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ROGER BOYES

Vultures are circling for lame-duck Obama

The president is desperate to create a legacy and is relying on Russia, Iran and Turkey to help

The Times

Technically a US president is classed as a lame duck only when the votes of his successor have been tallied. Barack Obama’s duck life, however, is already all but over: he has been plucked, filleted and is about as dead as any duck ever served up in Chinatown. As a result every autocrat on the globe feels he has been given carte blanche, free of US restraints or scrutiny. If you see them circling the president at next month’s G20 summit in China it will not be out of respect but out of a sense that something can still be won from a weakened leader.

Outgoing presidents, though handicapped, still have some say in foreign policy. Obama has none. His first years in office were