Obama on the World
President Obama Talks to Thomas L. Friedman About Iraq, Putin and Israel
Exclusive Interview: Obama on the World
President Barack Obama talks with the Op-Ed columnist Thomas L. Friedman about a wide range of issues at home and abroad.
Video Credit By Leslye Davis, A.J. Chavar, Abe Sater and David Frank on
Publish Date August 9, 2014.
Image CreditPhotograph by Doug Mills/The New York Times
President
Obama’s hair is definitely grayer these days, and no doubt trying to
manage foreign policy in a world of increasing disorder accounts for at
least half of those gray hairs. (The Tea Party can claim the other
half.) But having had a chance to spend an hour touring the horizon with
him in the White House Map Room late Friday afternoon, it’s clear that
the president has a take on the world, born of many lessons over the
last six years, and he has feisty answers for all his foreign policy
critics.
Obama
made clear that he is only going to involve America more deeply in
places like the Middle East to the extent that the different communities
there agree to an inclusive politics of no victor/no vanquished. The
United States is not going to be the air force of Iraqi Shiites or any
other faction. Despite Western sanctions, he cautioned, President
Vladimir Putin of Russia “could invade” Ukraine at any time, and, if he
does, “trying to find our way back to a cooperative functioning
relationship with Russia during the remainder of my term will be much
more difficult.” Intervening in Libya to prevent a massacre was the
right thing to do, Obama argued, but doing it without sufficient
follow-up on the ground to manage Libya’s transition to more democratic
politics is probably his biggest foreign policy regret.
Lessons From Libya
Barack Obama discusses what he’s learned
about foreign policy during his presidency. This is an excerpt of his
full video interview with Thomas L. Friedman.
Video Credit By The New York Times on
Publish Date August 8, 2014.
Image CreditPhotograph by Doug Mills/The New York Times
At
the end of the day, the president mused, the biggest threat to America —
the only force that can really weaken us — is us. We have so many
things going for us right now as a country — from new energy resources
to innovation to a growing economy — but, he said, we will never realize
our full potential unless our two parties adopt the same outlook that
we’re asking of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds or Israelis and Palestinians:
No victor, no vanquished and work together.
Obama on America’s Place in the World
President Obama talks to Thomas L.
Friedman about how the United States can be a benevolent force as well
as a superpower. This is an excerpt of the full interview.
Video Credit By The New York Times on
Publish Date August 8, 2014.
Image CreditPhotograph by Doug Mills/The New York Times
“Our
politics are dysfunctional,” said the president, and we should heed the
terrible divisions in the Middle East as a “warning to us: societies
don’t work if political factions take maximalist positions. And the more
diverse the country is, the less it can afford to take maximalist
positions.”
While
he blamed the rise of the Republican far right for extinguishing so
many potential compromises, Obama also acknowledged that gerrymandering,
the Balkanization of the news media and uncontrolled money in politics —
the guts of our political system today — are sapping our ability to
face big challenges together, more than any foreign enemy. “Increasingly
politicians are rewarded for taking the most extreme maximalist
positions,” he said, “and sooner or later, that catches up with you.”
I
began by asking whether if former Secretary of State Dean Acheson was
“present at the creation” of the post-World War II order, as he once
wrote, did Obama feel present at the “disintegration?”
“First
of all, I think you can’t generalize across the globe because there are
a bunch of places where good news keeps coming.” Look at Asia, he said,
countries like Indonesia, and many countries in Latin America, like
Chile. “But I do believe,” he added, “that what we’re seeing in the
Middle East and parts of North Africa is an order that dates back to
World War I starting to buckle.”
But
wouldn’t things be better had we armed the secular Syrian rebels early
or kept U.S. troops in Iraq? The fact is, said the president, in Iraq a
residual U.S. troop presence would never have been needed had the Shiite
majority there not “squandered an opportunity” to share power with
Sunnis and Kurds. “Had the Shia majority seized the opportunity to reach
out to the Sunnis and the Kurds in a more effective way, [and not]
passed legislation like de-Baathification,” no outside troops would have
been necessary. Absent their will to do that, our troops sooner or
later would have been caught in the crossfire, he argued.
Iraqis’ Squandered Opportunities
President Obama explains that the United
States military cannot do for the Iraqis what they won’t do for
themselves. This is an excerpt of a full video interview.
Video Credit By The New York Times on
Publish Date August 8, 2014.
Image CreditPhotograph by Doug Mills/The New York Times
With
“respect to Syria,” said the president, the notion that arming the
rebels would have made a difference has “always been a fantasy. This
idea that we could provide some light arms or even more sophisticated
arms to what was essentially an opposition made up of former doctors,
farmers, pharmacists and so forth, and that they were going to be able
to battle not only a well-armed state but also a well-armed state backed
by Russia, backed by Iran, a battle-hardened Hezbollah, that was never
in the cards.”
Even
now, the president said, the administration has difficulty finding,
training and arming a sufficient cadre of secular Syrian rebels:
“There’s not as much capacity as you would hope.”
The
“broader point we need to stay focused on,” he added, “is what we have
is a disaffected Sunni minority in the case of Iraq, a majority in the
case of Syria, stretching from essentially Baghdad to Damascus. ...
Unless we can give them a formula that speaks to the aspirations of that
population, we are inevitably going to have problems. ...
Unfortunately, there was a period of time where the Shia majority in
Iraq didn’t fully understand that. They’re starting to understand it
now. Unfortunately, we still have ISIL [the Islamic State in Iraq and
the Levant], which has, I think, very little appeal to ordinary Sunnis.”
But “they’re filling a vacuum, and the question for us has to be not
simply how we counteract them militarily but how are we going to speak
to a Sunni majority in that area ... that, right now, is detached from
the global economy.”
Is
Iran being helpful? “I think what the Iranians have done,” said the
president, “is to finally realize that a maximalist position by the
Shias inside of Iraq is, over the long term, going to fail. And that’s,
by the way, a broader lesson for every country: You want 100 percent,
and the notion that the winner really does take all, all the spoils.
Sooner or later that government’s going to break down.”
The
only states doing well, like Tunisia, I’ve argued, have done so because
their factions adopted the principle of no victor, no vanquished. Once
they did, they didn’t need outside help.
China as a Free Rider
President Obama on how the United States
is a different sort of superpower from China. This is an excerpt of a
full video interview by Thomas L. Friedman.
Video Credit By The New York Times on
Publish Date August 8, 2014.
Image CreditPhotograph by Doug Mills/The New York Times
“We
cannot do for them what they are unwilling to do for themselves,” said
the president of the factions in Iraq. “Our military is so capable, that
if we put everything we have into it, we can keep a lid on a problem
for a time. But for a society to function long term, the people
themselves have to make decisions about how they are going to live
together, how they are going to accommodate each other’s interests, how
they are going to compromise. When it comes to things like corruption,
the people and their leaders have to hold themselves accountable for
changing those cultures.... ... We can help them and partner with them
every step of the way. But we can’t do it for them.”
So,
I asked, explain your decision to use military force to protect the
refugees from ISIL (which is also known as ISIS) and Kurdistan, which is
an island of real decency in Iraq?
“When
you have a unique circumstance in which genocide is threatened, and a
country is willing to have us in there, you have a strong international
consensus that these people need to be protected and we have a capacity
to do so, then we have an obligation to do so,” said the president. But
given the island of decency the Kurds have built, we also have to ask,
he added, not just “how do we push back on ISIL, but also how do we
preserve the space for the best impulses inside of Iraq, that very much
is on my mind, that has been on my mind throughout.
“I
do think the Kurds used that time that was given by our troop
sacrifices in Iraq,” Obama added. “They used that time well, and the
Kurdish region is functional the way we would like to see. It is
tolerant of other sects and other religions in a way that we would like
to see elsewhere. So we do think it’s important to make sure that that
space is protected, but, more broadly, what I’ve indicated is that I
don’t want to be in the business of being the Iraqi air force. I don’t
want to get in the business for that matter of being the Kurdish air
force, in the absence of a commitment of the people on the ground to get
their act together and do what’s necessary politically to start
protecting themselves and to push back against ISIL.”
The
reason, the president added, “that we did not just start taking a bunch
of airstrikes all across Iraq as soon as ISIL came in was because that
would have taken the pressure off of [Prime Minister Nuri Kamal]
al-Maliki.” That only would have encouraged, he said, Maliki and other
Shiites to think: " ‘We don’t actually have to make compromises. We
don’t have to make any decisions. We don’t have to go through the
difficult process of figuring out what we’ve done wrong in the past. All
we have to do is let the Americans bail us out again. And we can go
about business as usual.’ ”
The
president said that what he is telling every faction in Iraq is: “We
will be your partners, but we are not going to do it for you. We’re not
sending a bunch of U.S. troops back on the ground to keep a lid on
things. You’re going to have to show us that you are willing and ready
to try and maintain a unified Iraqi government that is based on
compromise. That you are willing to continue to build a nonsectarian,
functional security force that is answerable to a civilian government.
... We do have a strategic interest in pushing back ISIL. We’re not
going to let them create some caliphate through Syria and Iraq, but we
can only do that if we know that we’ve got partners on the ground who
are capable of filling the void. So if we’re going to reach out to Sunni
tribes, if we’re going to reach out to local governors and leaders,
they’ve got to have some sense that they’re fighting for something.”
Otherwise, Obama said, “We can run [ISIL] off for a certain period of
time, but as soon as our planes are gone, they’re coming right back in.”
I asked the president whether he was worried about Israel.
Obama on Israel
Thomas L. Friedman asks President Obama if he is worried about Israel’s survival. This is an excerpt of the full interview.
Video Credit By The New York Times on
Publish Date August 8, 2014.
Image CreditPhotograph by Doug Mills/The New York Times
“It
is amazing to see what Israel has become over the last several
decades,” he answered. “To have scratched out of rock this incredibly
vibrant, incredibly successful, wealthy and powerful country is a
testament to the ingenuity, energy and vision of the Jewish people. And
because Israel is so capable militarily, I don’t worry about Israel’s
survival. ... I think the question really is how does Israel
survive. And how can you create a State of Israel that maintains its
democratic and civic traditions. How can you preserve a Jewish state
that is also reflective of the best values of those who founded Israel.
And, in order to do that, it has consistently been my belief that you
have to find a way to live side by side in peace with Palestinians. ...
You have to recognize that they have legitimate claims, and this is
their land and neighborhood as well.”
Asked
whether he should be more vigorous in pressing Israel’s prime minister,
Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Palestinian Authority’s president, Mahmoud
Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, to reach a land-for-peace deal, the
president said, it has to start with them. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s
“poll numbers are a lot higher than mine” and “were greatly boosted by
the war in Gaza,” Obama said. “And so if he doesn’t feel some internal
pressure, then it’s hard to see him being able to make some very
difficult compromises, including taking on the settler movement. That’s a
tough thing to do. With respect to Abu Mazen, it’s a slightly different
problem. In some ways, Bibi is too strong [and] in some ways Abu Mazen
is too weak to bring them together and make the kinds of bold decisions
that Sadat or Begin or Rabin were willing to make. It’s going to require
leadership among both the Palestinians and the Israelis to look beyond
tomorrow. ... And that’s the hardest thing for politicians to do is to
take the long view on things.”
Clearly,
a lot of the president’s attitudes on Iraq grow out the turmoil
unleashed in Libya by NATO’s decision to topple Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi,
but not organize any sufficient international follow-on assistance on
the ground to help them build institutions. Whether it is getting back
into Iraq or newly into Syria, the question that Obama keeps coming back
to is: Do I have the partners — local and/or international — to make
any improvements we engineer self-sustaining?
“I’ll
give you an example of a lesson I had to learn that still has
ramifications to this day,” said Obama. “And that is our participation
in the coalition that overthrew Qaddafi in Libya. I absolutely believed
that it was the right thing to do. ... Had we not intervened, it’s
likely that Libya would be Syria. ... And so there would be more death,
more disruption, more destruction. But what is also true is that I think
we [and] our European partners underestimated the need to come in full
force if you’re going to do this. Then it’s the day after Qaddafi is
gone, when everybody is feeling good and everybody is holding up posters
saying, ‘Thank you, America.’ At that moment, there has to be a much
more aggressive effort to rebuild societies that didn’t have any civic
traditions. ... So that’s a lesson that I now apply every time I ask the
question, ‘Should we intervene, militarily? Do we have an answer [for]
the day after?’ ”
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