Part of the allure of Obama when he first ran for President was the prospect of an intellectual in the White House making progressive decisions, but also educating "low information" citizens about how the world works. This would be important, because his days in office would eventually end. A true legacy requires a leader establishing a path-breaking enduring record, but also an accepted ideological framework for understanding its rationale. That perspective can survive term limits. Franklin Roosevelt did this and the New Deal view of government action as a vigorous corrective to the anarchy and social disruption of capitalist development was unrivaled for almost forty years after his death. Ronald Reagan, although his economic policies were never as laissez-faire as his rhetoric suggested, launched an ideology that has endured nearly as long: government is the enemy; free enterprise the cure. Post-Reagan, even Democrats have often believed they had to be defensive about government action, not proud of it.
President Obama had a golden opportunity to launch a powerful ideological counter-revolution when he took office during the Great Recession. Republicans and the most powerful corporate entities were back on their heels. The public was ready for a bold departure from the past. Unfortunately, those who placed such hopes on Obama were to be disappointed, accepting his very liberal 2008 campaign rhetoric as indicative of his deeper convictions on domestic policy.
Obama is best viewed as a "Rockefeller Republican" or Clinton Democrat on economic and social issues. Even his signature health care legislation resembled what Mitt Romney had implemented as Governor of Massachusetts. Both originated in a proposal of The Heritage Society, a conservative think tank which develops free-market oriented policies to solve social problems. Obama's unwillingness to embrace left-wing populism, lay the groundwork for Donald Trump's bogus appeals to the white working-class component of his winning coalition.
One area Obama appeared poised to radically depart from conventional thought was foreign policy. He was aware of its dark side under Democrat and Republican Administrations: anti-Communism and fear of any forms of populist nationalism, even if non-Communist, led to support for the world's most brutal dictatorships. His childhood in Indonesia under the murderous US- supported Suharto regime, which affected his step-family, and activism in the anti-apartheid movement, taught him lessons other U.S. presidents never learned. He could have punctured the myth of American "exceptionalism" and taught Americans that widespread anti-Americanism in the world is not primarily rooted in hatred of freedom and lack of gratitude for our generous foreign aid.
Anti-Americanism, in fact, reflects our past and, to a lesser degree (Central and South American leaders are not our puppets these days), present global policies. We have long allied with and armed hated dictators. In addition, there have been numerous military interventions, heralded as serving "freedom," but often confusing it with our geo-political and economic interests. American foreign policy has primarily been "exceptional" in negative ways: invading a record thirty countries since the United Nations was founded.
What about our generosity? It is largely an illusion. Our foreign aid for development, for example, is a smaller proportion of our Gross National Income than 19 other nations, including Portugal, and is just .19 percent. Moreover, though things have somewhat improved since 2012, when USAID modified its rules, foreign aid typically required recipients to purchase American-made products even if they were more expensive than alternatives. What is called "tied-aid" is still true of food products, motor vehicles and US-patented pharmaceuticals and is still the norm among non-USAID governmental agencies. To be fair, other countries provide tied-aid as well, but quite a few others do not.
Unlike, domestic politics, where the President must deal with Congress, foreign policy is a realm of nearly total freedom. Obama has taken some important steps in dealing with Iran and Cuba and not sending more ground troops to entangle us more deeply in the perpetual Middle East chaos resulting from the century old efforts of European imperial powers to carve up the Ottoman Empire.
On the other hand, while admonishing Israel for its continued illegal annexation of Palestinian land in the West Bank (though, not about its economic strangling of Gaza), he has continued to give it massive military aid. Ironically, despite the recent uproar over his abstention on a vote confirming a long accepted UN position on the illegality of Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory, his Republican predecessors have been more willing to actually vote in favor of resolutions condemning Israeli actions. They even threatened cuts in US aid at times, succeeding in curtailing Israeli actions.
Obama has also made other avoidable missteps. He refused to prosecute those in the Bush Administration responsible for torture policies, accepted the legitimacy of the 2009 Honduras coup which overthrew an elected government, and aided and abetted the Saudi bombing of Yemen to appease the Saudis after his nuclear deal with Iran.
Unfortunately, Obama's modest re-thinking of foreign policy stays largely within his own mind. He has made only feeble attempts to be Educator-in-Chief. He knows the Iranians will never forget the 1953 CIA-led coup against an elected leader, Mohammed Mossadegh, the installation of the autocratic Shah, our support for Saddam Hussein's invasion of Iran and our indifference, at best, to his use of chemical weapons against them. He is aware Iran abandoned nuclear programs as "un-Islamic" until the horrific chemical warfare made them feel acutely vulnerable. He knows, apparently, that the Saudis are the chief exporters of jihadist theology throughout the Islamic world. But he keeps that knowledge largely to himself, along with his awareness of Palestinian daily life under Israeli rule.
This failure to systematically tell the American people about any of this means perpetuating their ignorance and making it more likely that inhumane and/or foolish policies will be pursued and supported in the future. When Donald Trump becomes President in a few weeks he will apparently be giving unqualified love to the Saudis, cheering Israel's expanding colonization efforts, and hugging friendly autocrats, especially if "friendliness" includes surreptitiously advancing The Trump Organization. Roosevelt had his fireside chats with all the citizens. Obama should at least have a foreign policy "teach-in" before he leaves office. It is now too late to "walk the walk," but he can at least "talk the talk." His Farewell Address, touching as it was, was another missed opportunity.