by Robert Parry<\/p>\n
If President Barack Obama is ever to take control of his foreign policy \u2014 and move the United States into a more peaceful and pragmatic direction \u2014 he will need to shake his obsession with secrecy and bring the American people into his confidence by sharing with them information about key events that have shaped recent crises.<\/p>\n
Right now, the American people are deeply confused about what is transpiring in the Middle East and eastern Europe \u2013 and Obama appears satisfied that they stay that way. He doesn\u2019t seem to understand that one of the president\u2019s greatest advantages is his power to release information to the public, thus changing the narrative as written by rival political forces and forcing those forces to adjust to a more complete storyline.<\/p>\n
Instead, Obama has behaved as if he\u2019s still trying to prove to the national security establishment that he can hoard secrets as compulsively as anyone, that he\u2019s not the wild-eyed radical outsider that the Right has made him out to be. At a news conference on March 24, Obama even made a joke about his record of keeping the American people in the dark about information developed by the U.S. intelligence community.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a general rule, I don\u2019t comment on intelligence matters in a big room full of reporters,\u201d Obamasaid<\/a> with a smirk on his face. \u201cAnd I think I\u2019ll continue that tradition.\u201d<\/p>\n But Obama\u2019s lack of transparency \u2014 after promising in 2008 to run a transparent administration \u2014 has left him at the mercy of Washington\u2019s closed club of insiders, while alienating him from the broad American public. With\u00a0neoconservatives and other\u00a0opinion leaders dictating the dominant narrative on topic after topic, Obama has ended up reacting to events, not controlling them.<\/p>\n Thus, even if a framework agreement on limiting Iran\u2019s nuclear program is reached, it is likely to get battered in Congress, where Israeli clout is overwhelming. The President will have to fend off repeated attempts to sabotage the deal.<\/p>\n