The Atlantic magazine’s article on “The Obama Doctrine” has caused ripples all over the world, because of the frankness with which the US president discussed his foreign policy with Jeffrey Goldberg, the article’s author. In the UK, most of the headlines have concerned President Obama’s criticism of David Cameron, over Libya. But, in fact, the article is full of fascinating stuff on all sorts of subjects. Here are some of my selected highlights:1. The article will not make comforting reading for Saudi Arabia. As Goldberg notes, Obama is “clearly irritated that foreign policy orthodoxy compels him to treat Saudi Arabia as an ally”. White House officials apparently are in the habit of reminding visitors how many of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis.
2. Obama’s scepticism also extends to Pakistan. The president, “privately questions why Pakistan, which he believes is a deeply dysfunctional state, should be considered an ally to the US at all.”
3. As far as the UK goes, there is much tougher stuff than the criticism over Libya, which attracted all the attention. I think the really striking revelation, from a British point of view, is that Obama warned Cameron that if Britain did not meet the Nato target of spending 2% of GDP on defence, the US-UK “special relationship” would be “over”. This is a pretty devastating threat for any US president to make to any UK prime minister. It also suggests that the special relationship is much more contingent than many sentimentalists on both sides of the Atlantic would like to believe.