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President Obama speaks to U.S. troops at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, in 2012. Obama removed the large U.S. ground combat forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, as promised. But as the leaves office, the U.S. is still waging war in those two countries, as well as Syria. Tony Gutierrez/AP hide caption

President Obama speaks to U.S. troops at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, in 2012. Obama removed the large U.S. ground combat forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, as promised. But as the leaves office, the U.S. is still waging war in those two countries, as well as Syria.

Among the many things President Obama will be handing off to his successor this week: stubborn wars in three separate countries.

Obama came to office eight years ago vowing to end U.S. military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet President-elect Trump stands to inherit the nation's longest war ever in Afghanistan, as well as renewed fighting in Iraq that has spread to Syria.

The outgoing president was reminded of the persistence of those wars at the pomp-filled farewell ceremony the Pentagon put on for him him earlier this month at a nearby military base.

"Mr. President, we've been at war throughout your tenure," said Gen. Joesph Dunford, chosen by Obama in 2015 to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "That's a period longer than any other American president."

That's right: Obama is the first president to serve eight years and preside over American wars during every single day of his tenure. That's not what Obama wanted or expected.

But he reminded the troops seeing him off that thanks to a new approach he's taken to those wars, the number of American forces involved in them has dropped sharply.

"Not by letting our forces get dragged into sectarian conflicts and civil wars, but with smart, sustainable, principled partnerships," Obama said of the strategy he's shifted to of training, advising and assisting local forces to do the ground fighting. "That's how we brought most of our troops home from nearly 180,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan down to 15,000 today."

Fewer forces, but protracted conflict

Of those remaining in the field, 8,400 U.S. forces are in Afghanistan. That's still more than the small residual force Obama had aimed to leave behind.

Some of those American forces in Afghanistan are fighting 13 different groups that the U.S. considers terrorists. Others are training and advising Afghan security forces to fight the Taliban, which Washington does not formally consider a terrorist organization.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter (left) arrives in Kabul in December with Gen. John Nicholson (center), the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. David Welna/NPR hide caption

Defense Secretary Ash Carter (left) arrives in Kabul in December with Gen. John Nicholson (center), the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan.

"When you look at the performance of the Afghan forces this year, it was a tough year," said Gen. John Nicholson, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, at a December news conference held at Bagram Airfield. "They were tested, but they prevailed."

Others take a dimmer view of the effort to shift the lead in fighting the Taliban to Afghanistan's security forces.

"It's basically playing whack-a-mole," says John Sopko, who since 2012 has been the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

While presenting SIGAR's latest report at a military think tank in Washington earlier this month, Sopko described the Afghan National Security Forces as hobbled by corruption and poor leadership.

"We're defining success by the absence of failure," Sopko said of those forces' ongoing attempts to retake territory lost to the Taliban. "At a minimum, they're playing defense, and are not taking the fight to the Taliban."

What's more, a war that began with a U.S. invasion 15 years ago in October 2001 appears to have no end in sight.

"The situation in Afghanistan, in the rosiest possible reasonable analysis, is a stalemate," said Stephen Biddle, a military analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations and George Washington University. The war, he added "can only be sustained if the U.S. Congress keeps writing multibillion-dollar-a-year checks to keep the Afghan National Security Forces in the field."

One of the 8,400 remaining U.S. troops in Afghanistan guards the bay of a CH-47 Chinook transport helicopter as it flies near Kabul. David Welna/NPR hide caption

One of the 8,400 remaining U.S. troops in Afghanistan guards the bay of a CH-47 Chinook transport helicopter as it flies near Kabul.

The rise of ISIS

And then there's the war Obama has waged since 2014 against the Islamic State, both in Iraq and Syria.

"These terrorists have lost about half of their territory," Obama told troops at his Pentagon farewell ceremony. "They are losing their leaders, towns and cities are being liberated, and I have no doubt this barbaric terrorist group will be destroyed because of you."

Last month the top U.S. commander in Iraq, speaking at a fire base just outside Mosul that was held by Islamic State forces as recently as July, defended what many see as a slow-motion assault on the Islamic State forces holding that city.

"Any army on the planet, to include the United States Army, would be challenged by this fight," said Gen. Stephen Townsend. "The Iraqi army has come back from near defeat two years ago, and now they're attacking this major city."

In neighboring, war-ravaged Syria, at least 600 U.S. Special Forces are now on the ground, mainly to train and assist local rebel forces. The ultimate aim is to oust Islamic State fighters from Raqqa, the capital of the group's self-declared caliphate.

Some experts doubt such an approach arming and training an array of Syrians from often competing factions will work.

"We're losing, they're winning," says the Brooking Institution's Michael O'Hanlon. "They maybe don't say it in quite those terms, because they like the fact that we're still pulling the wool collectively over our own eyes, but the idea of defeating ISIS, replacing (Syrian President Bashar) Assad, and doing all this with a minimal American military investment, does not add up to a logical policy."

As for the incoming president, it's not clear how he'll fight these inherited wars. Trump barely mentioned Afghanistan during his campaign. It's also unclear how he'd handle the anti-Islamic State campaign in Iraq and Syria.

One clue may be found in what retired Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump's national security adviser, told NPR last summer.

"Where is the king of Jordan, where's the emirs of some of these other countries?," Flynn asked rhetorically about nations in the region he felt should be doing more to fight the Islamic State. "They need to actually stand up and, internationally and publicly, condemn this violent form of this ideology that is operating inside of their bloodstream right now and I don't see it. And that's where the president of the United States needs to place a different set of demands on these guys."

When Flynn uttered those words, Trump was just the Republican nominee for the White House. The now-president-elect's recommended strategy for fighting the Islamic State had been characteristically blunt.

"I would just bomb those suckers," Trump told a campaign rally in Iowa shortly before that state's caucuses a year ago.

As president and commander in chief, Trump soon will have the power to do so.

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After 8 Years Of Unbroken War, Obama Hands Over Conflicts To Trump - NPR

President Obama closed his presidency on anote of optimism Wednesday, tellinga room of reporters that, despite the worry felt by many of his fellow partisans about the incoming Trump administration,were going to be okay.

In what was scheduled as the final news conference of his presidency, Obama said that after all he has witnessed,he is walking away with a sense of hopefulness about the country and where it is going.

He framed the comments as a description of what he had told his daughters after this year's election, but his remarks, likely to be among his last public statements from the White House, also served as a message to his fellow Democrats.

Many on his side of the aisle have talked in near-apocalyptic tones in recent weeks about the impending Trump administration. Obama was more measured.

I believe in this country, he said. I believe in the American people. I believe that people are more good than bad. I believe tragic things happen. I think there's evil in the world, but I think at the end of the day, if we work hard and if we're true to those things in us that feel true and feel right, that the world gets a little better each time.

That's what this presidency has tried to be about, he said.

The message will likely be his last one in public for a while. Obama said he reserves the right to speak up, especially if what he called America's "core values" come under assault. Short of that, however, he plans now to go into a period of quiet and "not hear [himself] talk so darn much."

Hell devote himself to writing and contemplation, he said, taking time for reflection that he hasnt had under the pressures of the Oval Office.

His departure on Friday comes at a time of anxiety for many of his fellow Democrats. Dozens of Democratic members of Congress are planning to boycott Donald Trumpsinauguration. Womens groups and unions are organizing demonstrations for the coming weekend.

Obama has not repudiated the criticisms he leveled at Trump during the campaign.But since the election,he has also looked for positive things to say, focusing on Trumps willingness to listen to him and, perhaps, to change his mind when persuaded.

On Wednesday, as he took his final round of questions, Obama said he would wait to see whether Trump had accepted any of his thoughts. He alsosaid he was sure he wouldnt be the last nonwhite man to hold the presidency.

I think we're going to see people of merit rise up from every race, faith, corner of this country, because that's America's strength, Obama said. When we have everybody getting a chance and everybody's on the field, we end up being better.

He added:Yeah, we're going to have a woman president. We're going to have a Latino president. And we'll have a Jewish president, a Hindu president. You know, who knows who we're going to have? I suspect we'll have a whole bunch of mixed-up presidents at some point that nobody really knows what to call them.

Much of his optimism, he said, stemmed from watching ayounger generation that is much more open to differences of all kinds.

As evidence, he cited his daughters, Malia and Sasha, one headed tocollege and the other now in high school.

The two have grown up in an environment where they couldnt help but be patriotic, Obama said, to see the countrys flaws and to feel a sense of responsibility to fix them.

And they were well-aware of their parents concerns about Trump and the movement behind him. Their father campaigned hard for fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton, and their mother delivered a speech in October in which she addressed Trumps vulgar words about women, disclosed on a videotape,saying she was shaken to [her] coreby his remarks.

They were disappointed, Obama said. They paid attention to what their mom said during the campaign and believed it because it's consistent with what we have tried to teach them in our household, and what I've tried to model as a father with their mom, and what we've asked them to expect from future boyfriends or spouses.

Still, he said, his daughters hadnt gotten cynical.

They have not assumed because their side didn't win, or because some of the values that they care about don't seem as if they were vindicated, that automatically America has somehow rejected them or rejected their values, he said.

Instead, they have appreciated the fact that this is a big, complicated country, and democracy is messy;it doesn't always work exactly the way you might want. It doesn't guarantee certain outcomes, he said.

But, he said, his daughters know that there's a core decency to this country and that they got to be a part of lifting that up. And I expect they will be.

For months, Obama has said he would relish the moment when he could set aside the responsibilities of governingand return to thinking and analyzing and talking about the country like a citizen. He told friends he looked forward to being able to see the world not through the gloom and doom of the presidential daily briefing.

That moment seemed to dawn at the end of the news conference Wednesdayas he was channeling the optimism of Malia and Sasha Obama.

Sometimes I get mad and frustrated like everybody else does, but at my core, I think we're going to be OK, he said. We just have to fight for it;we have to work for it and not take it for granted.

christi.parsons@latimes.com

Twitter: @cparsons

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President Obama's parting message: Hope - Los Angeles Times

President Obama said Wednesday that his administration has warned President-elect Donald Trumps team that big policy shifts come with consequences and suggested that moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem could have explosive results.

"When sudden unilateral moves are made that speak to some of the core issues and sensitivities of either side, that can be explosive," Obama said at his last news conference as commander-in-chief, Reuters reported.

Trump, like some of his predecessors, has vowed to move the American embassy to Jerusalem, a politically charged act that would anger Palestinians who want east Jerusalem as part of their sovereign territory. The move would also distance the U.S. from most of the international community, including its closest allies in Western Europe and the Arab world.

Trumps next ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, supports Israeli settlements and other changes to U.S. policies in the region.

Friedman said he looked forward to carrying out his duties from "the U.S. embassy in Israel's eternal capital, Jerusalem," even though the embassy is in Tel Aviv. Trump advisers have said that the president-elect will follow through on his call for moving the embassy.

"He has made that promise," Kellyanne Conway told reporters Thursday. "I can guarantee you, just generally, he's a man who is going to accomplish many things very quickly."

Obama said that he is worried that the chances of a two-state solution were dimming. He has been critical of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

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Obama suggests that moving US Embassy to Jerusalem could be 'explosive' - Fox News

Barack Obama leaves office Friday with 6 in 10 Americans approving of his job performance, capping a steady rise that vaults him above the average final mark for modern presidents, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds.

Obama's high-note finish comes with plenty of dissonance, including persistent pessimism about the nation's direction and deep divisions after Donald Trump's victory in last year's presidential race after campaigning strongly against Obama's policies.

Yet Americans grew significantly more positive about Obama's presidency through the acidic 2016 campaign asperceptions of the economy improved. The president'sapproval ratings were underwater in July 2015, when 45 percent approved and 50 percent disapproved of his performance. But hisoverall approval grew to a steady 50 percent by January 2016, and rose again to 56 percent in June, never falling below the mid-50s through the fall campaign.

The latest Post-ABC poll shows Obama hitting 60 percent approval, with 38 percent disapproving his highest mark since June ofhis first year in office, when 65 percent approved of him. Thelatest pollfinds 61 percent approve of Obama's handling of the economy, whilea smaller 53 percent approvehow he has handled the threat of terrorism and 52 percentrate him positively for handling health care.

Partisanship was the principal factor in ratings of Obama throughout his presidency. Republicans soured on his performance by his second month in office, and Democrats widely approved throughout his two terms. Independents are largely responsible for Obama's strong finish, as approval climbed from 44 percent at the start of 2016 to 61 percent in the latest poll.

Another factor that may have boosted Obama: the improvement in ratings of the national economy.

Only 5 percent of Americans said the economy was excellent or good when Obama took the oath of office, and this number did not grow beyond 20 percent during his first term. But in the last few years, the share of Americans with positive ratings of the economy has more than doubled to 51 percent in this month's survey, the highest level tracked by Post-ABC polls during his tenure. Very few say the economy is in excellent condition (6 percent), and nearly half rate it negatively. But the share of people saying the economy is poor has dropped from 62 percent in early 2009 to 14 percent today.

How Obama's ratings stack up historically

Obama's final job approval mark is well above the 50 percent average for presidents from Franklin Roosevelt onward, and nearly twice as high as the 33 percent approval of his immediate predecessor, George W. Bush, as he left office in 2009.

Roosevelt, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan all held higher approval marks in final polls while in office than Obama does today. Dwight Eisenhower also had a slightly more positive image than Obama, with disapproval 10 points lower than Obama's despite trailing the current president by one point in positive marks. Besides Bush, Obama's final rating is clearly higher than those of George H.W. Bush, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Harry Truman and Richard Nixon.

Obama's closest analog is Gerald Ford, whose 53-32 approve-disapprove rating (+21) closely resembles Obama's +22 margin of approval and disapproval.

The Post-ABC poll asked respondents to predict how history will judge Obama in the long run, and 51 percent said they think Obama will go down in history as an outstanding or above-average president. One-quarter said he will be remembered as average, while another 25 percent said he will rank as below average or poor. By comparison, a similar 47 percent thought Clinton would be remembered as above average, while 36 percent said this of George H.W. Bush and 16 percent said the same of George W. Bush.

Little satisfaction with nation's direction

Americans have been pessimistic about the country's future for much of the past four decades, and Obama's hope-centered campaign aimed to counterthis long-running pessimism.

The presidentdid appear to inspire optimism during his first year, with as many as 50 percent saying the country was headed in the right direction, up from single digits the previous fall among registered voters and the highest level since 2003. But pessimism clawed back during the next two years, peaking after the Standard & Poor's credit downgrade when 77 percent said the country was on the wrong track.

Optimism among Democrats helped boost the right direction ratings into the low 40s during Obama's reelection campaign, but they have yet to reach that level again. Today, only 29 percent say the country is headed in the right direction, while 63 percent see it as on the wrong track.

One major shift that has already occurred since Trump's presidential victory is a flip in the partisan divide on this question. Today, Republicans are 26 points more likely than Democrats to say the country is headed in the right direction (45 percent vs. 19 percent). Last July, Democrats were 37 points more likely to express optimism about the country's direction (45 percent vs. 8 percent).

If Obama's presidency is any guide, that split will grow even bigger once Trump takes office.

The Washington Post-ABC News poll was conducted by telephone Jan. 12-15, 2017, among a random national sample of 1,005 adults, including landline and cellphone respondents. Overall results have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

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President Obama is leaving office on a very high note - Washington Post

New York Times

Obama Understood the Power of Art. And He Wanted You to Get It, Too. New York Times Anyone inclined to find joy when a president's taste collides with yours had a lot to choose from with Barack Obama. There was the time he dropped by the Los Angeles garage where the comedian Marc Maron records his podcast or when he sat between the ...

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Obama Understood the Power of Art. And He Wanted You to Get It, Too. - New York Times