Despite a late-year appearance of hopeful economic indicators and an 11th-hour boost in his Gallup Poll approval, 2014 bowed out as a distinct disappointment for President Barack Obama as he faces the last two lame-duck years in his presidency.
The temporary uplift from his 2012 re-election was washed away two years later by the sweeping defeat of his Democratic Party in the November midterm congressional and gubernatorial elections, boding even deeper partisanship in Congress with the Republican takeover of the Senate.
From a longer and even more depressing perspective, the last 14 years have marked a stalemate of sorts in American foreign policy. Mr. Obama's presidency has been held captive not only by world events but by the Bush legacy of two wars, one unavoidable and the other conspicuously avoidable.
The 9/11 terrorist attacks in the eighth month of the Bush presidency plunged the United States into a war of self-defense. Mr. Bush responded to it with alacrity and force if not wise and diligent judgment about the scope and challenge of the task at hand in Afghanistan.
Then, before the Taliban foe had been thoroughly disposed of, the president, driven by faulty intelligence and a failed assessment of what regime change in Iraq would entail, pivoted recklessly to invade that country. Unlike the war in Afghanistan, which was sanctioned by the United Nations Charter, the war in Iraq ran counter to it. The charter holds that no sovereign nation shall launch offensive military action against another except in self-defense. Saddam Hussein was swiftly deposed, but his capture and eventual execution triggered a lengthy and botched reconstruction of Iraq that continues to falter today, under watchful U.S. monitoring and guidance.
This unwelcome inheritance left to Mr. Obama in 2009 required his administration to defer most of its own liberal agenda in order to address the two wars. The new president made it a prime objective to revert American foreign policy to its traditional emphasis on multilateral response to major military challenges.
Yet over the nearly six years of his presidency, Mr. Obama has been bogged down abroad by this effort, and at the same time has seen the bulk of his domestic agenda stymied by stiff partisan opposition in Congress. Despite Republicans' rhetorical gestures of greater cooperation in the upcoming congressional session, the increased strength of the party's most conservative elements casts much doubt on that prospect.
The single major liberal achievement of the Obama years, the Affordable Care Act, seems secure now despite numerous bills passed by House Republicans to "repeal and replace" it. In any event, Mr. Obama would be certain to veto any such bill that might make it to his desk.
Any assessment of Mr. Obama's chances to salvage what remains of his presidency must take into consideration not only the sea of woes delivered to his door in 2014 but also the drag of the previous six years of U.S. military involvement.
He must still deal with what lies ahead in the endgame of the two wars he inherited, whose combat phases are over for American troops, Mr. Obama insists, despite thousands of our military personnel remaining in Iraq and Afghanistan handling training and protective functions. On top of that, Mr. Obama has to cope with the continuing havoc caused by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, which he has pledged to "degrade and ultimately destroy."
Mr. Obama has some reason to hope 2015 will be better than the year just passed. Democratic supporters no doubt will focus on positive signs that the economy has finally broken free of the Great Recession, the president's other inheritance from 2009. They will also continue to make a political cause of income inequality, an issue that didn't help them much last November.
But as long as this country remains at war in the Middle East — even if Mr. Obama holds to his determination that there will be no more American "boots on the ground" there — he will continue to struggle to break out of military entanglements that were none of his making.
Jules Witcover is a syndicated columnist and former long-time writer for The Baltimore Sun. His latest book is "Joe Biden: A Life of Trial and Redemption" (William Morrow). His email is juleswitcover@comcast.net.