Challenges for Obama's Final Two Years

Transcript: Q&A Challenges for Obama's Final Two Years London Bureau Chief, The New York Times Head of Political and Social Research, YouGov Project Director, US; Dean, The Queen Elizabeth II Academy for Leadership in International Affairs, Chatham House Chair: Dr Leslie Vinjamuri Associate Fellow, Americas Programme, Chatham House 5 February 2015 The views expressed in this document are the sole responsibility of the speaker(s) and participants do not necessarily reflect the view of Chatham House, its staff, associates or Council. Chatham House is independent and owes no allegiance to any government or to any political body. It does not take institutional positions on policy issues. This document is issued on the understanding that if any extract is used, the author(s)/ speaker(s) and Chatham House should be credited, preferably with the date of the publication or details of the event. Where this document refers to or reports statements made by speakers at an event every effort has been made to provide a fair representation of their views and opinions. The published text of speeches and presentations may differ from delivery. 10 St James s Square, London SW1Y 4LE T +44 (0)20 7957 5700 F +44 (0)20 7957 5710 www.chathamhouse.org Patron: Her Majesty The Queen Chairman: Stuart Popham QC Director: Dr Robin Niblett Charity Registration Number: 208223

2 Challenges for Obama's Final Two Years: Q&A Question 1 First of all, I couldn't think of a better panel to put this question to. I don't think you mentioned Netanyahu, but I think he would qualify as one of Obama's major hate figures, or certainly the person who's caused him the most angst. He's about to humiliate Obama now, very embarrassingly, by going ahead and addressing Congress when clearly the president has said he will not even meet him when he comes to Washington. Does this have implications for US relations with Israel? Have we reached kind of a fundamental turning point, because I think I saw in Haaretz that even a Jewish congressman announced that Netanyahu has turned Israel into a political football in the United States and it is potentially dangerous. So could it possibly I ask this with a little pessimism myself shake that great consensus that prevents the United States from being an honest broker in the peace process which we so desperately need in this regard? Yes, I've been based in Israel as well. Bibi is really a pain in the ass. He's been a pain in the ass to everybody. (That's on the record.) He's an extremely good politician and he may win again, by the way. This is election time in Israel and it's coming soon. So I would see this more as an election thing from Bibi than it is an effort to embarrass Obama. I don't think Obama is particularly embarrassed by it, I think he's annoyed by it but Bibi is annoying, as I just said. The big problem with Bibi is you keep wondering, does he actually want to do what he keeps saying he wants to do, which is to create a two-state solution and peace. Frankly, to me, one of the great tragedies of the last election in Israel is that Tzipi Livni won more seats by one than Bibi did. I think had Bibi been able to form a different coalition, had he had the most seats, one might have hard to read his brain one might have seen a more ambitious peace process. So we'll see what comes out of this. So I don't think it's a major turning point, by the way. I think there's a slow move in America, as there is in Europe, which is basically sort of fed up with what seems to be an endless, slow colonization, if you want to use the word. Just this worry that a viable, contiguous Palestinian state is going to be harder to reach. I still see no other solution, by the way. That might mean I'm naïve. So no, I don't think it is. And then of course, Bibi is playing the Republican card. He thinks the Republicans are going to win. If the Republicans win and Bibi wins, it's not a turning point at all. I might not have made some of the 'annoying' comments, but otherwise I basically agree, you're right. To know him is to love him.

3 Challenges for Obama's Final Two Years: Q&A Question 2 You didn't mention John Kerry as a possible candidate for the presidential. I think you assume that Hillary Clinton is going to be the frontrunner. John Kerry has a lot in the next two years to prove. So this is one of my questions. The second one is: you didn't mention Syria at all. What do you think Obama is going to do Obama and Kerry on Syria? I think in polling terms, all the problems that John Kerry had when he ran for president remain. I don't think the result would be any different if he were to run. I think he probably knows that and I think the Democrats probably know that. If you look at the polling, Hillary is miles ahead at the moment. Do I think that that will be the actual result in the Democratic primary? No. But I do think that if she runs, she wins the Democratic primary. Yes, there are various other people who are possibilities, but they are distant possibilities. Hillary has it basically it is her choice. If she wants the Democratic nomination, she can have it. The only reason that she won't get it is if she chooses not to run. As was said, it's not guaranteed that she will run. But if she does, I firmly believe she'll get it. On that, I 100 per cent agree. Biden's name floats as well but Clinton against any other Democrat, it's just not a fair battle. Which by the way, is unfortunate for Clinton. It will weaken her by not having a credible Democratic primary compared to the Republicans, because the Republicans are going to get an awful lot of dirty laundry out there. They'll get their arguments out there, they'll get their presentation out there. They will have figured out what works, what doesn t work. It actually strengthens whoever is the Republican candidate at the end, by having a painful, excruciating, tough primary. It weakens Hillary Clinton, if she runs, by having an easy one. My view. On Syria, is it an issue for the next few years? Absolutely. But it's an issue that is, at the moment and I think will remain, focused on ISIS rather than focused on Syria. I think that's kind of what you were saying and I 100 per cent agree with that. No candidate, including the president, really wants to turn this into a conversation on Syria. They want to keep it on what I think America perceives as being its vital national interest, which is the terrorist threat. The whole thing is so depressing, it's hard to talk about it. I keep saying the Syria that we knew is gone. We should use some other word. It's broken apart. The question is, who's going to run the bits of Syria that we now have in front of us. Assad is clearly going to be running part of it. I think Washington is slowly coming to terms with that. But who runs the other parts is up in the air and it's important. Part of the fight against ISIS is, of course, also a cover or pretext for working with Iraq and creating a different kind of or hoping to shore up a different kind of balance. But you know, there's a war going on in the

4 Challenges for Obama's Final Two Years: Q&A Sunni world. It's not something Americans can do a lot about, frankly. Look at the way we've tried to handle Egypt. It hasn't been a great success. There are some things you just can't fix. Sometimes it's better just to try to make sure they don't get worse. Question 3 The first point is on a comment by Steven, that you made about Netanyahu sitting it out, hoping for a Republican president. From what I've read of Clinton's book and her pronouncements, I would say she is equally pro-israel as Republicans would be. The question is: does anybody envisage Obama doing anything in the next two years to justify that prize he won in 2009? Hillary Clinton was the senator from New York. That required a certain set of public and political stands. Not that she was I wouldn't call her insincere, but I suspect as president one sits in a different place and may have different views than you do as the Democratic senator from New York. That's the first thing I would say. Secondly, things have moved on. Gaza is quite different than it was when she was senator. The state of the West Bank is different. I'm very worried what happens when Abu Mazen dies or steps down. There's a mess in the Palestinian world too, don't forget. You still have a people divided against itself and you have two territories run by different people. The unity government is fake. So there are lots of issues there. But I agree with you. I don't expect any American president to come out as an opponent of the state of Israel. That's not going to happen, nor should it happen, in my view. But we also having covered this quite a lot we tend to be the best advocate for the Palestinians too, because we're the only people the Israelis actually ever listen to. The Europeans can say whatever they want but Israel is not going to listen. If Washington says it, they do. If you talk to most Palestinian officials privately, they will acknowledge this. We may not be a perfectly honest broker but at the moment we're all there is. This is really high up on Kerry's agenda. Incredibly high on Kerry's agenda. It was when he took office. If you look, I think in the first three months he went to the Middle East five times or something. It's really significant. And to the outside eye, there's been very little progress, at least on the peace process. So I think one has to actually look to the region rather than look to the United States. I don't see there are other people here in the room who are probably better experts on the region, but I don't see a lot of progress in the region on the two sides, for the reasons Steve mentions.

5 Challenges for Obama's Final Two Years: Q&A Question 4 Three quick questions. One for Joe on the polling: we've heard a lot about polarization in the United States and those lines slowly going apart, where Republicans stand and Democrats. I was wondering what the latest picture was and is there any kind of what Americans expect to happen eventually, a course correction, where things can't just keep going off in two different directions forever. Any thoughts about what that might mean for the last two years of Obama's presidency? One thing I was literally just thinking about now: for Republicans in Congress, if they don't see perhaps Jeb Bush or maybe Governor Walker as a strong presidential candidate, if they see the Hillary machine doing very well, are they then maybe more likely to grant Obama TPA because they think it's not going to happen under a Republican in a couple years' time so it may as well happen now, rather than give it to Hillary. One last quick thing, to Steve: the comment you made right at the end of your presentation about Americans, when there's inequality, are more likely to think of it as ambition than division in Europe. Just yesterday we were talking about how America has changed in so many ways that were unthinkable 10 or 15 years ago, whether it's gay rights, marijuana legalization, religious disaffiliation, Cuba. Is there a chance that what for a long time had been the American dream I may be poor now but I'll be rich do you think that could change, and that could be a profound, slow change to the way Americans see themselves? Leslie Vinjamuri Joe, you might also have something to say in terms of your data, whether there is any indication that there is this change. It was certainly my question, whether 2008 has had any more lasting impact on what America is and what the American dream is, especially on these issues of inequality, which seem to me to be very significant in multiple ways, and will be over the next two years. Do we want to start with you, Joe, on partisanship? The perception of the American electorate is that the polarization is here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future. It's not really going anywhere. Certainly, gridlock will be a characterization of the final two years of Obama's presidency. But of course, there's a distinction between what the American people perceive and what will actually happen. I think the points that have been made about, if you like, issues of political expediency on both sides mean that actually we may see a movement there. What I am then interested in is: will the American electorate pick up on that? Will they perceive the country to be less divided, less polarized, than it was now or previously? Or will the perception be that even though progress has been made, they will just think that it hasn't? I don't know the answer to that but it will be an interesting thing to watch. The second question is really an interesting question. Will the Republicans in Congress give Obama TPA because they worry about a Clinton presidency afterwards? I don't think the Republicans in Congress are

6 Challenges for Obama's Final Two Years: Q&A even considering that there will be another Democratic presidency. America does tend to do, you do two terms and then it changes and flips. So Clinton does have on the one hand, she has a speeding economy which actually puts her in a better position. On the other hand, she's had two terms of a Democratic president that she has to follow, and that puts her in a tougher position. But I don't think the Republicans in Congress are even entering into their thought process that actually they might not win in 2016. The other thing is typically TPA does have a sunset clause, but it doesn't normally have a sunset clause of two years. So then you have the question of: do they want to give TPA to Obama, knowing that whoever comes next will get it? As long as they're still thinking it might be Jeb Bush or somebody else, it's something they do want to do. So it might go forward precisely because they do think they've got a pretty good chance of winning the presidency in 2016. The only thing I would say on equality is there is a distinction that is really important to keep in mind. There is inequality and there is inequality of opportunity. There are an awful lot of people today that, notwithstanding Piketty's book, think about inequality of opportunity as being the thing that we should focus on. The idea that you can't change from one level to the next. If you look at numbers on that, they are also showing the inequality of opportunity is decreasing from what it was. But I think there are two concepts that one has to separate out and think about both of them. I think that's a very important point. Let me first say about trade: Republicans like trade and TTP is really about China. It's about setting rules and Republicans want to set rules for China. So it seems to me that they're quite likely not to get in the way of a deal, if it's done. I might be wrong, of course. You can never tell with certain wings of the Republican Party. But that's my sense. On inequality, it's a very good question. Obviously, the country is changing. The ethnic makeup is changing. The amount of Spanish that's being spoken is quite extraordinary. Immigration is coming from different places. Again, I don't live there now, but the thing about the country that's always impressed me, and what struck the French so much about Obama because they always thought of Obama as métis; Obama was the son of an African and a white woman, he wasn't the son of a slave. To the French, this was very important. Yet what impressed them was that he articulated quite sincerely all the values of America that everybody else did. He took them on board. There was no special community-minded notion. He worked very hard at that, it was one of the great intellectual battles he fought with himself. But nobody doubts that he's an American or he's a patriot, etc. I think a lot of people feel that way, other than some loonies who think he's born on Mars or something. But my sense, and you may have polling, but on the Spanish-speaking Americans, they're pretty conservative. They want the same things. They want equality, they want opportunity, they want to make money, they want to fit in. They're not really disaffected, particularly. That's why I think Jeb Bush will be interesting, because he's married to a Mexican-American and he speaks Spanish, and Florida and Texas will be really important to whoever wins the next election. So you raise a very good question and I'm kind of fluttering, because I don't really know the answer. The country has changed a lot, I'm not sure its values systems yet have changed.

7 Challenges for Obama's Final Two Years: Q&A That is a very good point. What the polling shows, from memory, is that there is a group of disaffected Spanish-speaking Americans, and there's no doubt about that, but they're not the ones who tend to vote. So it's the emergence of the aspirational Spanish-speaking middle class that could make a big difference in the election. Question 5 The Democrats raised a flag, a slogan, on withdrawing troops from Iraq, and it succeeded. It was very helpful for them. Now, will it be the opposite? Backing up, making the troops come back to Iraq, is a slogan for the Democrats? Or maybe it's a mark for the Republicans? Because I think it's a very important issue, to know exactly what's going to happen at that time. Question 6 Does America have a preference for the outcome of the election here in the UK? Looking further forward, what is the view there about whether or not the UK stays in the EU? Question 7 My question is about trade. China really needs trade with the US. At the same time, they have the problem of sheer growth [indiscernible]. Also, they established the [indiscernible] bank. How will both of them compete and cooperate with each other in TTP? I'm going to speak very quickly about Iraq and the British general election. As someone who lived in Baghdad from 2007 to 2010, I have some familiarity with American policy in that country. I think how it's viewed depends on what happens over the next two years and perhaps over the next 12 months. I think the uncertainty surrounding Kurdistan and its fight against ISIS, particularly surrounding Kirkuk and whether that area is annexed (for want of a better expression) to Kurdistan and then Kurdistan declares independence (for example), that could destabilize the entire region and bring into question the entire project. Having said that, if there's an alternative future, where Iraq actually stabilizes because of the stability that the post-maliki regime brings, then that could reflect very well on the Democrats. But the uncertainty in the region makes it very uncertain to see how it will play out in American politics.

8 Challenges for Obama's Final Two Years: Q&A I will skip Iraq and say something about any US preference for the outcome of the UK elections. America will work with either. It truly doesn't matter, from the American perspective, and you're not going to hear America even hint at a preference. What you will hear, and you have heard America and President Obama hint at and say actually quite explicitly, is that they really want the UK to stay in the EU. President Obama said it, others have said it, really quite explicitly, that that's actually important. America believes that the UK in the EU is good for the UK and is very good for the EU. They want to see the EU reformed and they see the UK as being the best vehicle to do that. So you're not going to hear any commentary about what happens in the election. You will absolutely not in a kind of offensive way, but you will certainly privately and perhaps even publicly hear comments about how the US does believe the EU is stronger and the UK is stronger in. I'm not sure what to say about China actually, beyond what I've said. I want to say I agree very much with what Xenia just said about the American position on British politics. On Iraq, it's certainly not a good thing for the Democrats to have to come in and out, but I do also recommend to you to read the House of Commons Defence Committee report which came out this morning, on Iraq and Britain's stand, and ask yourself, where is the West and where is the coalition on this question? Thank you all. Leslie Vinjamuri Thank you. Thank you all for coming this afternoon. Thank you very much to Joe, Xenia and Steven.