BackBarack Obama: A new face of American progressivism
At the end of his tenure, US President Barack Obama has a track record of dismantling old walls
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In the opening lines of his book World Order: Reflections on the Character of Nations and the Course of History, Henry Kissinger recalls asking former US president Harry S. Truman in 1961 what the proudest achievement of his presidency had been. Truman replied: “That we totally defeated our enemies (in World War II) and then brought them back to the community of nations." Kissinger concluded about Truman: “He wanted to be remembered not so much for America’s victories as for its conciliations." But conciliation is a poor substitute for closure. More than seven decades later, US President Barack Obama has taken a step towards that with his visit to Hiroshima, the city which, along with Nagasaki, was a victim of American nuclear bombs in August 1945.
To be sure, a visit to Hiroshima is only symbolic. Moreover, Obama did not offer an apology either. But his speech in Hiroshima was laced with—as pointed out by prominent strategic thinker C. Uday Bhaskar—a “spirit of forgiveness" stated in “an elegantly elliptical manner". Hiroshima is, however, just the latest example. As he approaches the end of his second term, Obama has built a track record of dismantling old walls. It was during his tenure that the US administration has opened up to meaningful engagements with nations such as Iran, Cuba and Myanmar.
Each of these openings comes with their own circumstantial logic and political fallouts. For example, Obama’s policy change of engaging Myanmar rather than trying to isolate it was as much a result of Asia’s changing geopolitical equations as of any realization of the futility of changing Myanmar’s realities from a hemisphere’s distance. And the benefits of nuclear deal with Iran are deeply, and often bitterly, contested domestically in the US. But the political questions on what could have been achieved often tend to obscure what was actually achieved. And when the achievements are framed negatively—like in Iran where the nuclear deal perhaps averted another war in an already troubled West Asia—it is even more difficult to make a robust political case in a fragmented polity.
This is not meant to be a whole-hearted endorsement of Obama’s foreign policy. In fact, Mint has previously listed the problems with—as Jeffrey Goldberg described it—“The Obama Doctrine." Obama’s Libya adventure ended in a complete mess. His disdain for what he refers to as “the Washington playbook" has not been enough to address the problems with allies such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The playbook still largely sets the agenda for these two countries in particular. Obama’s commitments on disarmament—famously elaborated in a 2009 Prague speech and repeated during the Hiroshima visit—are not just woolly headed but also monumentally hypocritical. Several reports indicate that the Obama administration has slowed the rate of reduction of nuclear stockpile to its lowest after the Cold War.
However, his liberal rhetoric abroad has been matched by some genuinely progressive decisions in domestic affairs. In Janet Yellen, Obama nominated the first female chair of the Federal Reserve. His judicial nominees, too, have included more women, people of colour and openly gay persons than any of his predecessors. All of these decisions also go well with how smartly he has been able to carry himself. Be it the meal with celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain at a humble eatery in Hanoi or an invitation to a 14-year-old Muslim schoolboy Ahmed Mohamed—who got arrested because his homemade clock was mistaken for a bomb by his teachers—to the White House, Obama has built himself into an ordinary man’s president. His own image of a black man reaching the White House and overcoming the tide of history only adds to the charm.
In a recent article for Vox, Dylan Matthews called Obama “one of the most consequential presidents in American history" and one who “will be a particularly towering figure in the history of American progressivism". Perhaps a bit of context will justify the spirit of Matthews’ assertions. Obama’s rise to becoming a face for progressivism comes at a time when parochialism seems to be gaining ground and several politicians around the world are hoping to tap into a constituency of voters who have been, at least in their own perceptions, let down by globalization. It is indeed remarkable that Obama in his last year is still dismantling old walls and his probable successor, Donald Trump, is already proposing to build new ones. On whose side will the tide of history be?
Will Obama be remembered as one of the most progressive presidents in American history? Tell us at views@livemint.com
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