What was known as "The Obama Doctrine" had been on life support until Joe Biden was elected in 2020. As Biden revived the idea of "leading from behind" and encouraging Iran to take a more active role in the Middle East, American power and influence waned in the region and the world.
The Obama Doctrine proceeded from the catastrophic assumption that most of the problems in the world were America's fault and that no progress toward a peaceful world could be made until America apologized for its sins.
Obama was big on "apologies." Obama's "foreign policy has been shaped by a sense of himself as a catalyst forcing the world to deal with the past in order to deal with the future," wrote Edward-Isaac Dovere in Politico before Obama's last foreign trip to Vietnam and Hiroshima in 2016. Republicans called these trips "apology tours."
White House aides called it “reckoning with history.” Whatever you call it, it demonstrated weakness to our enemies. That was fine with Obama. Humbling America would allow other nations to take the lead and relieve some of the burdens of leadership that America had no right to shoulder anyway.
The result of the Obama Doctrine was that America grew weaker while our enemies grew stronger. Then came October 7, 2023.
Some historical events change history's trajectory and everyone knows it. Gettysburg, Pearl Harbor, and Hiroshima were immediately recognized as "hinges of history" where a door was opened after the event to reveal a changed landscape.
The monumental effect on world history that flowed from the October 7 terrorist attacks on Israel is now coming into focus.
On October 8, Israelis woke up to a gruesome massacre and perhaps the most devastating security failure in their country’s history — behind only the Yom Kippur War.
This month, they woke up to the news that Israel was annihilating the Syrian Air Force, its armaments and perhaps chemical weapons storehouses, ensuring that no advanced weaponry falls into the hands of jihadis.
Power and strength, rather than capitulation and mollification, work in the Middle East. And the world is a better place today because of Israel’s victories.
"It’s no surprise that on their way out, President Obama’s cronies in the Biden administration approved another $10 billion in sanctions relief for the mullahs by waiving restricted payment transfers from the Iraqi government," writes David Harsanyi in the Sun. Obama/Biden's desire to prop up the most brutal, anti-American regime in the world can only be explained by the Obama Doctrine. Obama/Biden were making amends for U.S. meddling in Iran's internal affairs that derailed a democratic interlude in 1953 that may or may not have eventually led to a stable government.
Propping up Tehran was in keeping with the concept of "leading from behind." Allowing Iran to assume its "natural" role of dominance in the region would keep America's hands clean when the inevitable conflicts arose between Persians and Arabs. Strengthening the mullahs would make the Saudis and their Arab allies think twice about starting any trouble with the Shiite theocracy.
Obama viewed greater reliance on the military strength of allies as a means of compensating for the reduction in American military strength. The first place where he tested this proposition was Libya, where he joined forces with the French and British in bombing and, eventually, ousting Mu’ammar Gadhafi. Obama’s decision to restrict American participation in the bombing campaign and leave guidance of the campaign to the French and British elicited the remark from an unnamed Obama adviser that Obama’s Libya strategy was one of “leading from behind.”
When rebels toppled Gadhafi, the Obama administration heralded it as vindication of its strategy. The Obama administration decided to entrust the security of American diplomats in the new Libya to local Libyan militias. That decision led to the killing of the US ambassador at a poorly protected diplomatic facility in Benghazi and contributed to the collapse of the Libyan government that had taken power after Gadhafi’s demise.
October 7 wiped away this silly notion and all the wrong-headed elements of the Obama Doctrine. What matters most today in the world — what has always mattered and always will matter — is strength and power. That two American presidents never learned that critical lesson led to a less stable world that is only now being rectified by a pugnacious Israeli prime minister and another American president soon to take office.
