Alfred W. McCoy, Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is getting a lot of attention for offering what many are hailing as a unique perspective on the Obama presidency. This excerpt from “Grandmaster of the Great Game,” Huffington Post, September 15, 2015, might explain why.
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In ways that have eluded Washington pundits and policymakers, President Barack Obama is deploying a subtle geopolitical strategy that, if successful, might give Washington a fighting chance to extend its global hegemony deep into the twenty-first century.
After six years of silent, sometimes secret preparations, the Obama White House has recently unveiled some bold diplomatic initiatives whose sum is nothing less than a tri-continental strategy to check Beijing’s rise. As these moves unfold, Obama is revealing himself as one of those rare grandmasters who appear every generation or two with an ability to go beyond mere foreign policy and play that ruthless global game called geopolitics.
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Except that there’s nothing unique about Professor McCoy’s perspective. After all, I’ve been chronicling Obama’s political mastery for years in such commentaries as “New Sanctions on Iran: Naïve or Shrewd,” June 15, 2010, “Obama Planting Political Seeds for Success,” April 7, 2010, and “Obama’s Swing Right Alienates Left,” November 24, 2009, which includes this prescient excerpt.
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Far too many liberals are being swayed by conservative spin about Obama’s domestic policy agenda being too unfocused and his foreign policy being too soft. Not to mention the political naiveté being displayed by those who are already calling him a ‘sellout.’
They fail to appreciate that Obama is merely planting political seeds this year (e.g., on the economy, healthcare, Iran, and even in his dealings with rabidly partisan Republicans) that he reasonably expects will blossom (i.e., pay dividends) in due course…
This means that, like the most successful presidents in modern times (namely Reagan and Clinton), Obama is perfectly prepared to sacrifice short-term popularity (and a few congressional Democrats) to ensure his re-election and presidential legacy.
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Never mind that there was nothing “subtle” about Obama’s declared intent to “pivot to Asia.” After all, this geopolitical strategy had him making quite a show of championing the Trans-Pacific Partnership and joining the East Asia Summit. His aim is clearly to check China’s political influence and contain its military aggression throughout the region, respectively.
All the same, I commend the professor for recognizing that the “moves” Obama made years ago are beginning to unfold in ways that heretofore have eluded most Washington pundits and policymakers. But I hope I can be forgiven a little indignation – given that I recognized those moves as Obama, the geopolitical grandmaster, was making them during the early days of his presidency.
That said, I feel compelled to clarify that I’m not one of those Obama-can-do-no-wrong supporters.
In fact, I’m on record denouncing the way he championed Arab Spring protesters, whose misguided and uncompromising protests have produced little more than a perennial winter of discontent. Given the mess Bush caused by toppling Hussein of Iraq, you’d think Obama would have nothing to do with toppling dictators like Mubarak of Egypt, Gaddafi of Libya and Assad of Syria (still unfolding).
What’s more, I have admonished that it’s sheer folly for the United States to be trying to settle sectarian conflicts, which have been raging in the Muslim world for over a thousand years. I have lamented this folly in commentaries as far back as “The Shotgun Convention of Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds to Frame an Iraqi Constitution,” August 22, 2005, and as recent as “Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds Fighting for Control of Iraq. Stay Out, America” June 19, 2014. After all, this is even more like political quicksand than trying to broker peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Related commentaries:
Planting seeds…
Naïve or shrewd…
Obama’s swing right…
Stay out, America…
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