Obama's Post-Iraq World

By ROGER COHEN
NYT

LONDON — Europe adjusted long ago, but not without pain, to its diminished place in world affairs. After Suez for the British, after Algeria for the French, even the most stubborn post-World War II illusions evaporated. The baton had passed to America. European nations set their minds to a war-banishing Union.

I don’t think the Iraq and Afghan wars constitute for the United States what Suez and the Algerian conflict were for Britain and France: points of irrevocable inflection. But, inconclusive and ill-managed, they have set new limits to U.S. power. President Obama is focused on reducing American expectations for “an age without surrender ceremonies.”

That’s how he defined our epoch in an address winding up the seven-year U.S. war in Iraq. It was a quintessential Obama speech — intelligent but not stirring, firm and sober and rather solemn, altogether in the image of his refurbished Oval Office with its risk-averse muted neutral tones.

As with the office so with the speech: You can admire the clean lines but your heartbeat sure won’t quicken.

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