Bacevich’s premature condemnation

When reading the title to Professor Bacevich’s lecture, “America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A military History,” you might expect certain key subjects to be discussed in relative detail: The military alliance and cooperation between the U.S. and its Arab Gulf partners, or its cooperation with Israel or Turkey. You might have expected a heavy emphasis on the Bush era wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Iranian hostage crisis, the 2011 NATO campaign in Libya, and, most recently, the involvement of the U.S. in the increasingly wide and complicated war against ISIS. However, that was not what the professor chose to speak of. Instead the audience heard what essentially amounted to a frank and shallow 45-minute lambasting of American foreign policy during the Obama administration with the Middle East mentioned only when relevant to the wider topic and definitely not from a military history perspective. It seems the title of the lecture was simply a convenient way to promote the professor’s latest book by the same name which was on sale after the lecture.

Since the lecture then was not to be about the military history of America’s involvement in the Middle East, what did Bacevich have to say about President Obama’s tenure as commander- in-chief? Bacevich opened with the notion that in matters of foreign policy, President Obama was a relative newcomer who had surrounded himself with well-credentialed experts and advisors much like his two predecessors had. Perhaps the most egregious comment of the night came when Professor Bacevich subsequently made the remark, “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.” It might interest the Professor to know that there have not been legions of American casualties during the Obama years. A March 2016 article in The Atlantic showcased graphs and data which indicated that despite an expanded number of countries in which the U.S. military was actively engaged, American casualties during the Obama years have been a whopping 60 percent lower than they were under the Bush administration, with the campaign against ISIS in Iraq having claimed all of 15 lives in a 20-month campaign.

If there was any lesson Obama would have learned during his time as President, it would have been that the geopolitical world is messy and complicated and that being the leader of a superpower requires the development of multiple agendas, some of which might overlap with or in extreme cases even contradict each other. President Obama has been forced to navigate the diplomatic quagmire of cooperating with China on issues regarding climate change while urging Beijing to take a more aggressive stance against additional sanctions against North Korea, all while reassuring cautious allies and neighbors that an increased Chinese military presence in the South China Sea will not violate the sovereignty of any other nations whose maritime territories also border the shipping-heavy region.

Additionally, Obama has either sought or been forced to deal with other traditional American antagonists such as Cuba, Iran, and Russia in an attempt to curb the rising influence of ISIS, end superfluous and unnecessary vestiges of the Cold War, and keep Iran from joining the nuclear family. This myriad of issues would undoubtedly strain even the most experienced diplomats and military commanders and yet for a so called “rookie,” President Obama has shown remarkable fortitude and has achieved some, although certainly not all, of what he had set out to accomplish.

Guantanamo Bay is still open, although the population of the prison has been drastically reduced. Although the embargo with Cuba remains in effect, something that only an act of Congress can change, diplomatic relations with Cuba have been normalized and there is an open U.S. embassy in Havana for the first time in roughly half a century. The situation in Iraq and Syria remains dire, and particularly in Syria the conflict has become increasingly complicated. However, this does not undo the progress made in rebuilding the Iraqi army or the continual degradation and retreat of ISIS in their so-called caliphate. Despite many national and international issues that remain unresolved, Obama has absolutely made progress and will leave behind a legacy.

In short, Bacevich’s analysis of President Obama’s foreign policy was premature and shallow. It highlighted early mistakes and miscalculations and tended to ignore later triumphs and progressions.

Above all, it presented U.S. foreign policy in a self-contained capsule, and seemed to deprive the lecture audience a chance to conceptualize U.S. foreign policy as an ongoing narrative that cannot and should not be viewed in isolation.