowledgement, as they seem to be overly concerned with their legacy.

That sentiment did not echo with all students, however.

“I found the talk interesting,” said Molly Albano ‘17. “I think that Dr. Bacevich’s critiques of Obama’s foreign policy would have been stronger if he presented alternative options, but he didn’t really give concrete answers as to what he thinks Obama should have done instead. Also, I wish Dr. Bacevich had talked more about how he went from being in the army to being a critic of U.S. militarism.”

Bacevich pulled no punches in evaluating Obama’s actions as commander-in-chief. He stated that Obama received his Nobel Prize simply for getting elected, because he’s “shown no aversion to violence.” What Bacevich doesn’t include is how history has proven time and time again that fighting violence with peace and negotiation rarely works, especially when dealing with groups like ISIS. It’s true that Obama has engaged in missile-firing drones to assassinate Jihadist leaders and “hit-and-run” tactical raids. Most presidents have used extreme measures in times of war.

“More broadly, Obama’s distinctive approach to conducting war has had the paradoxical effect of desensitizing the American public to war’s perpetuation,” Bacevich said in conclusion on President Obama’s failures in war. “Reducing U.S. casualties and moderating financial cost drains war of its domestic political significance. That U.S. forces are more or less permanently engaged in active combat on the far side of the planet has become one of those things that Americans today simply accept--like persistent budget deficits and periodic mass shootings.”

Bacevich wasn’t all negative about Obama, stating that his marks as a diplomat-in-chief compensate for his lack of marks as commander-in-chief. He expanded briefly on Obama’s stewardship of the American economy, his handling of geopolitics with places like China, Russia and Iran, his action against nuclear programs and cyberterrorism, and his efforts against global warming; however, even in his praise he didn’t hold back on the president’s shortcomings in those fields.

“Obama should be given a more representative title -- rather diplomat-in-chief than commander-in-chief,” said Skolnick in agreement with Bacevich. “The Obama administration has displayed a lack of American leadership and, as a consequence, our world has become a more dangerous and unstable place. This lack of leadership in the Middle East has provided an arena for groups such as the Islamic State to operate, expand and export their terror.”

On a global basis, Skolnick goes on to explain, the United States’ leadership vacuum led to Russia’s occupation of Crimea and China laying claim to the South China Sea. He agrees that one of Obama’s main failures was standing idle in some situations, and possibly helping creating some other situations, in relation to the current turmoil in the Middle East.

“Right now, it appears to me that history will not view the Obama administration’s foreign policy favorably,” said Skolnick.

Obama’s record falls extremely short of what his “legions” of supporters were hoping for during his first presidency when they voted for “hope and change.” In foreign policy, for Bacevich at least, it’s the absence of definitive outcomes that lead people the see Obama as a disappointment. Then why, some might wonder, was he elected for a second term? It may or may not be true that there’s a lack of definitive outcomes, depending on who you ask. There’s an array of notable and positive changes that have occurred during his presidency. His overall legacy, a slightly broader concept than the subject of this lecture, won’t be known for many years.

“I don’t envy the next candidate to replace [Obama],” said Amouyal.

Throughout the lecture, Bacevich’s words echoed a common feeling regarding United States’ presidents--that they can do nothing right, and each action and misaction they make will be picked at with a fine-tooth comb. Barack Obama currently holds the title, meaning he is under constant scrutiny to do the right thing or, essentially, not do the wrong thing. But so was the president before him, and so the president after him will be.