ABSTRACT

The 2008 US presidential election brought hopes to many that the foreign policy of the Obama Administration would steer the American ship of state in a new direction. As a candidate, Obama presented himself in contrast to the excesses of the George W. Bush Administration, signaled a turn away from a foreign policy that ‘lectures without listening,’ and promised a more cooperative approach to US foreign relations (Obama 2008). As president, Obama soon tackled a number of the most controversial aspects of the Bush War on Terror, including signing an executive agreement to close the detainee facility at Guantanamo Bay, ending the US combat role in Iraq, and even dropped the ‘War on Terror’ phrase itself from official policy language (Associated Press 2009; J. Solomon 2009). Yet as many have noted, change has not come quite so quickly or simply. Detainees remain incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay, and the US combat role in Iraq has ended only to draw greater attention to ongoing casualties in Afghanistan. As McCrisken (2011) contends, even while the phrase ‘War on Terror’ was dropped, much about Obama’s foreign policy has been oriented toward streamlining US counterterrorism efforts, rather than a wholesale rethinking.