Despite his best efforts, President Obama looks destined to relinquish the commander in chief role the way he accepted it: as a wartime president embroiled in numerous military operations and conflicts that he had hoped to end.
The Islamic State’s Nov. 13 attacks on Paris reignited debate on Capitol Hill about his handling of the Syrian civil war, its refugee crisis and, more broadly, his plan for “degrading and ultimately destroying” the Islamic State.
The House swiftly passed, with the help of 47 Democrats, legislation that would halt the administration’s plan to allow 10,000 refugees of the conflict into the U.S. this year. Congress also sent up a defense policy bill including a provision requiring him to submit by Feb. 15 a “strategy for the Middle East and to counter violent extremism.”
All of this came as he was on a nine-day trip abroad hoping to focus on the foreign policy issues he has made central to his late-term agenda: the “pivot” to Asia, a landmark Pacific Rim trade treaty, and an international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Throughout his travel from Turkey to the Philippines to Malaysia, he had to address the Syrian conflict, what he’s doing to defeat the Islamic State and defend his plan to help resettle Iraqi and Syrian refugees across America.
It has become the story of his second term. Each time he gets on a roll of crossing things off his checklist or making progress on them, he has to slow down and deal with terrorist attacks, Russian military aggression or setbacks on his plans to withdraw from Afghanistan and close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
“Sure it affects his agenda, to the extent he has one,” said one Democratic strategist, asking how much is really left on Obama’s “to do” list. More importantly is what “digging in his heels” will do to vulnerable Democratic members and Democratic congressional challengers, he said.
By not seeking a compromise with House Republicans on the refugee bill, Obama forced his caucus to “take a tough vote they shouldn’t have had to take,” the strategist said. “There could’ve been a way to let cooler heads prevail.”
Like previous debates over Syrian policy, this roil will pass, until the next attack or setback, the strategist said. But fighting about refugees is perilous for both parties.
“You know someone is exploiting Paris for political gain the minute they say they aren’t exploiting Paris for political gain,” the strategist said.
Obama said while appearing with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Manila, Philippines on Nov. 19 that he thinks lawmakers’ latest dissatisfaction with his Syria policy will fade.
“And so my expectation is, after the initial spasm of rhetoric, that people will settle down, take a look at the facts, and we’ll be able to proceed” with Syrian refugee resettlement, he said.
On the domestic front, Obama already has significant cooperation on some items, such as overhauling the nation’s sentencing laws. Those bills are moving through both chambers. Lawmakers are also working with him on ratifying the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and House Speaker Paul Ryan was his key Republican ally in winning fast-track authority this summer, which allowed him to wrap up TPP. However, on his hopes of sealing a global deal on climate change, Congress is blocking him at every turn.
The bigger obstacle could be public opinion.
A paper published by the American Journal of Political Science last year showed that if 30 percent or less of the public supports a president’s handling of a military conflict, Congress is more likely to stonewall his domestic initiatives. In that scenario, the researchers found only about a 20 percent chance that Congress would pass a bill that advances the president’s domestic agenda.
In the most recent Gallup poll before the Paris attacks, 64 percent of Americans disapproved of Obama’s handling of the Islamic State.
“Despite the vicious back and forth over the issue of Syrian refugees right now, I’m not sure how much of an impact it is going to have on the president’s last year in office,” said veteran Democratic strategist and former top Senate Democratic aide Jim Manley.
But every minute Obama must devote to quelling critics of his handling of his role as commander in chief, he loses precious time in his quest for getting as many things across the finish line he can before leaving office in January of 2017.
Such “unnecessary distractions” force him to expend political capital and “take time off the clock” he doesn’t really have, Manley said.
