White House cancels Duterte meeting after name-calling 02:10
Story highlights
- Kevin Yuill: The slights felt by Obama reflect a different international situation
- Other powers have grown more restive and assertive, Yuill says
Dr. Kevin Yuill is a senior lecturer in American history at the University of Sunderland. The views expressed are his own.
(CNN)The last weeks of Barack Obama's presidency have been trying -- and may soon become even more so.
Most
recently at the G-20 Summit, the Chinese denied the President the red
carpet treatment offered other world leaders. Whether the snub was
deliberate is still in question (which has not stopped Donald Trump from
declaring that he would not have stepped off the plane).
But the G-20
kerfuffle comes in the midst of other slights. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte
called Obama a "son of a b****", leading to the cancellation of a
planned meeting between the two this week. Less dramatically but perhaps
more significantly, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel spurned
an invitation to meet with Obama later this month, an unheard of event.
In April, the Saudi King refused to meet Obama as he stepped off the
plane.
Philippine President expresses "regret" over comments 03:28
Is this about Obama, an outgoing President at the tail end of his tenure?
In
part. His presidency has been marked by disputes with those delivering
rebuffs to him. The war on drugs by Duterte, who has been called the
"Trump of the Philippines," has seen some 2,400 people executed since
he came to power two months ago. Duterte has been irritated by
criticism of the policy from the Obama administration, which moved to
commute the sentences of hundreds of prisoners serving time for
drug-related crimes. Equally, Obama's policy toward acceptance of Iran's
nuclear program alienated many Israelis.
G20 sees tension between China and the US press 01:20
Most
serious, however, is the changing relationship with the world's second
biggest economic power. The US relationship with China, heading in the
right direction at the end of George W. Bush's second term, has been
fraught as of late, particularly in relation to the disputes occurring
in the South China Sea. During his first term, Obama called for the United States "pivoting" back to Asia after the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
But
this is not all about Obama -- despite the fairly disastrous incursions
into Iraq and Libya -- but about changes that have occurred in the
world over the past years.
The
slights felt by Obama reflect a different international situation in
which the United States has remained relatively the same, but in which
other powers have grown more restive and assertive, less accepting of US
leadership and less willing to grant it automatic authority.
Joseph
Lieberman noted earlier this year, "...the world has never seemed as
dangerous and leaderless as it does now. Only the extremists and bullies
act boldly, and therefore they have seized the initiative." But it is
not just extremists and bullies.
Duterte
appears to be from the new political breed of maverick referred to by
Lieberman, put into power by a disquieted electorate, apparently anxious
to challenge the status quo. Just as Trump triumphed in the Republican
Party and, to an extent, Brexit succeeded in the United Kingdom, Duterte
reflects antipathy with politics, proving, perhaps, that it is a
worldwide trend.
Obama may be more
at fault with regard to Israel, now no longer the biggest recipient of
US aid. Netanyahu has seen policy in the Middle East, since Obama took
office, focus less upon Israeli-Palestinian issues and more on ISIS,
relations with Russia, and the war in Syria. Even here, though, events
have overtaken policy through the extreme and nihilist challenge of
ISIS.
But
the Chinese slight is most stinging to the United States, reflecting
Chinese emphasis on foreign policy at a time of growing internal
insecurity. When Obama took office, China, which initially weathered the
economic storms well, saw its remarkable economic growth slow. But now,
the Chinese are showing their muscle in the South China Sea. The Obama
administration has been reduced to reacting to Chinese assertions; the
Chinese -- and others -- have, not surprisingly, become bolder, if not
the bullies or extremists referred to be Lieberman.
As
Obama salutes his staff for the last time in January, he will feel none
of the disgrace of Richard Nixon, nor the utter repudiation that Jimmy
Carter or George W. Bush must have experienced. He hardly exits through
what might be called the "ass end" of history, like his predecessor
Warren G. Harding.
But nor will he
leave the Oval Office in a more confident country more in control of
the world than when he entered it. Indeed, his successor may well, in
future, wish for the halcyon days of Obama's tenure.
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