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Barack Obama delivers a speech - Source: Reuters -
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"The logic of history is seldom straightforward, and when logic is political, the twists and turns can be especially acute." Presidential Scholar Stephen Skowronek.
Being president of the United States is a bit like playing multiple games of chess against highly skilled opponents, all of whom possess the skill or cunning to either defeat you or drag you into a stalemate. Worse, a move taken on one board then simultaneously affects the probabilities in all other games. I also say a bit like chess because presidential leadership is so much more fluid and hugely more complex.
For a start, when the president sits down and assumes his seat in each game his starting position is inherited from his immediate and more distant predecessors. He might, therefore, contemplate his first move in a game that is already very nearly lost. In another his position might be fraught with risk and in a third, the position might be at such a critical juncture that his very first move could determine the outcome, for good or ill.
A further complication for our chess playing president is that he can't always be sure that his pieces, whether white or black, will stay loyal to his commands; some pawns may switch sides; others might resist his exhortations to move in the direction he wants; and he might at any moment be undermined by an independently minded queen, knight or bishop.
So let's look at Barack Obama's current position.
Before he sat down to play the other players certainly took pause. Obama was a different opponent than they were conditioned to, especially after his opening gambit to close Guantanamo, a blot across many of the foreign boards, especially the Muslim ones. But already Obama has found that neither his Congressional pieces, nor those of friendly other players, will accommodate his Guantanamo move. As a result the clock is running out and there will be a cost to his prestige if he cannot get his pieces in place in time.
In Iraq he pledged to all but concede the game, after his predecessor attacked an already vulnerable King for no other reason but hubris. After Bush's early claims to victory, his motivations and his tactics were cruelly exposed, with the sacrifice of far too many innocent pawns along the way, Obama decided that other chess games were of more vital strategic importance, calling it a dishonourable draw if you will.
If we then turn to Afghanistan as another isolated chess game, the contours of Obama's complex dynamic becomes clearer. Before assuming his seat Obama pledged to play it out to "victory". Enormous complications exist in his game with an unstable and volatile Pakistan; an emboldened Taliban opponent, allied to his propping up a corrupt pawn in the form of Karzai; and a breach of civilian-military control from his own appointed rook, General McChrystal, having all led to Obama taking time out to review his basic strategic approach. He is well aware that his next move - a choice between least unpalatable alternatives, at best - will come at great cost and so will compound his problems across other boards.
Meanwhile, Iran has stealthily maneuvered its pieces to its own strategic advantage. Obama is now seeking to engage it while simultaneously threatening its economic security if it continues with its present strategy. To gain better leverage in his Iran game Obama has sacrificed a pawn - the removal of a strategic missile defence - to the Russians, no mean chess players themselves, in the hope of improving his Iranian position.
If these challenges weren't difficult enough, Obama, like all his recent predecessors, is also trying to influence the most intractable chess game of all, the one between Israel and the Palestinians - a game so fraught that it effects every other calculation in multiple games across the Middle-East.
He is also involved in a crucial domestic game, against the entrenched resistance of the insurance industry, and the party of "NO," the Republicans, to secure healthcare reform. This single game has defeated seven of Obama's predecessors and his presidency rides on successfully securing a victory for the tens of millions of Americans who currently don't have any healthcare coverage.
His opponents, although weakened, have tactical advantages in stalling his every move while the rump of his own side want him to push further than his own tactical appreciation suggests is prudent. The rewards for success, and costs of failure, have made this game the centre-piece of his presidency.
The intensity of the domestic glare on the healthcare game means that Obama's ability to advance his climate change game has been disrupted. When all the players gather in Copenhagen come December, Obama will only be able to talk about his preferred strategy because there will have been no tangible moves for other nations to have observed, or responded to.
All the while Obama's strategy for regulating against the untrammeled greed that nearly brought the economy to its knees has all but stalled and his economic game is spluttering along. With a reassessment of all his pieces due in November 2010, Obama's ability to advance his most important games is at risk, as will be his overall position.
While only his most serious chess matches have been mentioned here, numerous other games are continually taking shape, demanding his study and his response. Every single move Obama makes, in whichever game he plays, is hotly contested and intensely debated. There is no let up for him.
And that is why the logic of history is rarely straightforward.
The challenge of Obama's overarching chess position suggests that he, and it, are bounded by profound complexity. He will continue to face acute twists and turns but Obama's coolly rational approach to decision-making should over time minimise his losses and bring him one or two historic victories. One still senses in Obama the potential to be a Grand Master.
