A White House that shuns diplomacy

A former insider claims first-term Obama avoided strategic decisions to satisfy public opinion
Roger Cohen

"IT is not going too far to say that American foreign policy has become completely subservient to tactical domestic political considerations." This stern verdict comes from Vali Nasr, who spent two years working for the Obama administration before becoming dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. In a book called The Dispensable Nation, to be published in April, Nasr delivers a devastating portrait of a first-term foreign policy that shunned the tough choices of real diplomacy, often descended into pettiness, and was controlled "by a small cabal of relatively inexperienced White House advisers."

Nasr, one of the most respected American authorities on the Middle East, served as senior adviser to Richard Holbrooke, Obama's special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan until his death in December 2010. From that vantage point, and later as a close observer, Nasr was led to the reluctant conclusion that the principal aim of Obama's policies "is not to make strategic decisions but to satisfy public opinion." In this sense the first-term Obama foreign policy was successful: He was re-elected. Americans wanted extrication from the big wars and a smaller global footprint: Obama, with some back and forth, delivered.

The Dispensable Nation constitutes important reading as John Kerry moves into his new job as secretary of state. It nails the drift away from the art of diplomacy — with its painful give-and-take — towards a US foreign policy driven by the Pentagon, intelligence agencies and short-term political calculus. It demonstrates the emasculation of the State Department: Vasr quotes Admiral Mike Mullen, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, telling him of Hillary Clinton that, "It is incredible how little support she got from the White House. They want to control everything." And it paints a persuasive picture of an American decline driven not so much by the inevitable rise of other powers as by "inconsistency" that has "cast doubt on our leadership."

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