[I post this for its contrarian value. To my great surprise, Cole gives him a good one. Granted, it rests on the professor being very generous with his incompletes, and not making clear that they will automatically become fails at a certain point in the near future. And he judges him by the goals he laid out campaigning rather than by best-practice desiderata. But it's still an interesting view.]
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/10/26/obama_report_card/
Obama's foreign policy report card
You'd never know it from the MSM, but he deserves high grades for
his work so far in Iran, Iraq and Pakistan
By Juan Cole
Oct. 27, 2009 |
Why can't the administration of President Barack Obama get the word
out about its policy successes? President Obama campaigned on an
ambitious platform of withdrawing from Iraq, engaging Iran on its
nuclear program and persuading the Pakistani government to take on
the Taliban and al-Qaida. Despite the charge by critics from both
the right and the left in the wake of his winning the Nobel Peace
Prize that he has accomplished little so far, in fact he has already
set in motion significant change on several of these fronts --
despite the enormous domestic tasks that have inevitably preoccupied
his administration. Yet you'd never hear about these successes from
the mainstream media.
When Obama came into office in January, 142,000 U.S. troops were in
Iraq, conducting regular patrols of the major cities. His Republican
rivals were dead set against U.S. withdrawal on a strict timetable.
He faced something close to an insurrection from some of his
commanders in the field, such as Gen. Ray Odierno, who opposed a
quick departure from Iraq. Moreover, Obama assumed the presidency at
a time when Iran and the U.S. were virtually on a war footing and
there had been no direct talks between the two countries on most of
the major issues dividing them. In February, the government of
Pakistan virtually ceded the Swat Valley and the Malakand Division
to the Pakistani Taliban of Maulvi Fazlullah, allowing the
imposition of the latter's fundamentalist version of Islamic law on
residents, and Islamabad had no stomach for taking on the
increasingly bold extremists.
Eight months later, it is a different world. While it is still early
in his presidency, and there is too much work unfinished to give him
an overall grade, it's already apparent he's outperforming his
predecessor.
Iraq: B Obama has decisively won the argument over Iraq policy.
Despite the massive bombings in Baghdad on Sunday -- the most deadly
since 2007 -- the U.S. troop withdrawal is ahead of schedule and
seems unlikely to be halted. One reason is that the security
situation in Iraq, while shaky, did not deteriorate when U.S. troops
ceased their urban patrols on June 30 (a date Iraqis celebrated as
"Sovereignty Day"). Occasional big explosions obscure the reality of
reduced guerrilla attacks. According to the Pentagon, civilian
casualties have been steadily declining since late summer. Even John
McCain said that Sunday's carnage should not delay the U.S.
withdrawal from Iraq -- a 180-degree turn in policy for the former
presidential candidate.
The process of U.S. disentanglement from Iraq has been gradual,
generating no big headlines, no "Obama brings 22,000 troops out of
Iraq, cuts war spending by $30 billion." But, in fact, troop levels
are down to about 120,000 from 142,000 early this year, and spending
on the war has fallen, from $180 billion in 2008 to $150 billion
this year. Many things could still go wrong in Iraq, affecting the
ability of the U.S. to meet the current timetable, but so far the
Iraqi security forces are generally keeping order (there were
horrific bombings when the U.S. was in control, too). He can be
faulted for not working closely enough with the Nouri al-Maliki
government to ease the transition, hence a grade of B instead of an
A.
Iran: A There has also been movement on Iran. On Oct. 1 the
administration fulfilled its campaign pledge by joining other
members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany in Geneva
to jawbone with Iran on the nuclear issue. As a result, Iran
accepted that a United Nations inspection team would visit the newly
announced enrichment facility near Qom, and on Monday inspectors
from the International Atomic Energy Agency arrived at the Fardo
plant. The acceptance of inspectors is an excellent sign. As long as
Tehran remains willing to allow U.N. inspections, both at Natanz
near Isfahan and at Fardo (which is not operational but could
eventually house 3,000 centrifuges), neither facility can be used to
produce fissionable material. Obama has changed the West's dynamics
with Iran by direct negotiation, something that 63 percent of the
American people support.
Pakistan: B Then there is Pakistan. The Obama administration came
into office determined to whittle away the "state's rights"
prerogatives of the Pashtuns, who form about 12 percent of the
Pakistani population, of which the tiny minority of Taliban had
taken advantage. From its inception, the Pakistani federal
government had inherited from the British Empire a policy of not
attempting to rule the tribal Pashtuns too heavy-handedly. In
addition, the Pakistani military uses some Taliban and other
guerrilla groups to project influence in the Pashtun areas of
neighboring Afghanistan, making the generals reluctant to move
against them. In spring-summer, the Obama administration convinced
the Pakistani government to launch a major military operation
against the Taliban in the Swat Valley. Despite temporarily
displacing 2 million residents, the operation enjoyed substantial
success and gained wide popular support from a Pakistani population
-- including most Pashtuns -- increasingly appalled at the brutality
of Taliban rule. In October, the military launched a similar
operation against the Taliban in South Waziristan, despite a raft of
bombings aimed by the militants at deterring the federal government
from coming after them.
Obama has, moreover, signed a $7.5 billion civilian aid package that
encourages economic, educational and medical development and puts
pressure on the civilian government to keep the military under its
control. The Bush administration gave most of its aid in the form of
military weaponry or support, something of which polling shows the
Pakistani public disapproves. Obama intends to build clinics and
schools and to develop an infrastructure that might help fight
militancy more effectively than any drone strikes can.
Obama's Pakistan approach, of building state capacity and improving
the economy and basic services, while dealing with the Pakistani
Taliban through large-scale military operations, may or may not
succeed. But compared to his predecessor's policy of just handing
over billions to corrupt military officers, some of whom have links
to factions of militants, Obama's policies have been far more
coherent. His use of unmanned predator drones to kill suspected
al-Qaida operatives and the aid bill's demand for the supremacy of
civilian rule over the military are both unpopular in some quarters,
because of fears that the U.S. is turning the country into a sort of
colony and infringing against its sovereignty. Obama may need to be
less heavy-handed in the future to avoid a popular backlash. If not
for this insensitivity to Pakistani popular opinion, he might
deserve an A. The Swat and South Waziristan campaigns, at least,
appear to have the support of the Pakistani public.
The administration has not succeeded everywhere. The president has
yet to make a determination on his Afghanistan policy, and so far
little progress has been made on a two-state solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A verdict is still outstanding about
his performance in those two regions, leading to two grades of
"incomplete." But Obama's withdrawal from Iraq is actually ahead of
schedule, his direct engagement with Iran is producing some
tentative results, and he has strong-armed the Pakistani state into
owning the problem of the Pakistani Taliban, while instituting a
major civilian aid program. Far from accomplishing nothing in his
first eight months, Obama has been a whirlwind of activity and has
already gained a place in the Iraqi, Iranian and Pakistani history
books. He receives his lowest grade for his failure to force
America's chattering classes to take notice. While it is a bit of a
relief not to be subjected to the constant propaganda of the Bush
administration about its creation of shining cities on a hill
abroad, the Obama administration has gone too far in the opposite
direction, hiding its light beneath a bushel.
-- By Juan Cole