Former US President Barack Obama has left a “shaky” human rights legacy of indecisive policies, Kenneth Roth argues for Foreign Policy. The Obama administration, he suggests, was not firm enough in its actions (or reactions) to create a lasting impact, leaving many in fear that the Donald Trump administration could easily reverse any progress Obama may have achieved, particularly in the human rights domain. “Obama never really warmed to human rights as a genuine priority and so leaves office with many opportunities lost,” Roth writes. Roth surveys Obama’s achievements and shortcomings a number of issues and says, on Middle East policy specifically, Obama rarely lived up to the lofty promise of his 2009 Cairo University speech, where he spoke eloquently of the need to build democracies in the region. He cites Obama’s failure to make any meaningful push on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, continued use of drone strikes, maintaining Guantanamo Bay and not backing up his “red line” in Syria as examples of this shaky record. Him overseeing the largest surveillance state in US history was also seen as diverging from his human rights commitment. “The truth is, a careful review of Obama’s major human rights decisions shows a mixed record… he has often treated human rights as a secondary interest — nice to support when the cost was not too high, but nothing like a top priority he championed,” the article reads.

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