Derek H. Burney was Canada's ambassador to Washington from 1989 to 1993. Fen Osler Hampson is a distinguished fellow and director of global security at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and Chancellor's Professor at Carleton University.
If words and erudition were the hallmarks of policy accomplishment, U.S. President Barack Obama would stand tall, but his legacy is crumbling even before he leaves the White House. As CNN's Fareed Zakaria observed, Mr. Obama is "an intensely charismatic politician, but he was not able to build a political base underneath him." His considerable skills at oratory seldom transcended into an ability to deliver results or a coherent plan of action.
Mr. Obama leaves office with an American polity that is less coherent and more divided than it was during the Vietnam War. An anti-globalization, anti-elite populism is shifting the contours of politics in America in strange, new directions. Self-interest and nationalism are now in the ascendancy.
On the domestic front, Mr. Obama's singular achievement on health care is about to be repealed and replaced.
His top global priority, climate change – "there is no greater threat to our planet" – did not gain support from Congress even when the Democrats were in control of both chambers. His staunch, and no doubt deeply felt commitment, was not seen as a prime concern for the American public whose attention focused more persistently on jobs and cheap energy.
When asked his view on Mr. Obama's foreign policy, Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former national security adviser, said pungently that the President had been "engaged but ineffective." The jury is still out on Mr. Obama's major security initiative, his nuclear agreement with Iran. Although Iran has not violated the actual terms of the agreement, by continuing to work on its missile program, as noted by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, it is contravening both the spirit of the deal and UN Security Council resolutions.
In Syria, "leading from behind" has left America effectively as a bystander where Bashar al-Assad and his Russian and Iranian cohorts have wreaked an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe of genocidal proportions. Mr. Obama's vanishing red line may well become a metaphor for his presidency. His inaction on the unspeakable humanitarian horrors of Aleppo will be an indelible stain on his legacy.
Mr. Obama's international actions more generally have failed to reassure a majority of Americans and many of country's erstwhile allies that the United States is still the leader of the Western world. Instead, they have created vacuums that U.S. adversaries – Russia, Iran and North Korea – continue to exploit. They have also soured attitudes on the home-front about how America is perceived in the world.
Quite apart from the free hand given to him in Syria, Russian President Vladimir Putin's hold on part of Ukraine and his threats against others in the "near abroad," such as the Baltic states, show no sign of easing. The Western commitment to sanctions is running out of steam. Adding insult to injury, North Korea poses a more serious threat to global stability now than it did in 2009.
No one really knows what Donald Trump will do with Russia nor how it blends with his ambition to "Make America Great Again," but sentiments about patriotism or optimism may work better in election campaigns than as the means to restore respect for American global leadership.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), intended to anchor Mr. Obama's pivot to Asia and to contain China, was tossed overboard in the election campaign. None of the final contenders nor many in Congress expressed support. China, meanwhile, presses forward with a regional economic grouping of its own and will only be provoked by Mr. Trump's desire to make it a scapegoat.
During his eight years in office, Mr. Obama achieved little of consequence with Canada or with any key Western ally other than aspirational pledges in the Paris Accord, a pact unlikely to get much traction with the new team in Washington.
Electoral support for Mr. Trump was fuelled by Mr. Obama's policy failures and fears of America's fading image in the world. With speeches and books to come, Mr. Obama will undoubtedly paint a different picture.
Mr. Trump's promise to Make America Great Again may well suffer the same fate as Mr. Obama's "Yes We Can" chant eight years ago. Rhetoric and strong emotion help win elections, but without concrete deeds and clear, consistent implementation, they will not suffice to restore American greatness or respect for America in an increasingly fractious world. It remains to be seen whether the new Trump administration will help unify the United States and bring more rigour and more coherent leadership into global affairs.