Obama’s behaviour as President is often hard for many people to understand. They think of Obama as someone elected as a change agent and who let everyone down. However when it comes to understanding his motivation no real explanation is given.
Obama can be understood better if one appreciates that what motivated him was a deep desire not be the LAST Black President of the US. While everyone was celebrating the FIRST Black President Obama wanted to conduct his Presidency in a way that established a Black Presidency as normal. When one considers responses to Kamala Harris one can see that Obama achieved his goal as the idea of a Black President did not even emerge as any issue. All commentary was about Kamala Harris herself.
This wish to establish the Black Presidency as an acceptable option led Obama to avoid options to make major changes that can be said to have been required. On the other hand since he could not even close Guantanamo Bay, Obama may have concluded that his actual ability to effect change against the mainstream political system was close to zero. Perhaps he could have taken steps to tame the financial sector, on the other hand that sector is of great power and it may not have been actually possible or at least Obama might have felt his ability to take them on as being negligible.
Rather than being a tool of any system, it can be seen that Obama chose his own path. It was not chosen for him.