Obama to detail broader foreign policy agenda

US President Barack Obama: ‘Too risk-averse’ AP FILE PHOTO

WASHINGTON—Confronting critics of his foreign policy, US President Barack Obama will outline this week a strategy for his final years in office that aims to avoid overreach, as the second of the two wars he inherited comes to a close.

The president’s commencement address on Wednesday at the US Military Academy will come amid growing frustration in the White House with Republicans and other critics who contend that Obama has weakened America’s standing around the world and faltered on problems across the Middle East and in Russia, China and elsewhere.

That criticism has mounted over the past year following Obama’s decision to pull back a military strike in Syria and his inability to stop Russia from annexing territory from Ukraine. A White House official said Obama would specifically address both situations as well as the status of ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran.

The president is also expected to discuss how he views shifts in the counterterrorism threat from the al-Qaida and other groups, according to the official, who insisted on anonymity to preview the president’s speech.

Obama came into office vowing to end the lengthy American-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and seeking to keep a war-weary nation out of unnecessary conflicts.

Too risk-averse

The war in Iraq ended in the closing days of 2011 and the Afghan conflict will formally conclude later this year, though the White House is seeking to keep a smaller contingent of US troops behind to train Afghan forces and conduct counterterrorism missions.

Some foreign policy analysts argue that Obama’s aversion to military action makes it harder for the United States to levy credible threats that force international foes to change their behavior.

“He’s far too risk-adverse a president,” said Aaron David Miller, a Middle East adviser to Republican and Democratic administrations. “And in a world where no one will lead except America, he has abdicated and surrendered much of the leadership.”

The White House official said Obama would argue that the United States remained the only nation capable of galvanizing action and would make the case that American power needed to be part of a sustainable international system.

The president would argue that his foreign policy philosophy was not isolationist but rather “interventionist and internationalist,” according to the official.

Obama is expected to expand on remarks he made last month at a news conference in the Philippines when his frustration with his critics boiled over.

He specifically targeted those who are quick to call for US military action, arguing that they had failed to learn the lessons of the Iraq war.

“Why is it that everybody is so eager to use military force after we’ve just gone through a decade of war at enormous costs to our troops and to our budget?” he said. “And what is it exactly that these critics think would have been accomplished?”

Private meetings

Ahead of the president’s speech, Obama’s top advisers have been holding private meetings with congressional lawmakers to address their specific foreign policy concerns.

However, the outreach appeared to accomplish little, according to some participants, with a Republican senator calling one meeting “bizarre” and another lawmaker saying the White House refused to provide specific answers to questions.

US Republican Sen. Bob Corker was among those who participated in the White House meetings. In an interview, he questioned how much Obama’s speech could accomplish in shifting the way the White House’s foreign policy approach was viewed.