Hardly a day goes by in the United States without the publication of a commentary critical of President Barack Obama's foreign policy. The general tenor of these pieces is that Mr Obama, in reducing American intervention overseas, has created a dangerous void that threatens American interests.
Yet the American president is under little pressure at home to change his ways. Polls suggest that a significant percentage of his countrymen are even more reluctant to intervene in the world than he is. For instance, a recent Politico poll showed that a substantial majority of Americans, around two-thirds, supported either current levels of American involvement or less involvement in Syria, Iraq or Ukraine.
Respondents were asked which of two statements came closest to their own view: “US military actions should be limited to direct threats to our national security” or “As the world’s moral leader, the US has a responsibility to use its military to protect democracy around the globe.” Sixty seven per cent cited the first statement, but only 22 per cent cited the second.
In terms of his foreign policy, Mr Obama seems to have read the polls carefully. His critics, while they may often be correct about the president’s inadequacies internationally, hold a minority view. Their criticism seems to be an elite reaction more than anything else, with only two per cent of respondents citing foreign policy as the issue that concerns them the most.
His foreign policy statements notwithstanding, Mr Obama has more often than not used the “pursuit of national interests” as an excuse to do nothing. Whenever the president has sensed he may be pushed into a commitment overseas he does not like, his reaction has been to say that he will not intervene because his intention is to pursue only American interests.
That was, for instance, implicit in the argument he used with journalist and former Democratic Party adviser George Stephanopoulos in September 2013, when he described the conflict in Syria as "somebody else's civil war". Mr Obama, having just struck a deal with Russia, had reversed a decision to strike against the Syrian regime after it used chemical weapons against civilians. He argued that the US could not affect the outcome of the Syrian conflict militarily.
But Mr Obama’s standoffish attitude in Syria, like that in Iraq, has come back to haunt him. Today, the region and the world face a threat from the Islamic State, which has carved out a large and lucrative territory between Iraq and Syria, one far more dangerous than Al Qaeda’s base in Afghanistan.
Yet Mr Obama has done virtually nothing about it. How ironic when the president claimed in 2012 to have defeated Al Qaeda and used this as one of his central campaign slogans.
In the same way that Mr Obama has used the defence of American interests benchmark as an excuse to sidestep action abroad, so too has he thrown up another canard: that those pushing for intervention invariably seek military intervention. But the reality is, in Syria most notably, that other options always existed, yet the administration never seriously investigated them.
Mr Obama's pattern of avoidance in the world, his clear intention to put most of his energies into domestic American concerns, above all the economy, has come with a hefty price tag: a growing vacuum, most ominously in the Middle East, that has so destabilised the region that America and Europe may be endangered. The US administration admits to this risk, but not to its responsibility for helping bring it about.
Even outside the Middle East, in Asia and Europe, the Obama administration has alienated close allies with its combination of indolence and vacillation. Mr Obama often seems so deliberate in taking his decisions that little gets done. And so, frustrated allies compensate by pursuing their own agendas, which sometimes only further adds to the ambient instability.
For a president who once said his administration would pursue a rules-based international order and would engage in multilateralism to achieve this, what we are seeing today is precisely the opposite. In the Middle East and Asia, multilateral structures are under great stress, while the role Washington once played as mediator and balancer has all but disappeared.
As attitudes in America show, however, there was much in the George W Bush years that disturbed Americans – above all the high cost of foreign wars that strained resources at home, and the poor management of domestic crises. Yet reversing the Bush administration’s policies never required so radical an overhaul of foreign policy as Mr Obama has done.
What we are witnessing is more than an effort to deal with the errors of the Bush years. Rather, Mr Obama has offered a radically new philosophy outlining an American retreat from global affairs – an apparent admission that the empire is in decline, and that America, and the world, must adapt. This determinism is not only self-fulfilling in accelerating America’s waning, it is creating the volatility Mr Obama sought to avoid.
If that is Mr Obama’s vision, then it displays great hubris. The president is acting as if 60 years of American global dominance can simply be reduced without consequences. Nor has the administration formulated a systematic foreign policy strategy to prepare for such a direction. Mr Obama’s world view, if it can even be called that, remains exceptionally shallow.
Maybe the president feels that a world less reliant on America is a good thing. He could be right. But in the interim, American disengagement is proving disastrous, and all Mr Obama’s declarations about America’s interests sound utterly empty.
Michael Young is opinion editor of The Daily Star newspaper in Beirut
On Twitter: @BeirutCalling
If you go
The flights
Etihad and Emirates fly direct from the UAE to Chicago from Dh5,215 return including taxes.
The hotels
Recommended hotels include the Intercontinental Chicago Magnificent Mile, located in an iconic skyscraper complete with a 1929 Olympic-size swimming pool from US$299 (Dh1,100) per night including taxes, and the Omni Chicago Hotel, an excellent value downtown address with elegant art deco furnishings and an excellent in-house restaurant. Rooms from US$239 (Dh877) per night including taxes.
How much sugar is in chocolate Easter eggs?
- The 169g Crunchie egg has 15.9g of sugar per 25g serving, working out at around 107g of sugar per egg
- The 190g Maltesers Teasers egg contains 58g of sugar per 100g for the egg and 19.6g of sugar in each of the two Teasers bars that come with it
- The 188g Smarties egg has 113g of sugar per egg and 22.8g in the tube of Smarties it contains
- The Milky Bar white chocolate Egg Hunt Pack contains eight eggs at 7.7g of sugar per egg
- The Cadbury Creme Egg contains 26g of sugar per 40g egg
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
Quick pearls of wisdom
Focus on gratitude: And do so deeply, he says. “Think of one to three things a day that you’re grateful for. It needs to be specific, too, don’t just say ‘air.’ Really think about it. If you’re grateful for, say, what your parents have done for you, that will motivate you to do more for the world.”
Know how to fight: Shetty married his wife, Radhi, three years ago (he met her in a meditation class before he went off and became a monk). He says they’ve had to learn to respect each other’s “fighting styles” – he’s a talk it-out-immediately person, while she needs space to think. “When you’re having an argument, remember, it’s not you against each other. It’s both of you against the problem. When you win, they lose. If you’re on a team you have to win together.”
