Who in their right mind would want to be President of the United States? Having begun with vaulting hopes, President Barack Obama’s tenure serves as a cautionary reminder — be careful what you wish for, you might actually get it. At home, Mr Obama’s prospects of pulling off anything big are slim to none after last week’s thunderbolt from the Tea Party.

Meanwhile, US-trained units in Iraq are dropping their weapons and fleeing far inferior Al Qaeda forces at first contact. Even Baghdad looks vulnerable. Talk about being mugged by reality. On paper, the job of US commander-in-chief is the most powerful in the world. In practice, your power to change things is waning, yet there is no limit on your ability to take the blame. To repeat: What sane person could want the job?

IMPOTENT ‘PEN AND PHONE’ STRATEGY

The answer, of course, is lots of people, including Mrs Hillary Clinton. Perhaps they should reconsider.

With more than half of his current term to run, Mr Obama has retreated at home to a “pen and phone” strategy in which he will use his executive powers to nudge change. These include worthy initiatives, such as the latest rules limiting carbon emissions from power plants. After last week’s Tea Party defenestration of Mr Eric Cantor, the conservative Republican leader, Mr Obama is also likely to order a reduction in the deportation of illegal immigrants.

It was Mr Obama who stepped up deportations in a vain attempt to persuade people such as Mr Cantor to support immigration reform. That is now a dead prospect.

The President can keep giving big speeches on his real priorities — raising the minimum wage, upgrading US infrastructure, making work pay for the middle class and so on. But Congress will not respond.

For the most part, “pen and phone” is an admission of impotence. Among the initiatives in the works are a US$1 billion (S$1.25 billion) school broadband scheme, the launch of six manufacturing research institutes and the creation of a tax-exempt account for future retirees. Laudable though they are, such incrementalism is redolent of Mr Bill Clinton’s second term, in which he kept busy with declarations about V-chips (that block inappropriate television shows) and school uniforms.

Even within this shrunken playing field, though, success is not assured. Mr Obama’s first act as President was to order the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention centre. More than five years later, it is still going strong.

ALREADY WINDING DOWN?

Now, think about what is happening in Iraq — the issue on which Mr Obama based his first White House bid. The US has lavished well over US$1 trillion directly and perhaps the same again in interest payments and opportunity costs since former President George W Bush’s 2003 invasion. It even spent US$25 billion to train and equip the Iraqi army — the same people now abandoning their US hardware at the first whiff of a grapeshot.

In 2011, Mr Obama withdrew the last US forces and said Iraq could stand on its own two feet. Today, he is under pressure to launch air strikes — and possibly more — to defend Iraq from the same terrorists he said were in retreat after the killing of Osama bin Laden. If only life were that simple. From the Euphrates to the Sahel, Al Qaeda is regrouping, spreading and finding new launch pads to threaten the US.

Mr Obama has all the drones and F-22 fighter jets he needs to strike whatever targets he wants. But experience has taught him the limits of warfare from the skies. Retired US boxer Mike Tyson once said everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face. Mr Obama’s plan was to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and he stuck to it. As he set out in his recent West Point speech, he also plans, where possible, to replace US military engagement with diplomacy and economic statecraft. And, of course, he had a dream to replace America’s red state/blue state division with a post-partisan US that worked together to solve problems.

All of these hopes are now repeatedly punching him in the face. Little surprise, then, that he sounds wistful about what it is to be in the loneliest job in the world.

Doubtless Mrs Clinton and others believe they can do it better. Why else would they want the job? A case can be made that Mr Obama raised expectations too high, that he has handled the job too passively and that he still has time to put a do-nothing Congress to shame. Of these, the first has the most force. Mr Obama came to power on a wave of unquenchable hope. Today he talks about “hitting singles” rather than home runs. And he is looking ever longingly to his place in history.

Competition is heating up among Chicago, New York and Hawaii to host the Obama presidential library. Mr Obama is reportedly spending a lot of time thinking about it. A profile in Politico said the Obamas have decided they will live in New York after they leave the White House. Last year, he spent 46 days on the golf course, up from 30 in his previous highest year.

It is as if he is already winding down. “Just last night, I was talking about life and art, big interesting things and now we’re back to the minuscule things on politics,” Mr Obama complained after a dinner last month with Italian intellectuals in Rome.

His cabin fever is tangible. On the plus side, there are only two-and-a-half years to go. THE FINANCIAL TIMES

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Edward Luce is the Washington columnist and commentator for the Financial Times.