Barack Obama’s criticism of David Cameron’s alleged neglect of Libya in the aftermath of the British-assisted 2011 revolution against Muammar Gaddafi has been blown out of all proportion. This largely manufactured furore obscures a more important story: the apparent beginning of Obama’s attempt to explain and justify his often–controversial handling of international affairs, particularly the Middle East, since he took office in 2009.

In granting a series of far-ranging interviews to Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlanticmagazine, Obama appears to be launching his defence of his presidential legacy a full 10 months before he quits the White House. Such candour ignores potential problems with allies with whom Obama is still obliged to work. In this respect, David Cameron’s sin in becoming “distracted” from the task of post-Gaddafi reconstruction is small beer by comparison with the underperformance of others.

Obama says, for example, that Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is a serious disappointment who has turned authoritarian. We learn that King Abdullah II of Jordan was given a personal dressing-down at the Nato summit in Wales in 2014, after his complaints about Obama reached the great man’s ears. Speaking of Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, Obama is of the view he fluffed a historic peace deal with the Palestinians out of personal and political weakness. He found Netanyahu “condescending”, a big mistake when dealing with an intellectual ego as large as Obama’s. Obama has a point about Libya. Cameron promised far more than he could deliver in terms of establishing a viable government in a country lacking all democratic traditions. In this, he, as a novice prime minister unschooled in international relations, was led by the nose by Nicolas Sarkozy. The then French president milked the Anglo-French intervention for all its political worth, while happily limiting Obama to a walk-on part. Libya fitted France’s national narrative, which places itself at the centre of world affairs. As Obama says, Sarkozy was a typical European “free rider” whose grandstanding left Libya in a mess.

That said, what has happened in Libya in the past five years – the collapse of central authority, the descent into lawlessness, the rise of parasitic organisations such as Islamic State and contagious instability spreading across the wider region – cannot be laid solely at British or French doors. As he admits, Obama did not want to take the lead. He did not want to risk American lives or spend the money. But he wanted to control and direct a coalition including Europe, Egypt, the Gulf states, other Muslim countries and blessed by the UN. This experiment in remote-control leadership did not work. Now Libya faces another imminent bout of western military intervention. The Libyan experience points to a much bigger problem over Obama’s approach to the world. In sum, he remains deeply ambivalent about the extent to which traditional American postwar global leadership still serves US national interests. In the Atlantic’s account, he goes to extraordinary lengths to justify his volte-face in August 2013, when he opted, at the last minute, not to intervene militarily in Syria. He had decided to start bombing only days before, because Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s president, had crossed Obama’s “red line” by using chemical weapons against civilians.

In valedictory mode, Obama says he is proud he changed his mind, because this showed he was strong enough to reject pressures emanating from Washington’s political, military and foreign policy establishment elites. These pressures dictate a president must use military power to maintain US credibility. “Where America is threatened, the playbook works. But the playbook can also be a trap that can lead to bad decisions. In the midst of a challenge like Syria, you get judged harshly if you don’t follow the playbook, even if there are good reasons why it does not apply.”