As a state senator from a liberal urban enclave, it didn't require a great deal of political courage during the run-up to the Iraq war for Barack Obama to call the forthcoming U.S. conflict 'dumb.'
More notably, over his last decade in Washington - first in the Senate and now in the White House - Obama has been consistent in arguing to American policymakers, albeit more tactfully, what he tartly offered at a Chicago rally to antiwar protesters: It is no longer feasible for America to embrace interventionist policies.
Not surprisingly, his speech Wednesday before the U.S. Military Academy's Class of 2014 was a continuation in his long-running rationale for a more internationalist approach to foreign policy after more than a decade of war.
The political left have given Obama plenty of grief for failure to follow up with campaign promises to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and for his dependence on the morally fraught use of drones to kill terrorist suspects - and unwittingly civilians - in places like Pakistan and Yemen.
And Obama acknowledged the criticism he's faced from interventionists who have lashed at him for his decision to take limited military action against President Bashar Assad in Syria and say he's undermined America's role as a world leader with his response to Russia's intervention in Ukraine.
In his speech to the rising Army officers that doubled as an opportunity to draw his foreign policy vision for his final 2½ years in office, Obama punched back against his detractors who say America's standing in the world has diminished under his watch. He said they were 'either misreading history or engaged in partisan politics.'
'Since World War II, some of our most costly mistakes came not from our restraint, but from our willingness to rush into military adventures - without thinking through the consequences, without building international support and legitimacy for our action, or leveling with the American people about the sacrifice required,' Obama told the graduates, who are the first West Point class since before 9/11 who are unlikely to be deployed to either Iraq or Afghanistan. 'Tough talk draws headlines, but war rarely conforms to slogans.'
In the speech, which came one day after Obama announced his plan to remove all troops from Afghanistan by the end of his presidency, Obama detailed his vision for a new American-led era of multilateralism. He argued such an approach has already had some success in dealing with the situation in Ukraine as well as his administration's effort to prod Iran to give up its suspected nuclear program.
In the Ukraine crisis, Obama made the case that U.S. leadership helped quickly shape world opinion against Russia, prompted swift G-7 sanctions against Vladimir Putin's inner circle, and spurred the International Monetary Fund to stabilize Ukraine's faltering economy.
Meanwhile, in Iran, he noted that despite dire predictions that Iran was marching toward developing a nuclear weapon, a steady diet of international sanctions against Tehran, while also extending a hand of diplomacy to the Iranian regime, has led the world to the cusp of a breakthrough agreement that could be more durable than what could be achieved by force.
'It has been our willingness to work through multilateral channels that kept the world on our side,' Obama said. 'This is American leadership. This is American strength.'
Nearly six years into his presidency, the shots from foreign policy hawks who complain that Obama's approach to the world is too timid won't cease after Wednesday's address.
But it's also clear as Obama looks to establishing a foreign policy legacy, he's more certain than ever in his long-established belief that the post-9/11 world is too complicated for the U.S. to play policeman for the world.
Read the original story: First Take: Obama makes case for a multilateral vision
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