Obama to Detail a Broader Foreign Policy Agenda

WASHINGTON - President Obama, seeking to answer criticism that he has forsaken America's leadership role, plans to lay out a retooled foreign-policy agenda on Wednesday that could deepen the nation's involvement in Syria but would still steer clear of major military conflicts.

In a commencement address at the United States Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., Mr. Obama will seek, yet again, to articulate his view of the proper American response to a cascade of crises, from Syria's civil war to Russia's incursions in Ukraine, according to a senior administration official who is helping draft the speech.

Sketching familiar arguments but on a broader canvas, Mr. Obama will emphasize his determination to chart a middle course between isolationism and military intervention. The United States, he said, should be at the fulcrum of efforts to curb aggression by Russia and China, though not at the price of 'fighting in eight or nine proxy wars.'

'It's a case for interventionism but not overreach,' Benjamin J. Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser, said in an interview. 'We are leading, we are the only country that leads, but that leadership has to be in service of an international system.'

Mr. Obama, however, will emphasize Syria's growing status as a haven for terrorist groups, some of which are linked to Al Qaeda, officials said. That could open the door to greater American support for the rebels, including heavier weapons, though no decisions have been made.

The president's speech will kick off an intense, administration-wide effort to counter critics who say the United States is lurching from crisis to crisis, without a grand plan for dealing with a treacherous world. While such critiques slight Mr. Obama's accomplishments, Mr. Rhodes said, he conceded the president had not put his priorities, from climate change to the nuclear talks with Iran, into a comprehensive framework.

Mr. Obama plans to elaborate on his ideas during a trip to Europe in early June. Over the next few weeks, the White House will roll out issue-specific speeches from Secretary of State John Kerry, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and other senior officials.

'We understand that there are a lot of questions swirling around not just our foreign policy but America's role in the world,' Mr. Rhodes said. 'People are seeing the trees, but we're not necessarily laying out the forest.'

The trouble is, as Mr. Obama takes a stage where his predecessors have signaled new directions in foreign policy - George W. Bush used a West Point speech in 2002 to revive the principle of pre-emptive military strikes - his ideas are likely to have a familiar ring.

In a speech on terrorism last year, Mr. Obama warned of an arc of Islamic extremism stretching from the Middle East to North Africa, which he said was the successor to the Al Qaeda threat in Afghanistan and Pakistan that was fought with troops and drones.

The president's calibrated rationale for military intervention will draw on a speech he gave in 2011 justifying American backing for NATO airstrikes on Libya. And his broad definition of America's responsibilities as a global power will inevitably echo the principles he outlined in accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in December 2009.

Critics are also likely to argue that the president's words have not been backed up by actions. Administration officials, for example, have long promised to bolster support for the Syrian rebels. But they have so far refused to supply them with antiaircraft missiles because they fear that these weapons could fall into the hands of extremists.

Mr. Obama's anguished response to Syria has hung over the White House and fueled critics who say the president's foreign policy is rudderless: He threatened, then pulled back on, a missile strike against Syria for its use of chemical weapons and resisted pleas for greater American involvement, even as the death toll rises above 160,000. 'I realized last night that the administration has no policy in Syria, has no strategy in Syria,' Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, said last week. He had just attended a White House wine-and-cheese reception to discuss foreign policy - a gathering he described as 'very bizarre.'

Denis R. McDonough, the White House chief of staff, said he and Susan E. Rice, the national security adviser, invited Mr. Corker and other senators because national security issues are going to loom large in coming weeks, and the administration wanted to consult Congress. 'I thought we had a good back-and-forth,' he said.

Mr. Obama's promise last year to overhaul the counterterrorism policy has been bogged down, officials say, in part because of the distraction of the surveillance disclosures by the former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden.

And the president's pivot to Asia has seemed more promise than reality, with negotiations for a trans-Pacific trade deal dragging on and the restoration of American military presence limited to announcements like a base-access deal in the Philippines.

It was on Mr. Obama's trip to Asia last month that his frustrations with his critics boiled over. 'Why is it that everybody is so eager to use military force after we've just gone through a decade of war at enormous cost to our troops and to our budget?' he said in Manila.

Asked in a news conference to describe his foreign-policy doctrine, he said, 'You hit singles, you hit doubles; every once in a while we may be able to hit a home run.' But, the president added, the overriding objective is to avoid an error on the order of the Iraq war.

While Mr. Obama will most likely shun such colloquialisms at West Point, the baseball analogy is an apt summary of his philosophy. In other conversations, aides say, the president has used a saltier variation of the common-sense saying, 'Don't do stupid stuff.'

In Asia, however, Mr. Obama framed the debate over military intervention in a binary way that aides say does not reflect his views. They said he agreed with the ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, who recently criticized those who say there are no options between doing nothing and putting boots on the ground.

'We believe there is an alternative approach,' Mr. Rhodes said.

To offer more than competent crisis management, Mr. Obama will also promote initiatives, like a global climate change treaty, as well as the Iranian nuclear negotiations - long-shot diplomacy that could nevertheless be a legacy achievement for him.

Mr. Obama will also argue he showed firm leadership in marshaling support to resist Russia's aggression toward Ukraine and in backing allies in territorial disputes with China. The president, Mr. Rhodes said, will draw a line from Russia to China, presenting the United States in both cases as the ultimate guarantor of an international order.

Such coalition-building, however, does not have either the speed or satisfying clarity of military action. 'It's a long game,' Mr. Rhodes said. 'It's not one that solves the problem yesterday.'