Tag Archives: foreign policy

Senator Obama – Meet The Big Man: President Obama!

“The notion that as a consequence of that authorization, the president can continue down a failed path without any constraints from Congress whatsoever is wrong and is not warranted by our Constitution,” – Remarks in 2007 by Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama criticizing President Bush’s decision to increase U.S. military forces in Iraq based on a 2001 congressional authorization.

If we gauge a president’s success by his ability to achieve campaign promises, there is no doubt that in foreign policy President Obama has fallen far short of the mark. As research by Middlebury College student Danny Zhang of presidential candidate Obama’s public remarks reminds us, Obama’s foreign policy agenda included two fundamental tenets: he would wind down U.S. military involvement in Iraq, and he would return to a more collaborative and bipartisanship conduct of foreign affairs – one more nearly in accord with the Constitution.

Arguably neither tenet has been met. It is now clear that Obama will almost certainly bequeath to his successor an anti-terror military campaign in Iraq and Syria intended to destroy the Islamic State (IS) that even the most optimistic projections suggest will last years, and with uncertain odds of success. And rather than consult with Congress, Obama has justified his current air campaign against IS on the Bush-era 2001 authorization by Congress to use military force against terrorists who attacked the United States – the very premise he rejected on the presidential campaign trail while a U.S. Senator.

It is tempting to conclude from this record that candidate Obama was naive, if not duplicitous. But I have no doubt that he sincerely believed his rhetoric – as did most of those who voted for him. He likely did believe that, as he indicated to the Boston Globe “[t]he President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.” As I have often said, however, governing is far different than campaigning. The reason why President Obama’s foreign policy seems to have largely followed his predecessor’s blueprint is because the nature of the strategic threats to the United States has not changed across the two presidencies. Nor has the president’s constitutionally-based responsibility to protect the nation from attack. That combination of similar threats and a shared vantage point made it almost certain that President Obama’s foreign policy would not deviate markedly from George W. Bush’s – a point some of us have made before.

Indeed, arguably Obama’s biggest foreign policy mistake occurred when he did try to deviate from his predecessor’s blueprint by ordering a full U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq. One can debate what precipitated the U.S. troop pullout; Obama’s supporters insist that Iraqi leader al-Maliki was unwilling to allow U.S. forces to remain under a strategy of force agreement that protected U.S. soldiers. More generally, as Obama argued in his recent 60 Minutes interview, it may be that the decision to withdraw was sound, but that the Iraqis then squandered the opportunity the U.S. left them: “When we left, we had left them a democracy that was intact, a military that was well equipped, and the ability then to chart their own course. And that opportunity was squandered over the course of five years or so because the prime minister, Maliki, was much more interested in consolidating his Shiite base.”

However, Obama’s former CIA director Leon Panetta is the latest ex-administration member to suggest Obama made little effort to overcome al-Maliki’s resistance to retaining a small U.S. military force in Iraq in order to stabilize the regime and provide security against terrorist attacks. In excerpts from his soon to be released book Worthy Fights, Panetta writes, “Those on our side viewed the White House as so eager to rid itself of Iraq that it was willing to withdraw rather than lock in arrangements that would preserve our influence and interests.”

Whatever the explanation, the reality now is that the U.S. is once again engaged in a military conflict in Iraq and Syria of indeterminate length and uncertain success. And, like his predecessor’s Iraqi war effort, Obama is trying to create an international “coalition of the willing” to help defeat IS. To date, however, the largely U.S.-led campaign of targeted air strikes has not appeared to have had much success in rolling back IS’s territorial gains. That leaves open the possibility that at some point the U.S. may have to increase its troop commitment beyond the nearly 2,000 now stationed in Iraq if Obama’s war aims are to be reached – a troop increase that many military experts suggest is inevitable.

Nor has President Obama appeared to heed candidate Obama’s advice, as exemplified in the opening quote to this piece, to conduct foreign policy in a more collaborative, bipartisan and constitutionally-acceptable manner. In fact, as noted above, Obama has cited the Bush-era authorization of military force as the legal basis for the current bombing campaign against IS. Critics contend that this smacks of presidential imperialism. In truth, however, Obama’s actions are consistent with those of his predecessors’, almost all of whom have sought to protect the presidency’s ability to fulfill its constitutional prerogative to defend the nation from attack. As Madison argues in Federalist 51, this effort to defend the presidency as an institution is both expected and desirable: “But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place.” Under Madison’s reasoning, it is Congress’ role to push back against this assertion by Obama of prerogative power. However, as I noted in this previous post, many congressional Republicans are applauding Obama’s newfound militarism while most Democrats do not want to take on their own president heading into a midterm election.

We should not be surprised, then, that as President, Obama more closely resembles President George W. Bush than he does Senator or candidate Obama. In the modern era, the United States – as the sole superpower – no longer has the luxury of choosing whether to take the lead in foreign affairs. That is a burden that cannot be removed, no matter how much Americans may yearn for – and candidates may promise – a return to normalcy. And the President, as the embodiment of national sovereignty, simply cannot delegate this leadership role to any other political actor.

In his study of American government Woodrow Wilson wrote, “The President is at liberty, both in law and in conscience, to be as big a man as he can.” In the modern era, however, as presidency scholar Richard Neustadt reminds us – and as President Obama has discovered – the president “nowadays cannot be as small as he might like.”

Senator Obama – meet the big man: President Obama.

Why Obama’s Approval Ratings Languish

I don’t normally focus too much attention on one survey, but when it helps illuminate a broader (and not uncontroversial) argument I’ve made it becomes too good to pass up.

Readers will recall that in yesterday’s post I noted that the likely explanation for President Obama’s recent sputtering approval ratings in the face of an incrementally improving economy is a spate of bad news from overseas. The results of this McClatchy-Marist poll, in the field August 4-7, are consistent with my analysis. It shows Obama’s approval rating languishing at 40%, the second lowest of his presidency, and the lowest it has fallen in three years. (He was at 39% approval in a September 2011 McClatchy poll.)

More importantly, in the poll Obama gets dismal ratings for his handling of foreign policy, with only 33% approving of his performance in this area, compared to 61% who disapprove. That’s a decline of 13% in approval since the start of this year, and a decline of 9% since April. As I suggested yesterday, that nosedive appears to be driven most recently by the public’s perception of events in the Mideast and in the Ukraine, as well as Iraq. Only 30% of respondents approve the President’s handling of the Israeli-Hamas conflict, and only 32% give Obama favorable marks for his dealing with Russia regarding the Ukraine struggle. (McClatchy didn’t ask about the Islamic State insurgency in Iraq, but I am confident that is also contributing to Obama’s loss of support.) In comparison, while his handling of the economy gets relatively low marks, at 39% approving, that level has remained relatively consistent for over a year now. So it appears that foreign policy is keeping Obama’s polling numbers low for now.

As you might expect in an era of deep party sorting, there is a pronounced partisan divide in Obama’s approval numbers with Democrats showing far greater support for his handling of issues, including foreign policy, than do Republicans. However, what is most telling is his declining support among independents who, as I noted in my previous post, are a growing portion of the electorate, and who were a key component of Obama’s electoral coalition in 2008. As of today, however, Obama’s support among this voting bloc has seen a precipitous decline.

Fully 45% of respondents to the McClatchy survey now categorize themselves as independent, compared to 28% who self-identify as Democrat and 25% Republican. Among independents, 18% say they lean Republican, while 12% consider themselves “pure”, with no partisan leanings in either direction. We know from previous studies that “leaners” tend to act on those predispositions; when given a choice of two candidates, most will back the one from the party to which they lean. If this holds true to form, the survey suggests an electorate that is almost evenly divided between the two parties, with the independents likely to hold the balance of power heading into the 2012 midterms.

What is driving down Obama’s support among independents? Again, consistent with my post yesterday, Obama is not being helped by events overseas; McClatchy finds that only 31% of independents approve of Obama’s handling of foreign policy. The number is lower among independents – at 24% approval – for both his handling of the Israeli-Hamas conflict and the Ukraine conflict. More worrisome, it appears Obama’s foreign policy woes may affect the midterm results come November. When asked if “November’s election were held today, which party’s candidate are you more likely to vote for in your district?”, Republicans lead on this generic ballot question by 43-38% over Democrats. In April, by contrast, Democrats were up by 48-42%, so it has been nearly a 10% net change in support across three months. During this period the indicators measuring the health of the economy have not changed much or have indicated a slight improvement, but the salience of foreign policy has increased, and not to the President’s benefit.

It can be dangerous to put too much stock into one poll. Events overseas remain fluid, leaving the possibility that a reversal in fortune could redound to Obama’s – and Democrats’ – benefit. Moreover, we shouldn’t overstate the impact of Obama’s low approval on voters’ choices come November. Fully 51% of respondents to the McClatchy poll say their opinion of Obama won’t be a factor in their vote during the midterms, including 61% of independents who say it won’t matter. On the other hand, 41% of independents say “their impression of Obama” will make them more likely to vote Republican come November, compared to 22% who say it will make them more likely to vote Democratic. Obama’s standing within the public, particularly among independents, is one factor – but not the only one – that will affect the midterm results.

My broader point, however, is to reiterate my claim in yesterday’s post regarding why Obama’s poll numbers remain sluggish. In this era of social media and partisan-driven talking points, it is easy to blame some combination of polarization, cable news, and racial animus for his languishing approval ratings. The evidence, however, points to a more prosaic culprit: things aren’t going well overseas, and when that happens, the President, fair or not, takes the blame.

Does Obama Face A “Competence” Problem?

“[T]the world is a mess.” So declared former Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright last Sunday while appearing on Bob Schieffer’s Face the Nation. But, if the latest round of punditry is to be believed, so is President’s Obama’s foreign policy. The Washington Post’s David Ignatius* issued a blistering critique today regarding Secretary of State’s John Kerry’s efforts to broker a truce in Gaza. By targeting Kerry, of course, Ignatius’ critique will inevitably be viewed as implicitly indicting the President, who is Kerry’s boss. Ignatius’ critique comes two days after his colleague Fred Hiatt’s own attack on Obama’s policy of “disengagement.” And finally, the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza, citing recent survey data, argued in his column yesterday that Obama faces a significant “competence” problem that threatens both his ability to accomplish much during his second term and, not incidentally, “make things very tough for his party in this fall’s midterm election”.

I noted in yesterday’s post that much of the criticism regarding Obama’s foreign policy fails to recognize the nearly insoluble nature of many of world problems (the recurring Israeli-Palestine clash only dates back at least to 1948, after all) and overstates Obama’s – indeed, any president’s – effective influence on events in general. Today I want to develop that point by focusing on Cillizza’s latest critique of the President’s managerial abilities, which he appears to blame in part for Obama’s foreign policy failings. As evidence of Obama’s managerial incompetence, Cillizza cites a recent CNN poll in which only 42% of respondents believe the phrase “can manage the government effectively” applies to Obama, while fully 57% believes it doesn’t apply to him. To Cillizza, this is clear proof that Obama “is faltering badly on the competence question.”

What should we make of Cillizza’s argument? To start, it’s worth noting that, as Cillizza acknowledges, the latest survey result isn’t much different from the responses in previous CNN surveys asking this same question. Indeed, back in September, 2011 – before Obama won reelection – the same percentage of respondents – 42% – came to the same conclusion regarding Obama’s lack of managerial effectiveness. Last November only 40% of those surveyed said the “manage government effectively” moniker applied to Obama. In fact, as the following graph put together by Day Robins and charting responses to the CNN managerial competence question dating back to 2008 indicates, views regarding Obama’s managerial capabilities seem to have stabilized: If the President has a significant competence issue, then, it is a longstanding concern that predates his reelection, and it is not nearly as certain as Cillizza seems to believe that it will have serious political implications this fall. It certainly did not prevent his reelection in 2012.

More importantly, however, it is not immediately clear what drives survey respondents’ answers to this question. What does it mean to be an effective manager? Cillizza himself seems fuzzy on this point – he attributes the low support for Obama’s managerial qualities to “[a] series of events — from the VA scandal to the ongoing border crisis to the situation in Ukraine to the NSA spying program – [that] have badly undermined the idea that Obama can effectively manage the government…” But it seems to me that some of these issues, such as the border crisis or the situation in Ukraine, aren’t viewed by most people through a narrow managerial lens, if that means evaluating whether the President is an effective administrator of policies in these issue areas. I suspect instead that when it comes to the Ukraine conflict or immigration, people are criticizing Obama’s policies, or at least the perceived impact of these policies on outcomes, more than his managerial skills. Similarly, critics of the NSA spying program aren’t attacking how it was managed so much as who it targeted and on what basis.

But even in areas, such as the VA scandal, where outcomes do seem linked to poor management, the survey evidence indicates that most people do not blame the President. Thus, a NBC/Wall St. Journal survey from last June showed that 61% of respondents believed that the VA problems were due to a “longstanding government bureaucracy” while only 14% attributed the scandal to “poor management by the Obama administration.”

But there is a more fundamental problem with Cillizza’s focus on Obama’s managerial competence. It feeds the inaccurate belief that the President is the nation’s CEO who has primary responsibility for managing the executive branch bureaucracy. This frequently voiced belief, however, flies in the face of both the Constitution and empirical evidence. In fact, the Framers allocated the primary levers of managerial control – particularly the ability to create, define a mission and pay for a government bureaucracy – to Congress, not the President. The managerial powers the President does possess, such as the ability to appoint senior officials to head the bureaucracy, is usually shared with the Senate. In some cases presidents can “manage” unilaterally, as when firing officials, although the cost of doing so is often politically prohibitive. But, as Obama discovered when debating options regarding a potential surge of military forces in Afghanistan, even a president’s “commander-in-chief”-related managerial powers are more limited than is commonly recognized. Journalists, in their reporting, often exhibit a blind spot to this constitutionally-mandated sharing of managerial powers, as Richard Neustadt noted more than half a century ago in his classic study of presidential power: “Even Washington reporters…are not immune to the illusion that administrative agencies comprise a single structure, the ‘executive branch’ where presidential word is law, or ought to be.” In fact, as the news that Congress is taking the initial steps to fix the Veterans Administration reminds us, when bureaucracies fail, we usually ought first to start with Congress rather than the President when seeking solutions.

My point here is not to absolve Obama of all blame for the “messy” state of American foreign policy. It is instead to suggest that the problems are probably not caused by his managerial incompetence so much as a poor choice of policy options and a limited capacity, rooted in weak formal powers, to implement those options. Nor do I mean to imply that a president’s managerial skills (or lack thereof) don’t matter. They do – but their biggest impact centers on how presidents choose to utilize their immediate advisers, a topic about which I’ve written extensively, and which I will try to address in another blog post. In the meantime, however, I see little evidence that Obama’s alleged lack of managerial competence is the cause of his foreign policy problems or that it will be a drag on the Democratic ticket come November.

*An earlier version of this post incorrectly list the author of the Kerry critique as David Sanger – it is David Ignatius, of course.

The Bergdahl Dispute Is A Constitutional Issue More than A Partisan One

The ongoing dispute regarding the Taliban-Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl prisoner exchange is not only, or even primarily, a partisan fight. It is a constitutional argument, but one that will be decided (if at all!) not by a legal process, but by a political one – just as the Framers intended.

In this earlier post, I argued that the motivation for President Obama’s decision to swap the five Taliban prisoners for Bergdahl’s release was probably not dissimilar to the reason why President Ronald Reagan agreed to trade arms for hostages: both were driven by humanitarian concerns for the safety of those in captivity, and for their families. Consistent with my claim, in his public statements since initially announcing the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the President has continued to defend the decision in humanitarian terms, arguing that America does not leave its soldiers behind. Some have questioned whether that credo is worth the cost, particularly when applied to a possible deserter. But even if one accepts the President’s explanation, critics maintain that the President was legally obligated to inform Congress before moving any Taliban out of Guantanamo Bay prison as part of the exchange. Many have dismissed this criticism, arguing that it is motivated purely by partisan politics. But even some Democratic legislators have argued that the President should have consulted with them before the prisoner swap took place. Indeed, members of his own administration, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and CIA director Leon Panetta were reportedly resisting the prisoner swap as discussed in an earlier incarnation. Clearly, the divide over the Bergdahl swap is not simply a partisan one.

Obama and his aides have responded to Congressional criticism by arguing that this was a time sensitive issue, and that they could not jeopardize Bergdahl’s safety by consulting with Congress – and presumably risk having the negotiations exposed through leaks – as the deal was imminent. In the words of national security adviser Susan Rice, “What we put the highest premium on was the safety of Sgt. Bergdahl. This was held closely within the administration. We could not take any risk with losing the opportunity to bring him back safely.” In another parallel to the Iran-contra affair, Rice’s defense echoes the argument Lt. Colonel Oliver North made in his testimony before the joint congressional committee investigating the Iranian arms-for-hostage deal. When asked to defend the failure to consult with Congress regarding the Iranian arms swap and the funneling of residual funds to the Nicaraguan contras, North replied, “I think it is important… that we somehow arrive at some kind of understanding right here and now as to what a covert operation is. If we could [find] a way to … talk about covert operations to the American people without it getting into the hands of our adversaries, I’m sure we would do that. But we haven’t found the way to do it.” In further testimony North made it clear that he and his immediate supervisor, national security adviser Admiral John Poindexter, kept their dealings with Iran secret from Congress because they feared that once Congress was officially informed of the initiative, members would leak their knowledge to the public, thus undermining the effort to get hostages released.

Members of Congress did not react very favorably to North’s defense then, and they are not likely to buy Rice’s explanation today. As co-chair of the joint Congressional committee investigating the Iran affair, Representative Lee Hamilton pushed back against North’s defense of hiding covert operations from Congress, citing Congress’ need to exercise its constitutional oversight duties. In Hamilton’s words, directed to North: “You and I agree that covert actions pose very special problems for a democracy. It is, as you said, a dangerous world, and we must be able to conduct covert actions….But it is contrary to all that we know about democracy to have no checks and balances on them. We’ve established a lawful procedure to handle covert operations. It’s not perfect by any means, but it works reasonably well.” Hamilton went on to criticize North’s attitude toward Congress’ constitutional role: “I do not see how your attitude can be reconciled with the Constitution of the United States…The Constitution grants foreign policymaking powers to both the President and Congress and our foreign policy cannot succeed unless they work together.”

To be clear, as I said in my earlier post, the policy significance of the Bergdahl swap is likely not nearly as important as were the issues at the heart of the Iran-contra affair. But the current dispute centers on the very same constitutional debate regarding the relative roles of the President and Congress in foreign policy – a debate woven into the very fabric of the American political system of shared powers. How do we reconcile a president’s constitutional duty to act, as Alexander (not Lee) Hamilton put it in Federalist 70, with “secrecy, and dispatch” versus Congress’ right to hold the President accountable and to deliberate regarding his (someday her) actions?

At its heart, although the Bergdahl dispute is really an argument over the meaning of the Constitution, it cannot be resolved by efforts by constitutional scholars to parse the meaning of that document, or the meaning of laws based on it. Indeed, legal experts have already shown that they are hopelessly divided on the merits of the case. Rather, the dispute will play out in the court of public opinion, as mediated by partisans, pundits and the occasional political scientist. Already the early polling suggests that a strong plurality (43% to 34%) of the public believe the exchange was “the wrong thing to do”. Pointedly, however, more than 20% of those polled have no opinion on the affair, so opinions remain fluid.

My own view, as I expressed in my earlier post, is that Obama’s humanitarian concerns may have blinded him to the underlying constitutional and institutional objections regarding how the exchange was conducted, much as Reagan’s concern for the welfare of the hostages blinded him during the Iran-contra affair to the implications of negotiating with terrorists. But no matter how this latest brouhaha plays out, it will not resolve the fundamental Constitutional tension that lies at the root of these disputes. In the oft-quoted words of political scientist Edwin Corwin, the Constitution “is an invitation to struggle for the privilege of directing American foreign policy.” As we watch that struggle play out in the coming days and weeks, we should remind ourselves that this is precisely how the Framers expected these disputes to be resolved.

1:42 Update: CBS released the results of a second poll on the Bergdahl controversy and the results were similar to those of the USA poll I cited above: 45% disapproved of the transaction, compared to 37% who approved, but fully 18% of respondents expressed no opinion on the swap, suggesting that attitudes on the topic have not yet hardened.