This document contrasts the foreign policy approaches of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. President Bush pursued a unilateral approach using assertive military action as a first resort, as seen in the Iraq war. President Obama favors multilateral diplomacy and sees military action as a last resort, as demonstrated by his withdrawal from Iraq and engagement with countries like Iran. While Bush acted aggressively, Obama believes that dialogue and international cooperation are better strategies for addressing security issues.

1. 1
The different approaches to foreign policy from President Obama and President George
W. Bush illustrate the stark contrast and subsequent consequences between conciliatory
multilateralism and unilateral American exceptionalism. President Obama has generally pursued
his foreign policy through analysis and pragmatic internationalism. In contrast, President Bush
though he did begin the negotiations that would lead to an agreement with Iran on their nuclear
program, typically strove for the fulfillment of protecting “traditional” America through assertive
unilateralism; examples of this unilateralism include the distancing from the Kyoto Protocol and
the ICC. President Obama can be perceived as an international consulere, or one who “takes
counsel,” and a person willing to make compromise. President Bush often demonstrated
aggressiveness to and dismissiveness of international institutions, while President Obama
showed an inclination to settle disputes and work with people through dialogue and multilateral
methods.
President Bush normally implemented his unilateralism through military means, whether
it was by increasing global U.S. military strength or direct conflict. The language he used in the
National Security Strategy of the United States of America published in September of 2002
depicts his willingness to use military means as the first rather than the last option. Bush
emphasizes, “Defending our Nation against its enemies is the first and fundamental commitment
of the Federal Government.” He adds that “we will defend the peace by fighting” (emphasis
added). He continues with, “America will hold to account nations that are compromised by
terror, including those who harbor terrorists.”1
This document, perfectly illustrative of the almost
consistently unilateral foreign policy approaches Bush was to make, demonstrates President
Bush’s international predilection for hard power and his belief in defending America by force.
Truly, in his mind the biggest, fastest gun wins the duel. Ultimately, his eagerness to use force
1
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/63562.pdf

2. 2
would lead America to be caught in what preferably would have remained strictly regional
struggles, such as in Iraq and Syria.
How to counter the threat of the potential use of WMD by Iraq consumed foreign policy
decision-making in the Bush administration. As illustrated in President Bush’s war ultimatum
speech, he used the rhetoric that the Ba’athist Regime “has a history of reckless aggression in the
Middle East” and that they had “already used weapons of mass destruction against [their]
neighbors.”2
America’s rash entry into war with Iraq was based on an exaggerated perception of
the threat. Truly, his analysis was founded more on what had happened than on actual evidence.
The irony of this is clear– America, who supplied a recklessly aggressive Iraq with the WMDs,
tried to save the world by becoming the reckless aggressor. Bush’s claim that the Iraqi
government had “aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al Qaeda” is
illogical and extraordinarily exaggerated.3
The former Iraqi Minister of Foreign Affairs, Tariq
Aziz, clarifies that “the Iraqi regime issued a decree aggressively outlawing Wahabism in Iraq
and threatening offenders with execution.”4
Furthermore, logically the last thing a secular
dictator wants is to share power with Islamic extremists looking to uproot and destroy him.5
However, militaristic hardline ideology won out, Iraq was invaded, and, in spite of the claim that
this was the “course toward safety,” the Middle East ironically suffers from the effects of the
invasion in a way that is similar to the suffering caused by mustard gas: it is being torn apart
from the inside.
Apart from the threat of the use of WMD by Iraq, Bush felt he had to curb Iranian
influence in the region by creating a more democratic, westernized Iraqi government to serve as
2
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/mar/18/usa.iraq
3
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/17/sprj.irq.bush.transcript/
4 FBI, IIR: Interview with Aziz Regarding former Regime’s Posture Toward al-Qa’ida, June 2004.
5
Jessica Stern and J M. Berger, ISIS: the state of terror (New York, N.Y.: Ecco Press, an imprint of HarperCollins
Publishers, 2015), 1.

3. 3
a geopolitical counterweight to the Iranians.6
Iran had been a rising power for quite some time,
and, since the Iranian Revolution, generally took anti-American positions. This animosity,
combined with the 2002 revelation of a secret uranium-enrichment facility at Natanz, led to the
enormous increase of potential for a U.S.-Iran conflict. The motivations behind their nuclear
program will not be discussed at length here, but suffice it to say that, if the Iranians were really
attempting to build a nuclear arsenal, the only two real military threats of immediate proximity to
Iran were the Taliban’s extremist Afghanistan and Saddam’s Baathist Iraq.7
Realistically, the
Baathists were the only substantial threat to Iranian hegemony in the region and, though not pro-
West, had already served as an effective counterbalance to Iranian influence. Because of the
hasty invasion of Iraq and subsequent removal of the Baathists, there currently exists a power
vacuum that has created the perfect breeding ground for Islamist groups, like the Islamic State,
as well as Shi’ite militias, such as Asaib Ahl al-Haq, all attempting to consolidate power bases
across the country. Unfortunately, the goal of curbing Iranian influence in the region by the
creation of a democratic Iraqi government (erroneous because the Shi’ite majority Iraq would
have naturally leaned more toward Iran anyway) failed in two ways: (1) it exacerbated the
potential of an Iranian hegemony by removing a buffer government, allowing Iran to mobilize
their more zealous supporters in Iraq (i.e. Shi’ite militias), and (2) it fueled the rise of extremism,
which is spreading across the Levant like hellfire.
In contrast to the exceptionally combative course of action that President Bush generally
pursued, President Obama, although similar in making nonproliferation and terrorist
organizations his top security issues, currently promotes multilateralism and an understanding
that America cannot establish world security on her own. At his Nobel Prize acceptance speech
6
http://www.cfr.org/iran/irans-involvement-iraq/p12521#p1
7 http://cns.miis.edu/npr/pdfs/npr_19-1_sherrill_iran_bomb.pdf

4. 4
in 2009, Obama declared, “America cannot act alone. America alone cannot secure the peace.”8
As consistent as President Bush was in sticking to his approach, Obama seems just as determined
to promote diplomacy and discourse between international entities. This approach is not new to
international liberal thought. What distinguishes President Obama is that he does particularly
well in sitting down and talking with traditional pariahs such as Iran and Cuba. Taken from his
2010 National Security Strategy, Obama resoundingly declared:
“We will pursue engagement with hostile nations to test their intentions,
give their governments the opportunity to change course, reach out to their
people, and mobilize international coalitions… Through engagement, we can
create opportunities to resolve differences, strengthen the international
community’s support for our actions, [and] learn about the intentions and natures
of closed regimes…”9
It is clear that President Obama believes that dialogue should be our first choice, and war
our second. This brings to mind Winston Churchill’s statement that “to jaw-jaw is always
better than to war-war.”10
The impractical and hasty invasion of Iraq effectively created more instability in
the region and left America entangled in a war of attrition leaving President Obama with
the challenge of disentangling the U.S. while at the same time using American influence
to promote stability in the region. Iran had not dismantled their nuclear program, Iraq was
reeling from sectarian pressures, and, most importantly, American reputation as a moral
leader had soured.11
Though he overestimated the capacity of the Iraqi government for
self-governance, President Obama announced the pullout of American troops from Iraq
after taking office in 2009.12
This demonstrates just one example of the reduction of
8
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-acceptance-nobel-peace-prize
9
https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/national_security_strategy.pdf
10
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/winstonchu141781.html
11
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/vietnam/2005-10-01/iraq-learning-lessons-vietnam
12
"Transcript of Obama's Speech at Camp Lejeune, N.C.". White House Transcript. 27 February 2009.

5. 5
American military involvement in the Middle East. In contrast, realizing there was a
pragmatically just cause to be found in Afghanistan and in recognition of the original
goals as caused by the events of 9/11, President Obama approved a surge of 21,000
troops to advance the fight against al-Qa’ida and the Taliban. Some have argued that,
given the resurgence of the Taliban, the increase in personnel was not enough and that
Obama’s approach is defeatist13
and “designed to produce American [military] decline.”14
However, the Middle East is complex and not fixable with quick, simplistic solutions; it
is not that Obama is weak in not getting directly involved in the conflicts, it is that “trying
to play a constructive role from the sidelines rather than getting embroiled directly
represents not weakness but prudence.” 15
Though President Obama has typically supported groups, such as the Free Syrian Army,
from the “sidelines,” there are times when his administration has directly been involved in
solving international issues, such as the Iranian nuclear program. The resolutions and
compromises found in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action concerning Iran’s nuclear
program typify and are an example of Obama’s aptitude to compromise with nations who have
opposing interests. Surely, the fact that the U.S. under Obama allowed the Iranians to take any
stances during the negotiations attests to Obama’s acceptance of open dialogue. He was willing
again to engage in “jaw-jaw” rather than give into numerous calls for the invasion of Iran.16
The
fact that he declined these calls reveals President Obama’s commitment to abide by the principle
that “if you can’t –or won’t– stop a power from rising, you might as well engage it and try to
13
http://www.timesofisrael.com/defeatist-obamas-deal-with-the-devil/
14
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/what-obama-gets-right. Page 7.
15
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/what-obama-gets-right. Page 9.
16
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2012-01-01/time-attack-iran

6. 6
reduce the risks of violence.”17
Though obedience to this credo can be looked at as softheaded
submission, many analysts and scholars believe that, by coordinating and compromising with a
traditional “enemy” like Iran, Obama played the best he could with the hand dealt to him.18
The drastic difference in approach taken by the two administrations is not just applicable
when dealing with nations; it is also seen in regards to international institutions. President Bush
commonly disregarded international institutions in the name of securing American interests.
Indeed, the Bush administration, made clear in Bob Woodward’s Plan of Attack, went out of its
way to directly challenge the UN in the run up to the Iraq war.19
The forefront of this
aggressiveness took place in the relationship between the United States and the UNSC at the
time of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. In reference to this relationship, Matthew Rothschild aptly
noted that President Bush effectively “returned international relations to the raw power politics
of the nineteenth century and abandon[ed] international law for the law of the jungle.”20
The
UNSC did not provide the allied coalition with a mandate. So, using the Iraqi violations of
Security Council resolutions, Bush disparagingly called into question the authority of the UNSC
by stating, “The fundamental question facing the Security Council is, will its words mean
anything? When the Security Council speaks, will the words have merit and weight?”21
Ultimately, the UNSC was ignored and Iraq was invaded in spite of a lack of approval, which
hurt the UN enormously in public opinion.22
Truly, at no other time in the history of this
country’s engagement with the international order was U.S. foreign policy more aggressively
dismissive towards international institutions than during the time of President Bush.
17
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-07-14/blame-george-w-bush-for-iran-deal
18
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/poll-2-to-1-support-for-nuclear-deal-with-
iran/2015/03/30/9a5a5ac8-d720-11e4-ba28-f2a685dc7f89_story.html
19
Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack (New York: Simon & Schuster, ©2004), 156-57.
20
http://progressive.org/mag_rothschild0303
21
Craig R. Whitney, The Wmd Mirage: Iraq's Decade of Deception and America's False Premise for War,
Publicaffairs Reports (New York: PublicAffairs, ©2005), 1.
22 https://collections.unu.edu/eserv/UNU:5/wp01_theunscandiraq1.pdf

7. 7
In contrast to President Bush, rather than pressuring the UN into accepting whatever
course of action deems correct, President Obama seeks to promote American interests by
enhancing U.S. engagement with the international liberal order. While seeking international
blessing, Obama decided to take the Iran nuclear deal to the Security Council before taking it to
the U.S. Congress.23
This, of course, precipitated heavy domestic criticism, but it symbolizes the
Obama administration’s endorsement of the international authority– the only way the UN can
remain a legitimate body. Indeed, Obama’s inclination to bind the U.S. to international law is
characteristic of his foreign policy approach, and has helped to solidify the importance of the
international order. During his time in office, President Obama has tirelessly labored to repair
relationships between the United States and international community damaged by President
Bush’s typically unilateral approach.24
It remains to be seen if Obama’s approach will prove to be effective in establishing world
peace and prosperity, but at the very least the United States now finds itself in a better position to
cooperate with the international community in striving to accomplish that worthy goal. In
expressing his support for a newly reelected President Obama, President Francois Hollande
announced, “A clear choice for an open, supportive America, fully involved on the international
stage and conscious of the great challenges facing our planet: peace, the economy, and the
environment.”25
23
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/15/obama-turns-to-u-n-to-outmaneuver-congress-iran-nuclear-deal/
24
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2012-04-20/scoring-obamas-foreign-policy
25
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/foreign-leaders-react-to-obama-re-election/

8. 8
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