14. OBAMA STRIVES TO "CHANGE" AMERICA

OBAMA'S FOREIGN POLICY

The "Arab Spring" breaks out in Tunisia (2011).    Part of Obama's "New Look" included his widely watched televised speech "A New Beginning" that he delivered to the Arab world during a visit to Egypt in June of 2009.  In that speech, he emphasized his commitment to helping develop a greater spirit of personal freedom, political democracy and economic development in the Middle East, not exactly a novel ideal for Americans, for that had also been part of Bush, Jr's intent in Afghanistan and Iraq.  In short, America under Obama would remain in the business of supporting nation-building abroad.  Would this work any better than it had for Johnson in Vietnam, Carter in Iran, and Bush, Jr. in Afghanistan and Iraq?  Time would soon tell.

Troubles in the streets broke out in January of 2011, when Tunisian youth came out in huge numbers to protest a broad number of social issues that had them deeply angered.  With this, the "Arab Spring" got underway.

The protest was characterized by much electronic connect through computers and cell phones, and the active involvement of the media in dramatizing the event.  By the middle of the month Tunisian President Zine ben Ali had fled the country, and it seemed that the youth had achieved a tremendous political victory, although street action continued all the way up to October, when finally elections were held to appoint those who would write Tunisia's new Constitution. 

Zine El Abidine Ben Ali – 2008
President of Tunisia (1987-2011)

"Out with Ben Ali" – 14 January 2011
Protesting unemployment high food prices, corruption

Tunisian Protesters

The Arab Spring comes to Egypt.  But the rest of the Arab world was watching events in Tunisia closely.  And soon the youth of other Arab states took up the same cause:  to overthrow their long-standing governments, in order to replace them with new similarly "progressive" systems.  Egypt would be hit hard with this rising mood, as Egyptian youth camped out in Tahrir Square in Cairo with the intentions of outstaying the Egyptian police until the nearly 30-year-long regime of Hosni Mubarak was brought to an end (actually the elderly and very sick Mubarak was preparing his son, Gamal, to take over his position as Egyptian president.) 

 

As the Cairo protest dragged on, Mubarak shut down the internet, but also made some efforts to appease the protesters with changes in the Egyptian government cabinet and the appointment of a Vice President (not part of the Mubarak family!). 

   

But this hardly satisfied the protesters, whose numbers gathered in Tahrir Square merely increased (similar to the way things had developed over the days and weeks in Tiananmen Square in Beijing).  Seeing huge troubles developing, the Egyptian military finally stepped in and in mid-February arrested Mubarak and took control of the Egyptian government, promising constitutional reforms.  But still, the protesters remained encamped in Tahrir Square ... their numbers continuing to grow.

The "Second Revolution of Anger" – people protesting in 
Tahrir Square on 27 May 2011, demanding food, jobs, and 
punishment of the former government officials

Another round of protests at Tahrir Square beginning the evening
of 28 June, 2011

 

Now Egyptians found themselves fighting fellow Egyptians as the days, weeks and then months passed, the level of violence continuing to mount through the summer and into the fall.  Sectarian or religious-cultural violence became a key part of the chaos, as, for instance, Coptic Christians (about 10 percent of the population) became objects of Muslim retribution.  Also Muslim groups themselves turned on each other, as well as against the more culturally secular of the Egyptians.   

By the time that elections for the new Constituent Assembly were held in November, Egypt was on the verge of civil war.

But hope ran high that elections under the new Egyptian constitution, held in May the following year (2012), would produce the step of Egypt into the world of democracy that Obama supported so strongly.  In those elections, Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Morsi won 51.7 percent of the vote, his Secularist opponent Ahmed Shafik coming close at 48.3 percent.  Obama was enthusiastic about the results and congratulated Morsi on this wonderful development.  But a wiser Shafik left the country, just before Morsi put out a warrant for his arrest.  So much for Third-World democracy. 

The New Egyptian President, Mohamed Morsi

His opponent Ahmed Shafik.  Shafiq flees the country ... 
and chaos mounts in Egypt as Islamists battle Secularists
and Christian Copts.

And the chaotic situation in Egypt did not improve any – "forcing" Morsi to take an ever-stronger or dictatorial hand.  The situation grew so bad that finally, with not just Tahrir Square but the very streets of Cairo filled with anti-Morsi protesters, the Egyptian military again stepped in and deposed Morsi, finally bringing Egypt back to order. 

By June of 2013 tens of millions of Egyptians had taken to the
streets to protest the policies of Morsi ... and the chaos that was tearing Egypt apart.

Obama was furious over this violation of "democracy."  But he could say little about matters in Egypt when another election was held (with Muslim radicals boycotting the election) and former General / now President Sisi gaining huge Egyptian civilian support for his leadership.

Then Syria.  Meanwhile by mid-March of 2011, the mood of youthful protest had moved on to Syria, where protesters gathered in Damascus with their own list of demands for political and economic reform.  But as in Egypt, the demands became increasingly confusing as they intensified, some wanting more secular reform, others more Islamic reform, but deeply divided as well over whether that should take a Shi'ite or Sunni character.  Even more than Egypt, Syria was a complex mix of all sorts of sectarian groups, not only Sunni versus Shiite Muslims, but also Druzes (semi-Muslim), Christians (from various versions of Eastern Orthodox to equally culturally diverse Catholic groups), not to mention long-standing family, clan and tribal loyalties.  And of course there were a huge number of simply Secular Syrians, diverse in character as well.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was a member of the Alawi sect, part of Shi'ite Islam, but mostly Secular in political character.  He and his father before him had been holding this fragile social mix together, at times by forceful means.  Actually, at first protests were for simple reforms, not for any end to the Assad presidency. 

Protest in Duma, a city near Damascus, Syria (5 April 2011)
   

Protesters in Duma (8 April 2011)

A pro-Assad student rally at Tishreen University, Latakia, Syria

Thousands continue to take to the streets across Syria, 
despite the bloody crackdown on protests.  Activists say that 
thousands of civilians have been killed by security forces.

But with time as the protests radicalized, they did indeed take on an anti-Assad position, which merely provoked an equally militant reaction of Assad supporters.  It was everything Assad could do to keep the country from falling into bitter civil war.

Then Libya.  There was also the matter of Libya, where the "Arab Spring" had hit that country in February.  Actually, in Libya the rebellion involved no more than a rivalry between the two chief cultural regions that made up the country, regions that had long competed against each other in that part of North Africa (Libya was assembled as a "nation" by the Italians in the early 1900s by lumping these mutually antagonistic regions into a single colonial holding).  Thus the Arab Spring in Libya entailed simply a civil struggle between the groups, one found mostly in the eastern part of the country with its political center in Benghazi and one in the western part of the country with its political base in Tripoli.  Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi held this together by building a strong political base in Tripoli, and keeping the country focused on foreign developments – which Gaddafi involved himself in constantly (and rather flamboyantly and recklessly) in order to keep his people distracted. 

Muammar al-Gaddafi – President of Libya (1969 - 2011)
at the 12th AU summit, February 2, 2009, in Addis Ababa 

(Green) Cities controlled by pro-Gaddafi forces (as of July 1, 2011);
(Brown) Cities controlled by anti-Gaddafi forces (supported 
by coalition forces)
Wikipedia – "2011 Libyan civil war"

In the midst of all this confusion, Obama and his NATO allies (notably France) decided that this would be an opportune time to get rid of the very troublesome Gaddafi, and at the same time bring Libya to real democracy.  So they called for a no-fly zone over the country (meaning that Gaddafi could not use air power in the defense of his government), and then "enforced" this decision by flying their own missions in Libya to bomb his forces, and to supply his adversaries, most notably the National Transition Council (NTC).  And thus with considerable NATO (including American) support, the NTC was able to extend its position in Libya, until Gaddafi was trapped, caught and executed on the spot, all graphically displayed to the world.  In Libya, part of the country cheered; part of the country seethed.  But Obama felt well content that America and its NATO partners had just led Libya to the right kind of political dynamics. 

The International Criminal Court has accused Gaddafi of crimes 
against humanity and of ordering attacks on civilians

Forces loyal to Gaddafi ... located mostly in the western portions
of the country

Forces opposing Gaddafi at Brega
(the eastern portion of the country)

A NATO airstrike directed at the pro-Gaddafi forces

At news that Gaddafi was losing his grip on power, celebrations
erupted in cities across Libya

Libyan citizens hold a Kingdom of Libya flag as they attend 
the Arab League meeting in its headquarters in Cairo

Libya's National Transitional Council is led by Mustafa 
Abdel-Jalil, Gaddafi's former justice minister (Mahmoud 
Jibril, Chairman of the NTC's Executive Board, is 
another key NTC leader)

The chaos worsens in Syria.  Meanwhile, back in Syria, there too the international community decided that it needed to get involved in helping return Syria to some kind of social order.  Shi'ite Iran decided that it needed to help fellow Shi'ite Assad in crushing the rebellion (which would also bring the reach of Iran all the way up to the Mediterranean Sea).  Russia's President Vladimir Putin noticed the same possibility of finding itself usefully stationed in Syria by offering Assad some military assistance (and thus also achieve in the process the long-sought goal of a Russian position in the eastern Mediterranean).  And the Turks next door were growing increasingly concerned about the violence spilling over into their country and wanted something done to stop the chaos.

Obama decided to "help" Syria (like the help offered Libya), demanding in August that Assad step down in order to allow his country to move to actual democracy (like Iraq?).  He was even more forceful in threatening Assad with "serious consequences" if he crossed a "red line" in the illegal use of chemical weapons and certain categories of bombs in his efforts to crush the rebellion.  But Assad was too busy trying to stop Syria's collapse into complete chaos to pay much attention to Obama's threats, and simply ignored them.  An embarrassed Obama ultimately came up with no compelling "consequences" and had to backtrack on his threats, prompting Putin to agree to step into the mess and help "mediate" between Obama and Assad.  But instead Putin moved to full support of Assad, at the same time that Obama (in cooperation with the Saudis) began sending arms, even tanks, to one of Assad's Sunni opposition groups.^[1]

But unlike Libya, Obama's intervention did not tip the balance in favor of a "democratic" group able to bring the war to a close by crushing Assad and his supporters.  The intervention simply intensified the violence all the more. 

A year later (September 10, 2013) Obama goes before the nation
with a special televised address concerning the situation in Syria
... and America's need to step into that situation 
to straighten things out.

Worse, Sunni jihadists who were escaping Shi'ite dominance in Iraq, were able because of the total chaos prevailing in Syria not only to position themselves in the eastern half of the country bordering the Sunni lands of Iraq, but were even able to set up a new caliphate (Sunni Islam's highest religious-political office) as the nucleus of a new jihadist Islamic State, from which they could then cleanse the earth of unbelievers.

ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) troops taking
control of Mosul - 2014

The new Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Mosul (mid-2014)

Civilians fleeing ISIS control

They claimed that out of the chaos of Syria (and a highly 
disenchanted Sunni Iraq in the country's northwest) they
were going to build a new social order founded on the 
strictest rules of the Islamic faith.  They would "cleanse" the
society of anyone not submitting to this new regime of
Shari'a (Muslim law).  

The beheading of men and stoning of women became the
hallmark of the new regime, graphically presented in video
streaming ... making their point ... and attracting a huge
number of disenchanted Muslim youth (from even America
and Europe ... as well as the Middle East and Africa) who
wanted to be part of such a major event as the restoration
of the Caliphate.

_________________________________________________

Roman ruins at Palmyra leveled by ISIS (August 2015)

The world was shocked when ISIS displayed pictures of the 
1900-year-old Roman Temple of Bel  in Syria that they had 
just systematically destroyed

The Temple of Bel (or Baal) before / and after ISIS had done its work
 

________________________________________

 

ISIS beheadings were sent out as internet videos to frighten
enemies  ... and woo budding jihadists into joining the movement
(March 2015)

(December 2016)

An Iraqi woman stoned to death  in Mosul City ...
for having refused to marry an ISIS jihadist (Oct 2016)

At the same time Iraqi forces (heavily Shi'te) strike back 
where they can ... in an attempt to retake territory seized by 
(Sunni) ISIS.

As for the vast majority of the Syrians, they now found themselves with only one serious alternative if they were to survive at all:  flee to other countries where they could live out at least a very minimal existence in refugee camps, or, if really lucky, possibly escape into Europe.  Millions of Syrians now took flight.  Syria was no longer a place fit for human habitation, thanks in great part to all the outside "help" the culturally-diverse country was getting.

A Syrian refugee camp  in Lebanon – part of the 1.4 million
Syrians driven from their homes as of April 2013.   By 2017
that number will reach 7 million.

All of this merely increased the desperate flow of refugees 
... particularly out of Syria where ISIS was extremely cruel to
non-Sunni Arabs (including many Christians).  This of course
presented a major problem to the surrounding countries ... 
which did not want to take on the burden of a massive
number of impoverished refugees.



August 2013 – Refugees heading toward Iraqi Kurdistan

February 2014 – more Syrian refugees moving out of their
destroyed cities

A Syrian refugee camp in Jordan with 115,000 residents.
By 2015 fully 25% of the population  of Lebanon was made up
of Syrian refugees and 20% of the Jordanian population ...
with huge numbers of Syrians scattered all around the
countries bordering on Syria ... and even beyond.

Many other Syrians have simply taken to the road ... trying
to reach well beyond the Syrian borders ... even to Europe

Meanwhile now-dysfunctional Libya struggled to contain the mess that followed Gaddafi's downfall. And the next year, 2012, on exactly September 11th, Muslim militants of Ansar al-Shari'a succeeded in attacking and torching the American consulate and the CIA annex located in Benghazi (the capital of the Libyan region Obama had been supporting in the war against Gaddafi), also killing the American Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other Americans.

At first the State Department claimed that this tragedy was the result of a spontaneous uprising of local Muslims – because of a video offensive to Islam that had just come out.  But very soon it was revealed that Stevens had previously warned the White House of a mounting danger with Islamic militants in the area, had requested extra security, but had failed to receive it, leaving him and his team totally defenseless.  It was clear that this Muslim uprising was not "spontaneous" but instead an action long in development, one which Washington had basically ignored, until it blew up as it did.

With national elections coming up soon (that November) and expectations that the Republicans would run big with the story of the huge blunder, Obama answered by announcing the departure of a number of State Department officials, and that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would be stepping down at the beginning of 2013, with Senator John Kerry taking over her position.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at Congressional
hearings held in 2015 as to what went wrong in Benghazi

From this point forward, America simply looked the other way as the situation in Libya deteriorated even further, leading the Libyan army in 2014 finally to move strongly against the militant Muslim groups.  But in doing so, while they brought an improvement in the Libyan situation, they also succeeded in driving these militant groups off to Iraq and Syria, where they then added to the strength of the Islamic State or Caliphate seeking to overthrow the governments of Iraq and Syria (and elsewhere).

At the beginning of his presidency, in hoping to push a "restart" in Russian-American relations – in part by relaxing the American military posture in Eastern Europe – Obama ordered the abandoning of plans to place a missile shield in Poland (originally planned as a defense of Europe against a feared attack from Iran) as well as radar intercepts that were supposed to be placed in the Czech Republic.  Obama claimed that American ship-based interceptors ready for service by 2018 would suffice in providing such security.  Russia was delighted at this American step-back in Eastern Europe.  But NATO partners Poland and the Czech Republic were left in a state of shock over the matter, wondering exactly what it meant in terms of their own larger security needs (such as against an aggressive Russia).

Thus Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented Russian 
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov  with a "reset" button, 
signifying the new Obama approach to  Russian- American
relations (actually the Russian word used was "overload," 
startling Lavrov ... until the confusion could be cleared
up!) – March 6th 2009

Then the "restart" would find itself in trouble with political developments occurring in Ukraine.  This newly-independent Ukrainian Republic (part of the former Soviet Union) was deeply divided culturally and politically between a Ukrainian-speaking majority and a large Russian-speaking minority (the latter located in the eastern provinces of Ukraine).  Ethnically, the two groups were close in character, except that politically a bitter division ran deep.  From 2007 to 2010 Ukraine possessed a Ukrainian-speaking Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.  But in 2010 she narrowly lost the national elections to Russian-speaking Victor Yanukovych, who, in rather typical "Third World" fashion, found cause in 2011 to have Tymoshenko arrested and imprisoned on "corruption" charges, which in turn set off demonstrations and then riots (Arab Spring style!) in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, action which only grew more violent over time (termed the "Euromaidan Revolution"). 

Yulia Tymoshenko



Viktor Yanukovych.
 

 

Protests begun in 2011 continue to occur sporadically
 ... turning violent as the "Euromaidan Revolution" by the
beginning of 2014.

By February of 2014 the action was so bad that Yanukovych went into hiding, and Russia's strongman Putin decided that it was time for Russia to act.  Obama warned Putin not to get involved or, again, "serious consequences" would result.  But by this time Putin had no regard for Obama as a strong leader whose word was to be fully respected.  Thus at the end of the month he sent Russian soldiers into eastern Ukraine, wearing no military identifications – and thus termed simply the "little green men!"  They seized the joint Ukrainian-Russian military base at Sevastopol in Crimea, turning it into a solely Russian base, and leading Putin to claim the whole of the Crimean Peninsula as now part of Russia.  But Putin went no further with respect to the rest of the Russian-speaking sections of Ukraine, which now found themselves living in political limbo.

   

Putin ignores him ... and sends masked and unmarked (no
military insignias) soldiers (termed "little green men" by the
international press corps) into the Russian-speaking Eastern
provinces of Ukraine to "help his neighbors suffering from
Ukrainian persecution."

   

On March 1st (2014) the Russian Parliament voted to send
Russian troops into Ukraine to "restore the rule of law and
protect the population of Ukraine" (although thousands of 
Russian soldiers are already in Ukraine and have just
seized key military bases in the east, including the vital
naval station at Sevastopol.

   

Pro-Russians were happy to greet their "liberators."

But this was just the beginning of troubles in the Eastern
areas around Donetsk and Luhansk ... when the Ukrainian
government fought to retake the rebel provinces which in 
mid-March had voted to join Russia ... though only Crimea 
was annexed formally.

 

By August a stalemate had developed ... and a small 
prisoner exchange was arranged.  But the conflict would 
wear on ... and on. 
 

Putin arriving in the newly-seized Crimean naval base at 
Sevastopol  ... saluted by Russian naval officers for his 
bold action.

Obama's "serious consequences" ultimately turned out to be whatever action Obama was able to get America's European allies to take, with France and Germany (not America) leading the 2014-2015 Russian-Ukrainian ceasefire talks, and economic sanctions taken up by both America and Europe in reduced trade with Russia (although Europe, especially Germany, remained heavily dependent on Russia's oil and natural gas exports).  In the end, all this changed nothing about the way the situation in Ukraine developed.  But it also ended the "restart" of Russian-American relations.  Putin's Russia would become much more aggressive in opposing America any way it could at this point.

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GROWING PROBLEMS WITH XI'S CHINA

Twenty years earlier America had invited China into the world of international trade and finance by favoring the struggling Chinese economy with all sorts of exceptions to the rules of the international economic game as played by the veterans of the West.  The Chinese currency, the yuan or renminbi, was allowed to be offered at well-below market price in order to give the Chinese trading advantages they would need to get their own market economy up and running.  And the results had been phenomenal: around 10 percent annual growth in the Chinese economy as vastly cheaper Chinese goods flooded the world market, improving vastly the Chinese employment picture – at the same time working deep harm on the American producers and their workers, who could not compete with the heavily subsidized Chinese products.^[2]

At the same time, Chinese dollar earning from Chinese trade grew so vast that China was able not only to keep its huge workforce employed and allow the country to purchase scarce resources (such as oil) in which it was lacking, it enabled the Chinese to invest abroad in the production and sale of not only scare resources it needed, but also that the world needed.  China was slowly putting itself in a position of market control of various strategic products, as well as bringing a lot of Third World countries into dependency on this Chinese economic "assistance." The West was quickly losing diplomatic as well as economic leverage abroad to the Chinese.

Furthermore, with America running up a huge debt – accelerated greatly under Bush, Jr., but continuing at the same rate under Obama – China was able to purchase huge portions of that American debt, which placed America as a debtor nation even more deeply in a state of dependency on China and its economic policies.

Obama tried to renegotiate the economic relationship with Xi Jinping's Chinese government ... especially on this matter of currency subsidies which were resulting in a one-way trade program which had Chinese goods flooding America (and the West) – with no significant amount of trade moving in the opposite direction.  Understandably, Xi was not interested in changing the arrangement.  And ultimately, short of some serious muscle applied to China – which was not Obama's style – there was little that China would be willing to do to adjust the situation.  And so things went.

Then there was this matter of Obama's proudly proclaimed "Pivot to Asia," in which America would shift some of its diplomatic attention to Asia – thus strengthening America's relations with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, etc.  Obama affirmed that this Pivot was also intended to improve relations with China as well.  But Xi did not see things this way, interpreting this as a move merely to put America in a better bargaining position in its relations with China.

Anyway, Xi had his own "pivot" in mind for Asia: his claim that the South China Sea, bordered by many Asian countries, was in fact Chinese territorial waters, not "high seas" as America (and the rest of the world) claimed.  To support this claim, Xi ordered the dredging of coral reefs in the Spratly Islands (close to the Philippines) in order to create new islands whose political goal was kept mysterious, until it finally became apparent that these were to be Chinese naval and air bases, positions from which Chinese sovereignty over the entire sea could be enforced.

 

The area is of vital importance to the commerce and economy 
of many nations  that surround the South China Sea.
 

To enforce these territorial claims, the Chinese in 2015 
begin to dredge the waters surrounding a number of coral
reefs located in the South China Sea

... to fill them in with land so as to construct airfield and
naval bases on these newly man-made slands.

In 2014 the Philippines challenged China at the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague in the Netherlands, resulting in a decision in the Philippines' favor.  But Xi had no interest in bowing to such international authority.  To Xi, the South China Sea was Chinese, and it would remain that way.

In 2016 America conducted naval exercises there in order to confirm the South China Sea as international waters.  But in the end it did nothing to change the fact that China was fast establishing itself as the dominator of the region.  Obama could, of course, have dredged and built his own militarized islands in the area – to enforce the understanding that the area belonged neither to China or anyone else.  But in the end, Obama did nothing. The "Pivot to Asia" – like so much of Obama's diplomacy – came with no muscle.

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^[2]Also the fact that the Chinese were refusing to respect international trademark rights and were producing cheap copies of more expensive Western goods – as well as stealing patent information on products brought into being in the West through costly research and development – was producing in the West growing bitterness about Chinese economic policies.

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"IMPROVED" RELATIONS WITH THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN

Then there was the matter of Iran, and the distinct possibility that it was attempting to turn itself into a nuclear power. As there was yet in the Middle East no country functioning as a nuclear power (excepting Israel, which might possibly be a nuclear power – although the yes or no concerning that matter has long been held in utmost secrecy) this would put Iran in a hugely dominant position in that part of the world.  However, Iran claimed that its extensive nuclear research and development was merely for the production of new energy sources, which, considering the fact that Iran sits on top of huge oil reserves, made little sense.

In any case, since the Iranian Revolution against the Shah in 1979 and the coming to power of the militant Shi'ite Muslim religious party led by the country's ayatollahs, American relations with Iran had been very negative, especially under Iran's constant theme of "death to the Great Satan America."  Things would remain tense between Iran and Obama's America, especially with the 2009 reelection of the fiercely conservative Muslim President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the outcry by many (both in and outside of Iran itself) that those elections been conducted very corruptly. Obama thus continued the American boycott of Iran and its oil sales (Iran's almost sole international income earner), because of Ahmadinejad's brutal hand in putting down the demonstrations against him that were rocking Iran at the time.

But in 2013, Iran succeeded in electing a more "moderate" Muslim cleric Hassan Rouhani as the country's president, who indicated that he wanted to explore the possibilities of improving Iranian-American relations.  The response of both Obama and the other leaders of the West was highly positive.  And in 2015 negotiators (Secretary of State Kerry directing the American team) sat down to work out a deal to reopen (gradually) economic and diplomatic relations with Iran, including the gradual releasing of Iran's frozen bank funds held abroad, provided that Iran place its nuclear development under certain internationally monitored limitations guaranteed to keep this development from producing weapons-grade nuclear material.

US Secretary of State John Kerry shaking hands with Iranian
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif agreeing to begin
talks concerning an Iran nuclear deal
  – Geneva, January 14, 2015



Obama announces agreement on the deal – July 14, 2015

In January of 2016, with the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran, Obama felt he had achieved a great break-through in American diplomacy.  Many Americans were excited about this development, for it seemed to be a big step in the direction of reducing international tensions (especially with Iran playing an ever-bolder hand in Middle Eastern affairs).  But others remained concerned that it left it all too easy for Iran to pull out of the agreement and move to full nuclear military power.  Iran was known to have its own moral rules about dealing with the infidel West, and was never to be trusted.  Here too, only time would tell which group got things right.

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Go on to the next section:

Into The Age of Trump

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  Miles H. Hodges