Obama Discovers a Truer Legacy

Pundits in the media always talk about a president's second term as a restless pursuit of legacy. Ego is definitely the main driver of political ambition; ego, and then down a ways, money.

Obama's signature domestic achievement has turned out to be a steaming crock of shit. Even if the online insurance exchange is repaired and registration becomes a simple, seamless event, you're still at the end of the day left with nothing more than a massive expansion of the U.S. health care status quo. As Ralph Nader pointed out this past weekend in an article, "21 Ways the Canadian Health Care System is Better than Obamacare," that appeared on the Counterpunch web site,

In the United States, under Obamacare, for thousands of Americans, it’s pay or die – if you can’t pay, you die. That’s why many thousands will still die every year under Obamacare from lack of health insurance to get diagnosed and treated in time.

Obamacare does nothing to mend the complexity, high co-pays and deductibles that prevent people from seeking medical attention. If this isn't apparent to most now, it will be in a few years.

No, Obama's legacy achievement is shaping up to be foreign policy. First, forgoing a missile strike against Syria in favor of an agreement he struck with the Russians for the government of Bashar al-Assad to give up its chemical weapons; this prevented the Syrian civil war from metastasizing into World War Three. Now, comes the agreement penned in Geneva on Sunday to ensure that Iran's nuclear program is peaceful. As Mark Landler writes this morning in his frontpage story, "Nuclear Accord With Iran Opens Diplomatic Doors in the Mideast":

But the mere fact that after 34 years of estrangement, the United States and Iran have signed a diplomatic accord — even if it is a tactical, transitory one — opens the door to a range of geopolitical possibilities available to no American leader since Jimmy Carter. 

“No matter what you think of it, this is a historic deal,” said Vali R. Nasr, the dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “It is a major seismic shift in the region. It rearranges the entire chess board.”

In both cases, Syria joining the chemicals convention and the Iranians agreeing to halt uranium enrichment at 5%, the Israelis and Saudis were apoplectic, publicly venting their frustration and lashing out at the Obama administration.

What does that tell you? It says that the House of Saud and the Likudniks who run Israel want war. They are states that thrive on war. But the neoliberal/neoconservative paradigm that coincides with the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the Grand Mosque Seizure and the Soviet Army deployment in Afghanistan is out of juice; it is all but dead. Yet it still governs the globe. And that's the problem. Obeisance to a dead, juiceless four-decade-old paradigm is killing us.

We need a shift. And that's what the Iranian nuclear program deal represents. It is a de facto acknowledgment (and one could argue that the "Joint Plan of Action" provides de jure recognition) of Iran's right to enrich uranium; it gets us out of the war track and onto a peace track. Already renewed efforts are being made for the Geneva II round of peace talks on the Syrian civil war.

Netanyahu and his Saudi allies will do everything they can to maintain the old paradigm. They have ample resources and a great deal of Congressional support. They have to proceed cautiously though. It's Thanksgiving week in the United States and people are in no mood to hear the war drums pounding. The people know who the warmongers are and they have had enough war.

The action will commence when Congress returns from the holiday and attempts to kill the Iranian deal by ratcheting up sanctions and then attaching those sanctions to any and all vital legislation in the hope that Obama will have to acquiesce. But Obama will not because he has found his true legacy.