As the
nation limps into the final two years of the Obama experiment in the “style
over substance” presidency, much is being made of the Obama “legacy”. While this means different things to
different people, it basically reflects how presidential historians will judge
the President’s achievements in the context of political events and challenges
both domestic and world-wide. There will
be the inevitable comparisons with previous presidents and “rankings” will be
offered and revised over time.
Unfortunately,
Obama himself seems to be attempting to govern at this late date in an effort
to enhance his list of accomplishments and thus establish a positive
legacy. It is unfortunate because the
challenges facing the nation need strong leadership that makes hard choices
with the best hope of long term success, not public relations victories for the
short term. His “signature” policy, the
Affordable Healthcare Act (ObamaCare), had it been popular, actually
“affordable”, and easily accessible, would have been a major part of his
legacy. However, it has none of these
attributes, a fact that has created the possibility of more of a Carter-like
than Reaganesque legacy.
Carter is most remembered for a period of
prolonged stagflation and his weak response to both the capture and 444 day
imprisonment of the American embassy staff in Iran, and the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan. Reagan has done somewhat
better with his policies of strength towards the Soviet Union and its
subsequent collapse.
With
ObamaCare off the table as a candidate
for part of a positive legacy, Obama has turned, almost with some desperation, towards “executive action” rather than the
more difficult demands of leadership and negotiation with the new and recalcitrant
Republican Congress.
These initiatives have a definite liberal orientation
which Obama is apparently betting will have the best chance of being evaluated
as historically important and positive by presidential historians who ar mostly
college professors. This has some risks
however as his use of an Executive Order to create a major change to
immigration policy without the inconvenience of Congress being involved in
passing the necessary legislation may ultimately be seen as an unconstitutional
abuse of presidential power.
His veto of
a bipartisan bill to allow the construction of the Canadian sponsored Keystone
pipeline to deliver crude oil form Western Canada to refineries in Oklahoma and
the Gulf Coast is an obvious pander to environmental extremists who oppose all
fossil fuel development. While Obama may
want to be remembered as the “environmental President”, this decision is also politically
unpopular and largely symbolic since it
will not have any impact on the production of oil in the regions in
question. So a political position that
is both unpopular and ineffective is highly problematic as a legacy factor.
Obama however is also stubbornly
hanging on to the hope that the prolonged negotiations with the Iranian
government to prevent it from developing a nuclear weapons capability will be the
kind of breakthrough that will do the legacy trick.
It’s not going well. No one, officially or otherwise, including
the UN’s nuclear watch dog agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) believes the Iranian government’s claim that they are only pursuing
research for medical and energy reasons.
Iran’s vast uranium enrichment infrastructure, much of which is
conveniently buried in “hardened” sites, is not necessary for either of these peaceful
enterprises. Iran is engaging in nuclear
weapons research and development and has been for over a decade.
The current negotiations
with Iran are being conducted by the five permanent members of the UN Security
Council, (U.S., UK, France, Russia, China) and Germany, known as the P5+1. These attempts
at a diplomatic solution to removing the threat during the Obama
Administration’s two terms has followed the same track as the prior
negotiations. The Iranians consider
talks and then stall. Then they agree to
talks but not to anything substantive and stall, all the while refusing to
allow full inspections of their facilities by the IAEA.
Economic sanctions have
been imposed by UN Security Council resolutions numerous times, as well as by
individual nations including the U. S. Combined
with the effects of the world recession which began in 2008, the Iranian
economy suffered substantial negative effects.
However, in January, 2014 the U.S. and the EU commenced a series of
sanction relief measures pursuant to a prior agreement with Iran to suspend
nuclear fuel enrichment processes and renew formal negotiations for a permanent
solution to the enrichment question. This had the short term desired effect of
bringing Iran back to the negotiating table.
But the sanctions imposing states made substantial concessions just to
get the Iranians to negotiate without requiring anything substantive with respect
to the enrichment process or enhanced inspections.
Now a so called
“framework” for specific agreements is supposedly “close” to being approved,
although the time frame keeps getting set back.
Obama has threatened to “walk away” if the Iranians don’t agree to the
proposed terms, a far cry from his earlier stance that Iran would not be
allowed to develop a nuclear weapon, and his oft repeated, but not recent,
statement that “all options are on the table”. This is diplomatic jargon which
implies the threat of the use of military action as a last resort. However, Obama has not inspired much
confidence with “red line” threats in the past, as his blunders over the Syrian
government’s use of chemical weapons on its own civilian populace demonstrated,
and it is doubtful that the Iranian leadership takes it seriously.
But the quest for an
Iranian component in this awkward legacy pursuit still dominates the
process. Unfortunately the proposed
agreement that the Iranians are considering is flawed in several respects and
has become a domestic political football.
The problems with the
proposed agreement are the provisions that allow Iran to keep their vast
enrichment infrastructure, even though they would agree to deactivate it. Inspections
are included but details are lacking and Iran has a history of non-compliance with
previous inspections agreements. Also,
the entire agreement has a “sunset” clause that would make it inoperative in ten
years. This may seem like a long time to
Obama whose term of office ends in less than two years, but to the Israelis it
represents a clicking clock similar to that of the of “Doomsday Clock” maintained
by the “Bulletin of Atomic Scientists which measures the proximity of global
nuclear catastrophe.
Iran’s development of long range ballistic
missiles, the delivery system for nuclear weapons, has been ignored and there
are also no political requirements with respect to Iran’s support of
international terrorism or their overt hostility to Israel.
Sensing political
opposition to the agreement and in line with his announced strategy of ignoring
the Constitutional role of Congress in the creation of public policy, Obama has
determined to make any agreement a matter of Executive fiat. The President has much authority in the
conduct of foreign policy but it is not exclusive. The President’s treaty making authority is shared
by the Senate which must approve by a two thirds majority and as a matter of
political reality, significant agreements with foreign nations involving U.S.
security interests need to have popular support as best defined by the people’s
representatives in both houses of Congress. That is why Obama has asked the
Congress for a joint authorization for the use of force against the terrorist Islamic
State in Iraq and Syria.
Obama could agree to the Iran
proposal as a form of executive agreement and he has broad powers to impose and
remove economic sanctions but he needs a similar Congressional Resolution of
approval at least to put an end to what would be a continuing and debilitating political controversy.
The Iranian negotiations
and proposed agreement have serious opposition in the Republican controlled
Congress and the issue was dramatically elevated by the recent address to the
Congress by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel at the invitation of
Speaker of the House John Boehner.
The Speaker did not seek
President Obama’s approval prior to the invitation, which Obama condemned as a
breach of protocol and a sign of disrespect. In a fit of petulance Obama
refused to meet with the Prime Minister on his trip to Washington and the
Administration’s supporters asked the Democrats in the Congress to boycott the
speech. This affront to the head of
state of America’s only democratic ally in the Middle East is both personal and
unprecedented. Cooperation with Israel
is essential in many areas of U.S. interests in the region and a failed
personal relationship between the leaders over “protocol” is inexcusable.
The Prime Minister is not
concerned with Obama’s “legacy” and has stated that “No deal is better than a
bad deal” when it comes to Israel’s survival.
Netanyahu, who is not a
party to the negotiations with Iran, made the point that Israel has the most at
stake in the international effort to deny Iran a nuclear weapons
capability. He correctly pointed out
that while the U.S. and the rest of the P5+1 nations which are conducting the negotiations have
national security concerns with respect to nuclear weapons proliferation and
regional instability in the Middle East, Israel’s concerns are the very
survival of the Jewish state which Iran has vowed to “wipe from the map”. Unfortunately, Obama has demonstrated a
marked disdain for the positions of the Israeli government with respect to its security
policies involving the conflict with the Palestinian Authority, the terrorist
government in Gaza and the on -going
nuclear issues with Iran.
Another complicating
factor has been the unusual act of 47 Republican Senators in writing a letter
to the Iranian government making it clear that any agreement signed by the
President without the approval of the Congress would last only as long as the
President remained in office. The
implication was that a Republican President who might succeed Obama in 2017
would be free, and likely, to revoke U.S. participation and any obligations
there in.
This was an unfortunate
and virtually unprecedented intrusion into the diplomatic process which is the
proper domain of the Executive branch.
The letter, if it was to be written, should have been addressed to
President Obama as a reminder of the importance of gaining Congressional input
and approval for what has become a matter of vital U.S. security
interests.
It remains to be seen what
the final agreement will look like, or if there is a final agreement. Unfortunately, it appears that Obama and the
other P+5 negotiators are more interested in getting an agreement than in
getting an agreement that addresses all the major issues in an effective and
permanent way.