Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Hello and welcome. It’s wonderful to see so many people here tonight. I am Leslie Vinjamuri. I am the new Head of the US and the Americas Programme here at Chatham House and the Dean of the Queen Elizabeth the II Academy. It is a very special evening, not only because in the United States it is Independence Day, July 4th, but especially because we have Ben Rhodes here to speak with us.
Ben, as you know, has just recently written this book, The World as It Is and Ben will be well known at Chatham House, to all of you. Ben Rhodes will be very well known. He was President Obama’s Deputy National Security Advisor from 2009 to 2017 and widely viewed as being the person who communicated with President Obama, the most often, the most regularly, who had the ear and the confidence of the President.
So, it’s wonderful to be able to speak with you tonight, for all of us to have direct access to you, not just your writings and listening to all sorts of conversations surrounding you, but to actually have you here is really wonderful. I know you’ve been in demand and you’ve been very busy, so I should start by saying thank you for…
Ben Rhodes
No, no, thank you. Thank you.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
…coming to Chatham House, it really is wonderful, and I think evidence of the turnout is evidence of how much interest there is. I’m going to start, we are not in the Chatham House Rule tonight, and quite the reverse.
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, that’s interesting.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
I know, people do say this.
Ben Rhodes
Chatham House can violate its own rules, yeah.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
You have Chatham House events that are not under the Chatham House Rule, but we absolutely do, and so, anything you say, may well be livestreamed, because I believe that we’re livestreamed and we would actually encourage you to tweet as well, and I think the hashtag is up on the wall.
I’m going to start, Ben, by asking you just a few questions and then I’ll open up to the audience. When we do open up to the audience, if you could say your name and say your affiliation, and we know that most of you are members, so don’t tell us that, tell us what your other affiliation is. We’ll take that for granted, or that if you’re not already a Member, you will be after tonight.
But Ben, it’s an extraordinary time, it seems like probably, to most of us, that it was a very long time ago that you were in the White House, that President Obama was in the White House. We, sort of, have to remind ourselves of what that was like. Nonetheless, it wasn’t actually all that long ago. But you have – you’ve left the White House and you’ve watched, arguably the unravelling of so many things that President Obama sought to create, the Transpacific Partnership, the Paris Accords, walking back from the Paris Accords. The United States withdrawing from a number of multilateral organisations that it had been part of for a very long time, that President Obama seemed very committed to.
The reversal – most recently, the retreat of the United States from the Iran Deal, the taking of a very aggressive line, with respect to America’s closest partners, not least the United Kingdom, where we sit and of course, we’re sitting there about nine days or ten days before President Trump comes to the United Kingdom, and at a time when Europe is feeling in a very difficult position, with respect to the United States. So, I guess, I would start by saying, how does it feel? How does it feel to…
Ben Rhodes
That’s a bit of a wind up, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
…to have been in the White House, talking to the President, as I understand it, multiple times of day, seven days a week, working around the clock, creating some really great things, not everything went well, but really restoring, if you remember, restoring it, and I’m sure you remember, but if we all remember, restoring America’s diplomatic relationships, that had really gotten to, not a great place, by the time George W Bush left the office. So, how does it feel to watch this happen? This unravelling, and maybe it’s not an unravelling, but how does it feel to you?
Ben Rhodes
Well, it’s sad, and no, it’s – what is interesting about it is, look you can go down the list and there are things that, you know, are varying degrees of destruction, you know, I think I – if you take a longer view of history, something like Paris, the rest of the world is still doing, a future American President could re-join that agreement. Something like the Iran Deal however, is more black or white, we’re in or we’re out, and I think with us, out. I don’t see a pathway for that deal to really survive.
For me, the things that are most difficult, and in writing the book, I had to, kind of, relive this, are issues where, you know, I personally feel like I was involved in raising people’s expectations, in ways that are not met. And to give a specific example about that, you know, I did the negotiations that led to the Cuba normalisation and Trump hasn’t rolled that all the way back, we still have embassies in – but he’s essentially, hit the pause button on it. And, you know, I’ve thought about Cubans I met, when I would go down to Havana, you know, who would come up to me and say, you know, “For the first time in my life, I’m hopeful that things can change.” You know, “For the first time in my life, finally, you know, your country is opening up to us, you know, my – I’m getting more business,” you know, and those people’s expectations that I raised are now disappointed and that is a difficult feeling to wrestle with. That is kind of the human piece of this, not just the scorecard.
I think beyond that though, what’s more upsetting to watch is, not any particular accomplishment of Obama’s actually, it’s just the entire approach being so foreign and so unlike our approach and frankly, the approach of even past Presidents, some of whom I disagreed with. That George W Bush, I very much differed with his policies but, you know, there was a stewardship of American institutions, and international relationships that was recognisable. And in both the approach, domestically and around the world, you know, Trump is basically, upending the expectations that you would have for an American President.
You know, I was a Speech Writer. I remember agonising and staying up nights, turning over individual sentences in my head thinking, “If we say this the wrong way, how will it be received?” Words don’t seem to matter at all anymore, you know, in the White House. Or we did put a lot of time and effort into, you know, feeling the obligation to be a good steward of US alliances and, you know, I look at something like the G7 Summit, you know, that was the summit where we went because we all agreed and we were there to make common strategies for how to deal with issues like trade and climate change and Russia. And to watch a US President go and be completely out of step with all of those countries, personally, but also on all those issues where we used to work together, you know, it’s like watching the world transformed in a way, that it wouldn’t have been if it was just a Republican President, you know, with whom I had policy disagreements. So, that, to me, has been most difficult.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Let me stop you on that, because, you know, what a lot of people, certainly at Chatham House, on and off the record or under the Chatham House Rule and on the record say, is that on certain dimensions, you know, this is a – what we’re really seeing, yes the words are very distressing, to many people, the style of diplomacy or the lack of diplomacy, is upsetting and distressing, but that some of what we’re seeing are trends that are long-term. They’ve been coming for a while. We saw them – despite what you just said, we saw them from Prescient Obama, in the early years, where he didn’t seem very interested in the UK, in Europe, but that wasn’t really at the front of his…
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, yeah.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
…you know, that things turned over time, but in fact, that you know, we’ve seen America, for a long time, wanting to retreat, wanting to take a more assertive and unilateral position, but you know, there was a diplomatic cover, so there’s that explanation. But there’s also an argument out there that some people suggest that, you know, Obama, another dimension was too much too soon. And that, in fact, some of what we’re seeing now, is a bit of a backlash against having an African – having a black President…
Ben Rhodes
And interesting point, yeah.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
…to have a Liberal President, that a number of these things, perhaps weren’t – you know, the dissatisfaction the dissatisfied part of America wasn’t perhaps recognised, embraced and brought into the fold in the way that it needed to be, to prevent what we’re seeing now. Do you think there’s anything to that?
Ben Rhodes
Well, just quickly on the first piece of it, you know, I think that there was inevitably going to be a, kind of, reapportionment of global influence from the high watermark of American, really, dominance, in the aftermath of the Cold War. We were trying to manage that. You know, our approach to our foreign policy was, you know, to try to – to frankly deal with the financial crisis and the Iraq War, the aftermath of that. To, kind of, reset and reposition the United States, so that we could deal with other regions and other issues, and I won’t go into them in detail, but the whole purpose of the Obama Presidency was to try to, frankly, reposition ourselves, so as to shape how that reallocation of global influence took place, as countries like China emerged and as different regions, kind of, created their own architecture.
I think what you’re seeing now, is a process that would have played out over the next 20 or 30 years. This isn’t going to happen in the next four years, you know, that the world is accelerating its adjustment to America playing a diminished role, and I think that that is potentially destabilising. You know, I think that – I mean, I think it is destabilising. I think that a more managed process of, kind of, reallocation of global influence was in order, frankly, just ‘cause China’s going to play a certain role in the world, for instance. But now it’s happening in a chaotic way, without the US, doing much to shape it, leaving our allies to fend for themselves, creating openings for China and Russia, that they will surely exploit. I think China, in particular, is going to be the principal beneficiary of the Trump Presidency.
On your second question, you know, I described in the book, after the election, you know, Pamela, like all of us, were trying to figure out what happened and you look at the – you know, could the campaign have been run better? How much did Russia matter? How much did, you know, Jim Comey matter? But you know, he did say – he did raise these issues, you know, and they finally got a lot of attention that have him saying, you know, “What if we’re wrong? What if people want to fall back into their tribe?” You know, and we saw that not just in our election, we saw that here with Brexit in a way.
What he was referring to though, is not necessarily that, you know, we were wrong in the things we believed in, but that progressives, often assume that there’s an inexorable movement in a certain direction, you know, that societies are going to become more inclusive, more tolerant, more open, and that you can misjudge the extent of the backlash that will be created to that. And in some ways what was interesting to me in reliving this, is that Obama himself was so personally popular, that he could overcome that backlash. So, the most peculiar thing about a backlash that I think did have elements, of – significant elements of racism associated with it, is that the black President got re-elected in 2012 by a very healthy margin and frankly, would have been elected again in 2016, if he could have run, but that that had a lot to do with his personal charisma and political skills, but this building backlash, in the United States, was too much for, you know, the Democratic Party to withstand in elections where Obama wasn’t at the top of the ticket. ‘Cause we dealt with it in 2010, 2014 and 2016.
It clearly was also a part of a trend of a reaction against globalisation around the world. Again, we saw it in Brexit, you see it frankly in, kind of, Putinism, you see it in certain European countries. I think one of the most underappreciated elements of this, is the extent to which it had to do with the financial crisis. You know, people forget just how disorienting and destabilising an event that was, and how much it laid bare the failure of globalisation and the risks of it. And when people feel a complete loss of their, kind of, personal economic security, because they’ve lost their lifesavings or their home, that is when, you know, a populist appeal, from the right or the left, can be very potent. And so, if you take that sense of dislocation that took place in a lot of advanced economies and you merge it with the, kind of, blend of, yes, some racially-based opposition to someone like Obama, a sense of a loss of status in society, because of someone like Obama and immigration flows, you know, that essentially, became the Trump Coalition.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
So, let me come back to part of that. So, yes, so Obama was very popular, in many ways, but he wasn’t very popular in Washington and, you know, your role…
Ben Rhodes
Neither was I.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
…in addition to doing, you know, many things beyond your narrow role, your role was partly about communications and the broader strategic, presumably, relationships. But Obama, increasingly, over time, was seen as, you know, there was a lot of references to Fortress White House, that this was a President who really only talked to a couple of people, that even people in the, you know, in the National Security Council, one layer out, couldn’t necessarily get access. And then, of course, it didn’t go very well with Congress. And I wonder, you know, if you go back to some of the things that we see, or many of us see, not everybody, for certain, as having been the successes that have been eroded, since Trump came into office, so the Iran Deal. I mean, part of that, of course, comes down to the fact that, you know, it wasn’t popular. It wasn’t universally popular, within the foreign policy establishment in Washington and so, I guess, my question is, you know, was there more that could have been done to address the very real concerns that many in the Republican Party and beyond had, could there have been more victories with respect to missiles, with respect to Iran’s activities in the region? Or you know, was it – did Obama give up too early or did he fail to communicate that, you know, this was the best deal that could have been done? Is there more that could have been done to keep us in a better place now, than…
Ben Rhodes
On Iran specifically?
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
…where we are? On Iran and on the Iran Deal?
Ben Rhodes
I will – there are plenty of areas where, you know, I’m willing to go back and second guess things we did. On this one, there’s two questions. There’s the deal itself and then there’s the – what you say about Republicans and – on the deal itself, I do not think that there was any way – it’s an arms control agreement focused on their Nuclear Programme. I don’t think there was going to be any way that this was somehow going to be a grand agreement that brought in other aspects of Iranian foreign policy or even their Ballistic Missile Programme, that’s not how this works, you know, and the idea was, start with the most concerning issue, the Nuclear Programme. Precisely because they’re a bad actor in all those other areas, we need to stop them from getting a nuclear weapon. I’m, frankly, not even aware of agreements, arms control agreements in the past that address, like, the, foreign policies of those countries. So, I always thought that that criticism was, you know, to be blunt, in some ways, in bad faith because you don’t make an agreement, an arms control agreement about a country’s foreign policy, you make an arms control agreement about their Nuclear Programme. And, you know, so then, you look at, did we get enough on the Nuclear Programme?
There I think that the best criticisms of the deal, right, have to do with the expiration of certain provisions. You know, that in, ten years or 15 years, some of the most important restrictions on the Iranian Nuclear Programme, went away under the deal, and I think those are fair criticisms. But the problem with how they were acted upon is, you have ten years to deal with that, and I think President Macron had a very logical view, which is frankly, the view that I think a President Hilary Clinton would have had, or frankly, even the view that a President Barack Obama would have had, if somehow he was President for another ten years, which is that, in those ten years, you start to try to make agreements with Iran on other things, on their ballistic missiles, on those backend elements.
What was totally unnecessary, was to essentially use the fact of the expiration of those provisions as a reason to tear up the deal today. You know, that doesn’t, you know, that doesn’t make strategic sense. I think with Republicans, I don’t think there was anything that we could have done, honestly, to secure a single Republican vote. I mean, number one, this was a part of their strategy of complete obstruction anything Obama did, throughout his Presidency.
The Republicans were introducing resolutions to kill the Iran Deal, before they saw the Iran Deal. You know, I mean, this was not a situation where they carefully studied it, and because of their particular interest in centrifuge technology R&D, decided, “This doesn’t meet my threshold.” You know, they were not going to be for this deal.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
But let me ask you a question about that, because of course, in the interview that we’ve all read, you know, you’re sort of portrayed – mis-portrayed, is my understanding, that you know, that the Iran Deal wasn’t really just about a Nuclear Deal. That there was a broader strategy about it and that is perhaps what – you know, to the extent that that was the perception, it was a miscommunication, question mark, and had it been communicated, or had it been – had it been credi – had people really believed on the other side, right, those who are naturally and deeply suspicious of Iran, that it really was of the intent, really was just to have a deal that was about the nuclear problem, maybe there wouldn’t have been that pushback without even reading and investigating.
Ben Rhodes
But the problem with that is that we never said this, you know, the notion that the Iran Deal was an effort to reposition American foreign policy in the Middle East towards Iran, and away from all of our traditional partners, was a criticism of the Iran Deal. It wasn’t our argument for what the Iran Deal was. And look, I think we all have to be honest here, like, Israel and Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are incredibly influential in Washington. They spend an extraordinary amount of money in Washington. They are very aggressive in making their case and very effective in making their case, in our politics, in our media and that was their argument. It wasn’t our argument for what the Iran Deal was, and so, I think there was a convergence of factors.
There was strident Republican opposition to anything that Obama did and strident opposition to Iran, from the most influential players in Washington, among foreign Governments. Those two things, as the guy who had to get run over by that train, that was a very powerful and potent mix. And again, it doesn’t mean the Iran Deal was perfect, but it means is that the discussion was – it really wasn’t some – I mean, maybe in some circles, but the politics around it was not about debating whether John Kerry should have held out for greater limitations on Iranian research and development of centrifuge technology nine years from now. You know, that’s not what it was about.
It was about the fact that there were powerful political reasons for Republicans to oppose this deal and there were powerful players in Washington that were really, you know, amplifying that case, and there were, you know, may be good reasons to just say, “We shouldn’t do a deal with Iran at all.” You know, that – someone could make a perfectly good faith argument, that like, they’re a terrible actor, and you shouldn’t legitimise them in any way and we should just squeeze them. You know, I objectively just don’t agree with that, but that’s a fair – I’m not saying that’s not a fair argument. I’m saying that there was a lot of the noise around it came from politics and not just the substantive arguments.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Okay, I’m going to ask you one final question and then I’m going to open it up to the floor. I can’t resist the question, and you’ll know that it’s coming. You’re sort of, associated with this term ‘the blob’, as referring to the foreign policy establishment as the blob, and my understanding is that – and understanding that there’s sort of a playbook, there’s the insider-ness, there’s a – perhaps not an openness to debate and considering broader options. And I think, for some people, it’s a term and a caricature that maybe resonates with some of how Donald Trump sees Washington, maybe slightly different, but maybe similar, do you want to correct the record?
Ben Rhodes
Well, on the Donald Trump piece of it, no, what I was suggesting was, there is a very specific element at times that you felt in Washington, of some degree of group-think, particularly about military intervention, and essentially, as it relates to the Middle East, you know, often every problem is a hammer – is a nail and we need to reach for the hammer. And, you know, the Trump comparison, which I’ve heard before, is interesting in that politically, when he was running for office, he made similar criticisms that Barack Obama had made in 2008, about the need to get out of wars in the Middle East and the need to promote greater burden-sharing around the world. However, they had completely different solutions to that criticism.
Obama’s solution was, we need to be more engaged diplomatically, and that we need to use American alliances, and American influence, to address a broader set of issues around the world and Trump’s was America First. So, they had a similar critique, but opposite, you know, that may have been the diagnosis, the treatment was completely the opposite and the fact of the matter is, I think Trump in office has, you know, not necessarily been the same as Trump the Candidate on those issues, because he has made good on America First, in terms of diplomatic isolation. He’s actually escalated all the military conflicts that he inherited. So, I think it oversimplifies it. Yes, they made a similar diagnosis, but a very different view of how to deal with that diagnosis.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Okay, if you put your hands up very high, say your name and affiliation, and keep your question relatively succinct, here you go. Right here.
Sir Peter Westmacott
Thank you. Peter Westmacott, used to be Ambassador in Washington, and Ben, great to see you here. Ben, one of the moments that we’re…
Ben Rhodes
The good old days Peter.
Sir Peter Westmacott
Good old days, exactly. Exactly. Well, we hope we’ll get back there one day. One of the moments that was supposedly defining in the foreign policy of President Obama was Syria and the famous decision at the end of August, that time when immediately after the British Parliament voted not to support limited military action, after the use of chemical weapons on an industrial scale, the President himself, having consulted Congressional Leaders and so on, decided not to. With hindsight, kind of, five years on, Ben, how important do you feel that the decision, the vote of the British Parliament, that night was, in the President’s decision to, kind of change his mind and decide that he wouldn’t, after all, take military action against Syria at that time?
Ben Rhodes
So, first of all, I want to say, in general, part of what I refer to in the book is wrestle with Syria and make clear that, you know, I’m sure that there are things that we got wrong along the way and that, every focus is on ‘red line’, which I will get to in a second, to answer your question directly, but you know, I look at different junctures.
At the beginning, were we too confident that Assad was going to fall? When we called for Assad to go, which obviously, would be the best thing for the Syrian people, but did that foreclose diplomatic options that could have forestalled the direction of things? You know, I think, I wanted to be very candid in this book and not just defending what we did but trying to explain why we did what we did but point out the different junctures where I think people and historians should examine whether things could have been done differently. ‘Cause nobody can be at all, satisfied in any way, and should be very unhappy with obviously, the state of affairs in Syria.
On the ‘red line’, what I tried to do is bring people into – just the complexity of that week, where the British Parliament decision was an important factor, not the decisive factor, because it was at the middle of two problems that Obama was dealing with. And so, just to relive it, the chemical weapons attack happens and I had – I was on – actually, I was on holiday with my wife and I had to patch into a situational meeting where, essentially, the body language was, “We’re going to bomb Syria.” I mean, there was no question, in anybody’s mind in that room, that that was the orientation – the direction we were going.
Obama didn’t say that overtly, but you could sense that that’s where things were headed. And I actually describe that he was very focused on the fact that there was a United Nations Team inside of Syria that was going to go and gather samples. And he kept pressing on, “Get them out. Get them of there,” you know, which you would only do if you wanted to launch a military strike. And he called Ban Ki-moon and said, “Pull them out now,” and Ban Ki-moon, said, “No, they have to do their work for a period of days.” So, I’ve always actually wondered, in retrospect, it’s one of the what ifs of history. I think if that UN Team, wasn’t there, we might have bombed Syria right away.
But then what happened was, Obama had deep misgivings about military intervention in Syria. He didn’t think it would work, and I’d sat with him in meeting after meeting and I’d made the case for military action, and he would always pull the thread on every option, to basically, expose the logic in his mind that only a full scale, military invasion of Syria could actually change the dynamic there. That a cruise missile strike is not going to affect the dynamic, when Assad has the backing of Russia and Iran and that frankly, even if we went all the way in, we’d just be in the middle of this civil war, that he thought the lesson from Libya and Iraq and Afghanistan is, you know, the US military can’t fix places that are this broken. So, he already had those doubts in his mind. So, then, the question becomes, we’re going to act anyway ‘cause of the horror of this event, and then, two factors emerged throughout the week: one international and one domestic. How do you take action in a way that is more likely to be successful and sustained? And keep in mind that Obama thought, “If I bomb them once, I’m going to be bombing them again,” because that was his view analytically. So, I need international support and some domestic support in order to be able to sustain a military intervention.
Internationally, the first time I saw him second guess acting, was when Angela Merkel called him and she said, “I cannot support you, even politically, until the UN investigation is done. We should let these Inspectors get their samples, come back, do an investigation, take it to the Security Council, the Russians veto, then Europe can be with you on this.” And so he felt, like that would be too much time and politically, lacking that support mattered to him.
At the same time that that is happening, Congress starts sending us letters, John Boehner, Speaker of the House, and a significant number of Republicans saying, “If you act in Syria, it will be unconstitutional.” And they used that language and Obama took that as a threat, that if he acts in Syria, and Congress introduces articles of impeachment, because they warned him that it will be unconstitutional, this would be a disaster. That basically, we wouldn’t be able to sustain the military intervention, we’d have a political crisis at home, and the Republicans were, kind of, laying a version of a trap for him.
Interestingly, all the Democrats, because they’re Democrats and they take a less expansive view of executive power, were also saying, “You have to seek congressional authorisation.” It was in that context that the British vote happened and so, the reason that the British vote was important, is that it was related to both of the problems we had: international support and congressional authorisation. Because without the British, the only support we had was from the French and then, when the British vote happened, it suggested that if Obama acted, it’s ‘cause he was afraid to go to Congress, because he was afraid of what happened to David Cameron, happening to him. And I do think all those factors, in his mind, made him feel like, “Okay, I have no international legal basis, or domestic legal basis, I have minimal international support, and I’m not going to have any domestic political support because the second I do something, the Republicans are going to come after me and that intervention militarily, is not going to work, because they’re not going to be able to sustain it. I don’t have the elements in place, to allow for an extended military intervention in Syria. So, I need to go to Congress.” And he said to me, and I, you know, walk through this in the book. “If we can get a firm basis, in congressional support to do this, then we should do it. If we can’t, I don’t think we should because we’ll be completely isolated and we won’t be able to follow through on anything that we do.” And ultimately, we went to Congress, they were not going to authorise it. I mean, it was clear. We’d already lost the House, by the time he made the agreement with Putin. The Senate was trending badly and he made the agreement with Putin. So, the British decision was not, in any way, determinative, but it amplified the concerns he already had about both Congress and the international community.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Right, back here and then we’ll go over here.
Member
[Inaudible – 31:17] from Standard Chartered Bank. Again, on hindsight, this may be an unfair question. Looking back, do you think the administration was too slow in responding to North Korea and perhaps too fast in opening up to Myanmar, given the tragedy that has unfolded in the last two years?
Ben Rhodes
So, on North Korea, what essentially happened was, you know, in the middle of our administration, Kim Jong-il died and so, there’s this new actor, Kim Jong-un, and I think that we needed to take the measure of this man and see what he did. And what he did is – ‘cause, you know, for instance, in the first instance, people thought, “Well, maybe the Chinese will be more able to control this guy.”
Well, the first thing he did is, he killed the uncle who was closest to China and then purged all of his political opponents, and then, towards the end of our administration, he began to accelerate his nuclear missile testing and it was clear he was following a fairly rational plan. “I became the leader of this country at this young age, I would like to die in my bed. So, I’m going to kill all my political opponents, and then I’m going to get nuclear weapons, and that’s what’s going to keep me in power.” And that’s what he did.
I think that we, in the last year, grew very concerned, obviously, about the direction this was taking. We were frankly, running out of time. What we did is, we developed a series of options: military, diplomatic, others, for the incoming administration. In terms of not pursuing diplomacy with them, it wasn’t just a matter of the disruption in the Kim Jong-il, the Kim Jong-un transition, that was part of it, ‘cause it was hard, it was going to be hard to start something with a new leader like that. I think that the least appreciated point is that, we had a right-wing, South Korean President for the full eight years, who absolutely, you know, first Lee Myung-bak and then Park, who absolutely would not have supported US diplomacy with North Korea.
Now there’s a left-wing President, President Moon, who initiated the diplomacy with North Korea and that is what – that’s the reason why you end up with the Trump Summit, is because you have a South Korean President taking initiative to start that diplomatic channel. I support entirely, diplomacy with North Korea. I think that it was badly mishandled, in this instance, because essentially, they rushed to get the spectacle of this meeting and made a bunch of concessions, at the meeting itself, the praise for Kim Jung-un is beloved by his people, the suspension of military exercises with South Korea, in return for the same commitment to de-nuclearize, attached to no timelines or inspections, that, you know, North Koreans have made to three past US Presidents. So, I wish they’d done more work to make that meeting more impactful.
On Myanmar, I don’t regret the opening, you know, I think that Myanmar was changing. I don’t think the notion of them opening up and holding elections and trying to open up to the world is not always a good thing. I don’t think that we could – can, in hindsight, say, you know, “We should keep that place a tightly run military junta because, you know, because that might be more stable,” for instance. And I think that if anything, we needed to accelerate the opening, because where they were at the end of our administration was kind of, stuck in between. Aung Sang Suu Kyi had a certain amount of control, but she had no control over the military. She had control over, essentially, big chunks of the economy and a lot of the politics.
I do think about Arakan State, an issue that we press more than any other issue in our relationship with them, you know, I think about whether or not, is there anything we could have done, to just get more international presence in Arakan State? And that’s what we were always pressing on, getting some UN observer-type operation there. Getting more NGOs there. You know, if anything, just to be a break on something the military might do. And it was very difficult to watch from outside of Government in 2017 when this, kind of, ramped up because I was thinking about, you know, what would we be doing if we were there now? You know, what public statements would we be making? What would we be doing with ASEAN to try to isolate and pressure the Burmese Military? What would we be doing, you know, through the UN system? You know, so I still don’t know if a different playbook might have at least limited the violence that we saw in 2017.
So, to me, I think that’s the issue, is that, in hindsight, if I had to go back, I’d – knowing what I know now, you know, we focused a lot more on Arakan State, and was there something else? Is there another approach we could have taken, to just get more big presence here? I don’t think you were going to make the Burmese – nobody in the Burmese establishment, from Aung Sang Suu Kyi to the Military, was going to have a comprehensive resolution to that issue, as much as we pressed it. Could we have done more to create barriers to what happened, before it happened? And then, I think about if I was in office, what could we have done, while that was unfolding in 2017, to limit it? Because we saw similar actions begin, frankly, in 2012 and 2015 and a lot of attention internationally managed to have them pullback. Unfortunately, this time they didn’t.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
One right, way at the back there and then we’ll come over here.
Lyse Doucet
Lyse Doucet of the BBC. Ben Rhodes, you once said that you were described as the Architect of President Obama’s Syria policy.
Ben Rhodes.
No, I didn’t say that.
Lyse Doucet
No, I said that you said that others called you.
Ben Rhodes
Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Lyse Doucet
Others called you. Others called you. So, let’s not let that wisdom go to waste. If you were in the White House now, what would you advise, in terms of American Policy towards Syria, a situation in which now, President Assad’s forces are clearly prevailing on the battlefield, is it time to use that diplomatic option, you once foreclosed?
Ben Rhodes
Yeah.
Lyse Doucet
Russia’s now undeniably the main foreign player. Israel and Iran, the tensions are mounting, and President Trump has said, “I’m taking out my 2,000 American troops, as soon as possible.” What would you do? Thank you.
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, and this was always – well, I never felt like the Architect of our Syria Policy, there was – one of the challenges of being perceived as more powerful than I was, in many ways. But what I would do now is, I think that there’s – it’s hard to see any way that this ends. You want to obviously preserve – there’s a human – the goal is humanitarian, at this point, and how can you prevent further loss of life? And I see a hard way, for this to end, in any other way that doesn’t resemble, in some way – Lebanon is not a direct analogy, but essentially, there has to be some moment where everybody just stops where they are, you know? And, you know, the – obviously, Assad controls the significant part of the country that he does, but there’s an enormous part of the country that he doesn’t, enormous more in size than in population. And you have, obviously, Eastern Syria, where the US and some of our partners are more present and then, you have the North, where there’s a lot of complexity, given the Kurdish-Turkish relationship, obviously. But I think part of what John Kerry was aiming at, at the end, but the, frankly, new administration could have taken a crack at, without the baggage our administration carried on the issue is, is how do you get, essentially, as a starting point, just a stop of the fighting?
Not just in one place, which is what we end up spending all our time on, but across the board, so that you can then begin to negotiate issues like, how – what is this – how is this country going to function, going forward? I don’t think Assad is going to – I don’t think people in those other parts of the country are going resubmit themselves to control by Assad, so it’s probably going to have to be some situation where there’s a kind of, de facto, autonomy in different places.
The Turks will – it will be complicated. The Turks will not want the Kurds to have a certain degree of autonomy. There’s not anyone governing a place like Raqqa, you know, I get the complexity, but I don’t see any other pathway that limits the loss of life, beyond trying to stop the fighting in the – where it is and then try to deal with the political questions, in a more medium-term timeline, and there’s no way to do that, without dealing with all the various actors. And that’s not just Russia, that’s Turkey, and that’s all the other regional players, that’s Iran.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Okay, we now have a lot of hands going up, so I’m going to collect questions. I’m going to start right back over here, ‘cause you’ve had your hand up for a little while. Gentleman in the fourth row back, yes, you.
Adam Roberts
Nice to meet you again, Ben. Adam Roberts, Oxford University. Just a question about the underlying approach to military action and intervention, on the part of the Obama administration, and of course, the problem dates from much earlier. The United States has actually, conspicuously, run into trouble in four democratic wars, if you can call them that. Or that’s to say, wars to try and support democracy in difficult countries, in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and one could add to the list. The question is, whether there isn’t some deep underlying problem in the approach of the United States, to the use of force, which then became manifested in particular cases, including Syria, but may have deeper roots, which precede Obama?
Ben Rhodes
Yeah.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
I’m going to let you wait on that, just because – otherwise, we won’t – gentleman right here, you had your hand up. Sorry, four rows back, yes, do you still have your hand? Yeah, okay and then we’ll come to you.
Hans Kundnani
Hans Kundnani from Chatham House. Can I come back to this idea of the blob and the rejection of the Washington playbook?
Ben Rhodes
This is connected to this gentleman’s question.
Hans Kundnani
Okay, great, because – and this, sort of, question of whether there is, sort of, some, paradoxical, sort of, continuity between Obama and Trump. ‘Cause you talked about the differences, you know, military versus diplomatic approaches, different attitude to alliances and so on. But it seems to me that the accusation is that actually, what the continuity consists in, is this sort of abandonment of a sort of hegemonic strategy, that perhaps began with Obama, sort of retrenchment.
You talked, for example, in the Jeffery Goldberg interview a lot about freeriding allies, which is something that Trump has picked up and, sort of, radicalised that critique, as it were. So is there something to this? That actually, that there is a kind of a continuity, in terms of, the sort of, abandonment of the role of hegemon in the liberal international order? But perhaps also, I mean, do you – is this something that you’ve kind of reflected on, since seeing what Trump – how Trump has radicalised this critique?
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Sorry, one more, you’re hold – I suspect it’s really – and just behind you, the woman, yeah, there.
Mary Dejevsky
Thank you. Mary Dejevsky, Journalist, former Moscow – former Washington Correspondent. It follows on directly from – and Moscow. It follows on directly from the previous question, which is, do you think that what we’re watching is the end of the Atlantic Alliance? And if so, do you think maybe some of the seeds were sown by the Obama Presidency?
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Wow.
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, look, I just – I really take issue with, you know, Obama – it’s night and day, you know, Obama’s – yes, he wanted to promote greater burden-sharing, to make the international order work. Trump wants to completely abandon the international order.
You know, so it’s not just a radicalisation of a critique, it’s – Obama was saying that, “In order for this to work, you know, everybody’s got to do their share,” and by the way, I think we had hit a rhythm where that was happening. You know, Ebola was a perfect articulation of a 21st Century, international intervention, where the United States took the leading role and rallied the rest of the world, under the leadership of Amy Pope, who’s sitting in the front row here, to get others to contribute to deal with this crisis point.
Paris was the first agreement of its kind, where you have the entire world in agreement, not just the Kyoto countries, but everybody in it, and everybody has to play a role. The roles are differentiated, but it’s truly global. You know, the Iran Deal, you have the major powers, everybody putting their piece of skin in the game on that deal to make it work. I actually thought, we had arrived at exactly the type of international order that we wanted to function, in the last couple of years, and our whole point was, burden-sharing ‘cause we want alliances to work. We want the network of US-lead alliances, to be the ballast of international order that can then grow, and TPP becomes our architecture of alliance and partnerships in the Asia Pacific region, right, and the opening to Cuba allows us to build new relationships in Latin America as well. So, that can be a more rational architecture in our hemisphere.
Trump wants to upend all of that. He wants – he – I do think – I don’t know that we’ll see the end of the Atlantic Alliance, and I think we’re seeing the biggest threat we’ve seen, to the Atlantic Alliance and bizarrely, it’s come from the American President, you know? And I would hope that, it can withstand this threat, that the resilience of those institutions, is enough to withstand this adversarial approach that the US President has taken. I think that it can withstand four years of it. I honestly don’t think it can withstand eight years, and I think that Allied Governments are going to start to go their own way more.
They’ve tried the approach of reaching out to Trump and it hasn’t worked, on trade or climate in Iran. I also think that in democracies, other nations that are allies are looking at the United States and we, as Americans, have to wrestle with the fact that they’re not just looking at Trump, they’re looking at the fact that this country elected Trump and they’re thinking, “Okay, do we really want a country that would elect Donald Trump to be the most important relationship that we have in the world?” And so, we have a lot of work to do as Americans, to rebuild trust, and it’s not just going to be about winning one election.
On this question, you know, you obviously, you know, put your finger on, I think, a concern that Obama had, which is – and I talked to him about this a lot and it’s in this book, ‘cause you can take the country’s [inaudible – 46:49] and you can add to that: Cambodia, Laos, you know, those wars went to other places too. And, you know, our military, my experience of years in the White House is, our military is exceptional at carrying out missions to take out terror safe havens, to even knock over Dictators, to you know, protect, potentially, control a certain area or to execute tremendous logistical operations like moving medical workers into West Africa to deal with Ebola. There is not much evidence that the US military is the right instrument, to re-orient the internal politics of other countries, and this is the barbed point.
Like, this is, you know, the lack of wrestling with experience, in Vietnam, in Cambodia and Laos, in Afghanistan, in Iraq. That we can knock things over, but we can’t build things back up, and that’s not a criticism of our military, but it’s just a question of whether militaries are built to do that. And frankly, the requirements necessary, if we did want our military to do that, are much more extreme than the US public is willing to pay. You know, sometimes people would say to me, “Well, look at South Korea and Japan.” And I’d say, “Yes, the US Congress and taxpayer is not going to have a Japan-style military presence in Iraq for the next 50 years.” You know, so we have to wonder, should we get into these places, that we’re never going to follow through enough, to build that type of institution? And you know, I had the, kind of, the haunting experience that I describe in the book, at the end of the administration, of getting very interested in Laos and what could we do to clean up the 80 million unexploded bombs that are in Laos? That are, kind of, a metaphor for this approach.
You know, the reason we were bombing Laos is because we didn’t want to be seen as weak and because, to show our credibility, we had to do this. And there are 50,000 casualties, since the end of the war, because we dropped those bombs, and children are still dying, this year, because we dropped those bombs. And so when people ask me, you know, if I’m worried that President Obama, you know, was called weak, that’s the worst reason. You don’t go to war because you’re afraid of being called weak, that’s what leads you into Cambodia and Laos, you know. And so, I do think we do need to recognise that, what is the role of our military and our foreign policy? And where does it begin and where does it end? And I really do think that there’s not a post-World War II record, of the US military being able to stand up a democracy and there’s a lot of evidence that it’s not the best tool to try to do that.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Okay, hands high. Let’s see. We’ll go straight back here, the gentleman in the middle. Yeah, and then over here.
Matthew Savill
Thanks. Matthew Savill, the Cabinet Office. A number of different approaches have been tried to dealing with President Trump, from flattery to aloofness, to sort of, a combination of sort of, showing strongman tendencies.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
And a highly relevant question right now coming.
Matthew Savill
So, what would you recommend that the UK, and Europe does and how much does that matter on whether or not this is a one or two-term Presidency, asking for a friend?
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
A friend who’s currently a friend, but we’re hoping they stay in the game. Just right back here, the gentleman right at the back. Just right back. Right, yeah.
Matthew Oxenford
Hi, it’s Matthew Oxenford, Economist here at Chatham House. Your former boss, despite all the criticism that’s been sort of lobbed at him in this forum and others, Barack Obama, is still a relatively young Elder Statesmen and still maintains a significant amount of soft power in the world. Obviously, there’s only so much, by convention, that an ex-Head of State can do in engaging in the international space after his official power is gone, but as somebody who’s in communication with him, what do you think he plans on doing, to leverage the soft power that he still maintains by his reputation?
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
I’m going to take one more, ‘cause then we’re going to be out of time and we’ll let you answer, just right over here on the far right. The far right of the audience.
Ben Rhodes
Hey, I hear a lot from the Far Right.
James Burton
Thank you, and James Burton from the Department of International Trade. What was the strategic case, from your perspective, for TPP and was there anything that could have been done to have that ratified under the last administration?
Ben Rhodes
Yeah.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Great questions.
Ben Rhodes
So, the last question. I think, you know, first of all, the strategic case was clear as day. I mean, you know, the economic case, you know, was, I think, pretty clear too, but maybe a little harder sell. But strategically, the idea was that we, the United States, need to promote a rules-based order in the Asia-Pacific region.
That as the Chinese emerge, they are going to try to create a dynamic where they bilateralise every issue, so that they can basically, bully countries into doing what they want. You know, “Pay into my infrastructure bank. Pay tribute to my One Belt, One Road Initiative, I’m going to build an island off your shore and put military installations on it,” and that the only way to counterbalance that, not to push China down, but hopefully, to create an architecture that China can, over time, plug into. Is to essentially, try to organise, an architecture in Asia-Pacific, that is not as advanced as the Atlantic architecture, but begins to take somewhat of a similar form. And we spent a lot of time, trying to strengthen ASEAN, under the belief that if those ten Southeast Asian countries stand together with one voice, or as much as they can, that they can deal with China more equitably, for instance.
TPP, if you look at it, basically, took our network of treaty alliances, in the region, and brought in emerging partners. And so, to have Vietnam and Malaysia taking the strategic decision to be aligned with the United States like that, taking pretty hard decisions on things that they had to do to get into the TPP, to join an institution that also, has Japan and Australia and Singapore and New Zealand in it, and Canada and Mexico obviously, you’re beginning to create the outline of an Asia-Pacific architecture. And yes, to create a rules-based trading system, but candidly, that was also going to be a platform for greater co-operation on other issues.
I remember the Vietnamese used to say to me –I got very close to the Vietnamese in the term, “We know China’s going to be here, they’re right here, but we don’t want to be dominated by China,” and they’d say, “I think the last 1,000 years of Vietnamize history shows that. TPP is the only way that we know you’re going to be here.” And the Singaporeans would say something similar that without – because we’re not right there, without kind of beginning to formalise these relationships, it was going to be harder for a Vietnam to let our Navy do port visits and to start to pursue defence co-operation. TPP was the gateway to a different kind of relationship, but among those countries themselves and with the United States, and so, it was an overwhelming strategic case.
I think we made a mistake, in our approach to Congress on this, which is, first of all, I think we took a little too long. We held out to get the deal done, to try to get some final concessions that could be useful in our domestic politics, but it was just long enough that it got too close to the Presidential election cycle. We spent a lot of time counting the Democratic votes that we would need to pass TPP, assuming that the Republicans would be there, because that’s the one thing that Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, agreed with Barrack Obama about, and the Chamber of Commerce and a lot of their institutions, who have supported the Republican Party, were invested in TPP.
What ended up happening is, by the time we had trade promotion authority and we had a final agreement, Donald Trump was already shaping the debate on trade, in the Republican Primary, and Ryan and McConnell, basically, said, “There’s no way we’re taking a vote on this thing before the election.” Right, and so, that was a mistake.
We had a very elegant plan for if Hilary had won, to essentially, go to APEC and Lima, and I don’t know if I said this before, and try to get some fixes. You know, say, like, “You guys want to get this done in the single lame duck make a couple of fixes to this thing, so that we can take that back to Hilary Clinton and have her say, you know, “I support a vote on the single lame duck.” I don’t know if it would have worked, but that was going to be our last shot at it. I think she would have found a way to get back into it ‘cause I frankly think she supported TPP.
On President – well, I’ll do the Trump thing. It has been interesting, you know, everybody’s tried the different tack, and I understand why, you know? You know, if I’m President Macron, I’m going to give it a shot, you know, I’m new in this office, this guy’s going to be there, so let’s try flattery. You know, I mean, literally, a number of these leaders have tried holding hands with Trump. Macron’s not the only one. Your Prime Minister, too, and I get that. I mean, who wouldn’t want to try that. The problem is, it doesn’t work. You know, Macron tried that because of trade and climate and Iran and Oprah 3. You know, Theresa May tried that because the US could probably help her politics with Brexit by saying or doing some things, and he attacks London every time there’s a terrorist attack here, you know? So, it’s clear to me, that the flattery play doesn’t work, and I also see why some foreign leaders might come away from an interaction with Trump, from all accounts I’ve heard, you know, he could be very solicitous to your face.
I mean, the irony of Trump is as tough, as he says he is, you know, he blasts Justin Trudeau on Twitter, after he flies off and leaves Canada, you know? So, he can be, you know, potentially misleading and very polite to you and then, you know, he’s going to pop off.
Angela Merkel, maybe because she’s Angela Merkel and also, ‘cause she’s been Chancellor for a decade is like, “I’m not even going to bother with that,” and never even put on the appearance, but it led to the same place. I mean, I have to say, if I was in the shoes of – I think you have to approach Trump like you approach a strongman demagogue, which is, you make very clear what your interests are and what your red lines are and where – you know, where you differ and, you know, you try to work with him when you can and you disagree with him and you by quite firm.
I just – I don’t know that there’s a way to charm Trump into – I don’t know the evidence. There’s not a good example of someone who’s been able to, kind of, charm Trump into doing something, other than Kim Jung-un getting him to suspend military exercises in South Korea, I guess. So, I think that – I do think that, you know, Europe just needs to be very clear about what its interests are here, you know? ‘Cause I think on Iran, they handled that pretty well. They said, “Look, we’re trying to preserve this and we’re not going to go along with your sanctions right away.” And I don’t know if that will succeed, but that’s a good example of, I think, how to handle it and just say, “Okay, we differ.” You know, and it doesn’t have to be a big fight, and I’m not saying, call him names or anything. I’m just saying, you know, if you have a disagreement, say, “Well, we disagree and here’s what we’re going to do about it,” because he seems to like this drama of creating suspense with allies.
I mean, if you look at the G7, If you look at the Iran Deal he, kind of, creates a suspense, of being – he wants to be chased and he wants to be pursued by the allies, and then he gives them the back of the hand. And so, I think the way to deal with that is, to say, “Well, here’s what we believe and here’s what we’re going to do. We’d like to work with you. If you don’t want to work with us, fine, this is what we’re going to do.” Whether or not – you know, how that impacts him electorally, you know, is – we’ll see. I do think that, you know, he – his antipathy for alliances that Americans care deeply about and his solicitude to adversaries that Americans have been deeply suspicious of, has gotten to a point where I actually do think that that is a political issue at home.
The problem and challenge in the United States is that, you know, his supporters will believe whatever he says and he tells them repeatedly, that America’s never been more respected than it is today, lacking much evidentiary basis for that. But – you know, so I do think that this will ultimately, pay some price, it’s never the most prominent issue in American politics, but I think Americans were actually unsettled by that G7 Summit, and, “Look, why are we fighting with Canada?” And I think they’ll be unsettled when he comes here, if there are large protests. I think that actually will really matter back in the United States because people care what the Brits think, you know, they’re our best friends, it’s a special relationship. And so, if there are huge protests, I think that will be difficult for him to manage.
On, President Obama, you know the role of a former President is a very strange one, you know, but he is relatively young. You know, I know his priorities, like, at home are, what can he do to help build, you know, the Democratic Party and Progressive Movement, deal with some of the structural problems in our democracy like re-districting our Congressional Districts. He will be very active in the congressional campaigns, but the reason he’s not out there every day is ‘cause frankly, he wants to give space for new Democratic Leaders to emerge. That was one of the failures of the Obama years, is that we didn’t cultivate a new generation of Democratic Leaders, I put that on us, and so, he’s trying to take some steps back, be a little bit more behind the scenes.
I think in the work of his Foundation, at home and abroad, it’s going to be to try to scale up efforts to provide training opportunities, resources, connections, to essentially, the next generation of people who are like Barack Obama, you know, Civil Society Activists, people who are going into public service. So, that’s the philanthropic mission that he is going to pursue, is different from other Presidents ‘cause it’s entirely about human capital. It’s about, how do I create, in all regions of the world, and we’re going to Africa in a couple of weeks, where we’ll convene a couple of 100 young people for a week with Obama, to do this. But that’s a philanthropic mission.
I think on the more geostrategic questions about international order, I think he does have views and I think – I don’t know what he’s going to – I think he’ll want to be involved in discussions about how to improve how the international order functions. I think it’s very hard for him to engage in those discussions, in the current moment. I will tell you though, ‘cause I’ve travelled with him a lot, you know, we see all these – you know, he’s seen just about every world leader, you can think of, we don’t publicise it, you know, so he’s talked to everybody from Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi, to Emmanuelle Macron to Angela Merkel, and so, he’s kind of a sounding board right now. And so, the role he plays now is kind of that, you can, kind of, imagine how these conversations go.
But I don’t know, going forward, you know, he’s only 55. So, the question is, what do you do with being probably the most popular Politician in the world, actually? Not that he’s without his detractors, most of them in this room probably. Just kidding. But what do you do with that popularity? I don’t – that’s a hard question to answer, and I think people should frankly, make suggestions. You know, no, I mean that, like, what – I don’t mean like right at this second, but I mean, like, in the years to come, particularly as hopefully, things are less hot, right? It’s hard for him to do anything right now, but like, let’s say in a normal world, what issue could he engage on? What could he lead on? You know, ‘cause I think there is a role for him to play.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
There’s a lot there. I especially like your analysis of a lot of common problems, common identification of common problems, but very different solutions. It’s especially good to have you here one week before Trump hits Europe.
Ben Rhodes
Good luck with that, guys.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Nine days before he comes to the United Kingdom. Not clear if he’s going to make it to London, and it’s very interesting to hear you affirm the special relationship. I’m not sure that everybody here is entirely certain how significant that is, when people leave the UK and go back to Washington.
Ben Rhodes
I want to affirm that one more time, which is that, it really is. Like, people – here’s why. There is no meeting, and Amy was in these meetings, you agree, you want to accomplish all the same things. You know, you’re meeting to make a plan with your best friend about how to get something done, and that is a very special relationship. And France and Germany are very close alliances, but you know, we didn’t agree on everything we wanted to have happen in the same way that with a Labour Government and a Conservative Government, we had that type of relationship. I worry now that ironically, for all the back of the queue Churchill bust stuff, this doesn’t look like a particularly special relationship to me.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Well, we’re going to hold onto your words, through the next ten days at least, and thank you so much for making the trip, for spending more time than you had allotted. There are books here. Ben has agreed to sign books, if you’d like, but please join me in thanking him for taking the time [applause].