Weltpolizist Obama

Anmerkungen zur US-amerikanischen Außenpolitik

Abstract

When Barack Obama first came to power he was widely regarded as the perfect “anti-Bush”. However, in the field of US foreign policy, Obama has essentially continued to pursue Bush’s agenda, especially as regards the so-called “war on terror”. Although Obama’s government has abandoned this concept from the public discourse, it has conducted an aggressive policy: Obama escalated the war in Afghanistan and unleashed an unprecedented drone war which takes place under a veil of official secrecy. On Iran, Obama was not serious in his first term about starting a dialogue with Teheran and there is a great danger of war over Iran’s alleged nuclear ambitions. Obama’s policy in the Middle East has not deviated from the position of previous US governments. While his foreign policy within a multilateral context seems to signal a departure from Bush’s unilateralism, Obama has successfully avoided from being portrayed as weak on national security matters by the Republicans.