What Obama
Gets Right; Keep Calm and Carry the Liberal Order On
Author: Gideon Rose, Editor, Foreign Affairs, and Peter G. Peterson Chair, Foreign Affairs
September/October 2015
"How should one judge a president’s handling of foreign policy? Some focus on what happens in a few lonely moments of crisis, casting the nation’s leader as Horatius at the bridge or Casey at the bat. But a better analogy would be a member of a relay team or a middle relief pitcher: somebody who takes over from a predecessor, does a hard job for a while, and then passes things on to the next guy.
"In baseball, there are special statistics used to judge such players, the hold and the blown save, which essentially tally whether the pitcher’s team keeps or loses the lead while he’s in the game. Looked at in such a light, Barack Obama has done pretty well. Having inherited two wars and a global economic crisis from the George W. Bush administration—the foreign policy equivalent of runners on base with no outs—Obama has extricated the country from some old problems, avoided getting trapped in some new ones, and made some solid pickups on the side." . . .
What Obama Gets Wrong No Retreat, No Surrender
. . . "Nevertheless, every president should be judged on a few fundamentals—his ability to deliver what he promised, weaken the country’s foes and strengthen its friends, elaborate a concept of the American interest that is persuasive and true, and pass on a world heading in the right direction. Obama rates well on none of these. Start with the promises, of which Obama made plenty when he came to office. The prison at Guantánamo Bay was to be shut within a year. Relations with Russia would be “reset.” The United States’ good name would be restored in such places as Cairo, Istanbul, and Damascus. Israeli settlement expansion would end, and peace with the Palestinians would be forged. Much of this was to be achieved, so it seemed, through the sheer moral force of Obama’s personality and the compelling logic of his ideas. Yet none of it occurred. Obama became the president who, to use one of Rose’s baseball metaphors, called his shot only to strike out." . . .
By Bret Stephens
Author: Gideon Rose, Editor, Foreign Affairs, and Peter G. Peterson Chair, Foreign Affairs
September/October 2015
"How should one judge a president’s handling of foreign policy? Some focus on what happens in a few lonely moments of crisis, casting the nation’s leader as Horatius at the bridge or Casey at the bat. But a better analogy would be a member of a relay team or a middle relief pitcher: somebody who takes over from a predecessor, does a hard job for a while, and then passes things on to the next guy.
"In baseball, there are special statistics used to judge such players, the hold and the blown save, which essentially tally whether the pitcher’s team keeps or loses the lead while he’s in the game. Looked at in such a light, Barack Obama has done pretty well. Having inherited two wars and a global economic crisis from the George W. Bush administration—the foreign policy equivalent of runners on base with no outs—Obama has extricated the country from some old problems, avoided getting trapped in some new ones, and made some solid pickups on the side." . . .
What Obama Gets Wrong No Retreat, No Surrender
. . . "Nevertheless, every president should be judged on a few fundamentals—his ability to deliver what he promised, weaken the country’s foes and strengthen its friends, elaborate a concept of the American interest that is persuasive and true, and pass on a world heading in the right direction. Obama rates well on none of these. Start with the promises, of which Obama made plenty when he came to office. The prison at Guantánamo Bay was to be shut within a year. Relations with Russia would be “reset.” The United States’ good name would be restored in such places as Cairo, Istanbul, and Damascus. Israeli settlement expansion would end, and peace with the Palestinians would be forged. Much of this was to be achieved, so it seemed, through the sheer moral force of Obama’s personality and the compelling logic of his ideas. Yet none of it occurred. Obama became the president who, to use one of Rose’s baseball metaphors, called his shot only to strike out." . . .
By Bret Stephens
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