President Barack Obama's last State of the Union address, which he delivered following his inauguration into his second term, provides an outline of Washington's domestic and foreign policy agenda for the next four years. As such, it helps us forecast the directions the Obama administration's foreign policy will take, after four years in which it accomplished little but the assassination of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, yet in which it made no mistakes of the disastrous magnitude of Obama's predecessor, George W Bush. This year's State of the Union address was delivered against a backdrop of profound domestic and international trends and developments. Foremost among these developments is the decline in US influence and the challenge to its global leadership. Since the fiscal crisis that rocked the US economy and then the global economy, the US has encountered increasingly intense rivalry on the part of emergent world powers that has eroded its power and status as a world leader. In tandem with this challenge, the Iranian and North Korean regimes have pressed ahead with their nuclear programmes in defiance of US opposition. All US efforts so far have failed to check these governments' nuclear ambitions. To aggravate the situation, economic straits have forced Washington to make significant cutbacks in allocations to foreign aid programmes and to slash military spending. This will naturally affect the US's presence abroad, and in conflict zones in particular. Ultimately, this means reduced US involvement in resolving international conflicts and disputes and a further decline in the power of US influence in international affairs. Another significant trend relates to the Obama administration's resolve to minimise the influence of Middle East oil on US strategy towards the Middle East. International Energy Agency projections forecast that the US will surpass Russia as the world's largest producer of natural gas by 2015, that it will surpass Saudi Arabia as the largest producer of oil by 2020, and that it will become self-sufficient in energy by 2030. The trend signifies a determination to reduce involvement in Middle East issues. US dependency on Middle East oil has driven successive US administrations to actions with destabilising effects, to support authoritarian regimes and to diminish its support for democratic values and human rights. Ultimately, the policies backfired, for the US failed to safeguard its interests and to preserve peace and stability in the Middle East. One could easily sense from the State of the Union address this year that Obama felt freed from the pressures of re-election. He elaborated on his vision for the US and his agenda for his second term in a level of detail that was lacking in previous addresses. He also criticised the Republican-dominated Congress for its obstructionist approach to policies and strategies intended to revive US strength domestically. In the opinion of many commentators, Obama's speech was not defensive, as had previously been the case. They also held that it spoke of a president who saw his second term not as a time to consolidate gains but rather as an opportunity to make a profound change in US policy outlooks. The need to rebuild the US from within, through domestic reforms, prioritising healthcare and immigration, topped the concerns in Obama's address to the joint session of Congress. America's domestic strength is the source of its strength abroad, which was underscored in his administration's national security strategy issued in May 2010. However, he stressed, his country's domestic concerns could not be separated from the challenges the US faced abroad. The healthier the US is domestically, the better it will be able to pursue policies and strategies that promote US interests overseas. For example, his administration's success in stimulating economic recovery at home will enable it to perform more effectively abroad and strengthen US influence in international affairs, which had declined as the consequence of the economic crisis that hit the US in late-2008. Nevertheless, Obama simultaneously made it clear that by focussing more on the home front during his second term, his administration would be reducing US involvement and intervention abroad. Specifically, it would avoid engagement in wars and confrontations outside US territory, reduce deployment of American forces, and rely more on soft power and diplomacy to resolve conflicts, relegating recourse to military means the last option his administration would use to address crises the US faced abroad. On the other hand, if war were deemed necessary to handle a particular crisis, the military intervention would be of short duration and in the framework of an international coalition, such as that which intervened in Libya to overthrow the Gaddafi regime. The conclusion one draws from the foregoing is that Obama, in his second term, will continue the cautious approach he followed in his first term, in spite of the continuing upheavals in the Arab world and Iran and North Korea's persistence in their drives to obtain nuclear weapons.
The writer is a researcher at Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.
