Foreign policy of the Barack Obama administration  The foreign policy of the Barack Obama administration was the foreign policy of the United States from 2009 to 2017, during the Presidency of Barack Obama. The term Obama Doctrine is frequently used to describe the principles of the Obama administration's foreign policy. Obama inherited the Iraq War, the Afghanistan War, and various aspects of the War on Terror, all of which began during the Bush administration. He presided over the gradual draw down of U.S. soldiers in Iraq, culminating in the near-total withdrawal of U.S. soldiers from Iraq in December 2011. After increasing the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan during his first term, Obama withdrew all but approximately 8,400 soldiers from Afghanistan during his second term. In 2011, Obama presided over a mission that led to the death of Osama bin Laden, the organizer of the September 11 attacks. The number of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp fell dramatically during Obama's tenure, but, despite Obama's hopes to close the detention camp, 41 inmates remained at Guantanamo by the time that Obama left office. The Obama administration made increased use of drone strikes, particularly in Pakistan, targeting Al-Qaeda leaders such as Anwar al-Awlaki. In 2013, Edward Snowden revealed the existence of an extensive government surveillance program known as PRISM, which Obama defended as "a circumscribed, narrow system directed at us being able to protect our people." In 2010, a series of protests across North Africa and the Middle East known as the Arab Spring broke out, eventually turning into more severe forms of unrest in several countries. Obama helped organize a NATO-led intervention in Libya, ultimately resulting in the fall of Muammar Gaddafi's regime. Obama declined to become deeply involved in Syria, which underwent a long, multi-party civil war between the government of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian opposition, and the Salafi jihadist group known as ISIL. The U.S. supported the opposition throughout the civil war and occasionally executed strikes against ISIL. In 2014, after Russia annexed Crimea and intervened in Ukraine, Obama and other Western leaders imposed sanctions that contributed to a Russian financial crisis. Russia later intervened in the Syrian Civil War and interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, earning condemnation from the Obama administration. Seeking to shift the focus of U.S. foreign policy to East Asia, Obama organized a multi-nation free trade agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), but the TPP was not ratified by Congress. Smaller trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama were approved by Congress and entered into force.