Obama: Reaching Out to Adversaries, Alienating Allies
The president has tried to tell friends hard truths. What if those friends don’t listen?
Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu, before their latest disagreement Ronen Zvulun / Reuters
Uri Friedman Dec 31, 2016 Global
As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama promised to embrace America’s allies and extend a hand to its adversaries. As president, he has made remarkable progress in engaging longtime foes, restoring relations with Cuba and negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran. But the same can’t be said for all the country’s traditional friends. Obama certainly strengthened alliances with Western European nations turned off by George W. Bush, and worked closely with other countries to fight ISIS and reduce climate change. But on his watch ties have frayed with several countries previously considered U.S. partners, including Egypt, Israel, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. The bitter back-and-forth this week between U.S. and Israeli leaders on Israel’s settlement policy is just one illustration of this trend.
These ties have frayed in part because of events outside Obama’s control, such as the Egyptian Revolution and, in the case of the Saudis, the American shale-oil revolution. They’ve frayed because of the emergence in many of these countries of leaders who are personally and ideologically at odds with Obama. But they’ve also frayed because of the unique way in which the Obama administration has treated adversaries and allies. The prevailing logic within the administration appears to go something like this: Adversarial governments don’t want what the U.S. government wants, so constructive relationships with them must initially be based on opportunities for dialogue. Eventually, sustained engagement may help produce or identify areas of convergent interest.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/12/obama-israel-kerry-allies/511796/
