WASHINGTON– With his foreign policy under fire, President Obama used a commencement address at West Point to take on critics who argue crises in Ukraine and Syria are linked to perceived U.S. weakness abroad.
Obama defended his efforts to try to counter Russia's incursion into Ukraine by rallying nations to impose sanctions, and said his decision not to send troops to Syria to try to put down President Bashir al-Assad's brutal crackdown was the right one.
Russia went ahead with its annexation of Crimea, and Assad remains in power, despite U.S. support for rebels trying to oust him.
Taking on skeptics on the right who have fretted about failures to counter expansionist efforts by Russia and China, and ongoing turmoil in the Middle East, Obama called America "the one indispensable nation."
It's a phrase attributed to former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright that Obama has used before, including at the Air Force Academy graduation ceremony in 2012. Obama said he believes in American exceptionalism "with every fiber of my being."
As in prior foreign policy speeches, Obama gave attention to the limits of the nation's ability to U.S. military power to achieve its ends.
Recalling his prior address to West Point graduating cadets in 2009, Obama said he is"haunted" by the deaths of four cadets from that class who died in Afghanistan.
"I am haunted by those deaths. I am haunted by those wounds," Obama said.
"And I would betray my duty to you, and to the country we love, if I sent you into harm's way simply because I saw a problem somewhere in the world that needed fixing, or because I was worried about critics who think military intervention is the only way for America to avoid looking weak," Obama said.
He said America has "rarely been stronger," and said those who argue that U.S. leadership is slipping "are either misreading history or engaged in partisan politics."
Obama proposed an open-ended $5 billion fund to counter terrorist groups wherever they pop up. It was in that context that he mentioned the 2011 attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya that killed four Americans.
Those events continue to be the subject of House probes into the administration's response.
He said an Al Qaeda now decentralized due to U.S. military efforts "lessens the possibility of large-scale 9/11-style attacks against the homeland, but heightens the danger to U.S. personnel overseas, as we saw in Benghazi; or less defensible targets, as we saw in a shopping mall in Nairobi."
Obama said the U.S. counter-terror strategy must shift "to more effectively partner with countries where terrorist networks seek a foothold."
Describing the new fund, Obama indicated the resources could go virtually anywhere – a concept that might not fly with congressional appropriators.
"These resources will give us flexibility to fulfill different missions, including training security forces in Yemen who have gone on the offensive against al Qaeda; supporting a multinational force to keep the peace in Somalia; working with European allies to train a functioning security force and border patrol in Libya; and facilitating French operations in Mali," Obama said.
Obama alternated between declarations of the awesome reach of U.S. power and its limits.
He pointed to Nigeria, where the U.S. is dispatching troops to aid the hunt for kidnapped schoolgirls.
"Tragically, no American security operation can eradicate the threat posed by an extremist group like Boko Haram. That is why we must focus both on rescuing those girls, but also on supporting Nigerian efforts to educate its youth," Obama said.
On Iran, where critics in Israel and the U.S. fear Tehran will still be allowed to produce dangerous levels of highly enriched Uranium under an evolving nuclear deal, Obama defended his efforts at multi-nation persuasion.
"For the first time in a decade, we have a very real chance of achieving a breakthrough agreement," Obama said.
On Syria, he remarked: "As frustrating as it is, there are no easy answers – no military solution that can eliminate the terrible suffering anytime soon."
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