Why is President Barack Hussein Obama so weak and dysfunctional on foreign policy? While there are a great many items since he took office we could cite, let's examine just a few of the more recent items...
*For all his blather about being 'disturbed' by the Iranian regime's violence towards its own people and not being 'reconciled to a nuclear Iran', Obama is doing absolutely nothing at all to prevent Iran from developing nukes. As a matter of fact he is going to block the imposition of another round of already agreed to tougher financial sanctions against Iran at next week's G8 summit.
*The Assad regime in Syria is a particularly vile fascist dictatorship. It's a firm ally of Iran and a major sponsor and enabler of terrorism. Assad's regime has been directly implicated by a UN tribunal in the murder of a number of Lebanese politicians including ex-Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and was caught with an illegal clandestine North Korean nuclear reactor hidden away in the Syrian desert that the Israelis destroyed. Obama's response to this rogue state has been to re-open diplomatic relations and relax US sanctions against Syria.
* En route to his summit with Putin and Medvedev, Obama has already essentially forgiven Russia for invading Georgia and has given the Russians reason to believe that he's prepared to engage in a 'grand bargain' that would break America's pledged word by failing to follow through on agreements the Bush Administration signed for missile defense bases and military aid in Poland and the Czech Republic as well as ending support for the Ukraine and the Baltic states in exchange for a 'reset' of relations that would supposedly result in Russian assistance on Iran and in allowing supplies to go through Russian territory to Afghanistan.
* In Honduras, the Obama Administration has sided with Latin American Dictators like Chavez and Castro in demanding the re-instatement of Chavez ally and leftist dictator Manuel Zelaya after he was impeached by the Honduran congress ( including his own party) after defying the country's Supreme Court and attempting to hold an illegal referendum to make himself 'president-for-life'.
To understand where the weakness evidenced by Obama in foreign policy, it's necessary to look at Obama's ideology and his openly expressed goals.This is not a president who places a priority on foreign affairs, with the exception of attempting to appease the Muslim world, distance the US from its traditional allies and bludgeon Israel into accepting the Saudi 'peace' ultimatum
Barack Obama is a domestic policy guy and at his core, an anti-military isolationist like most Leftists. And like most Leftists, he resonates to their common view of America as an imperialist power that needs to be taken down a peg, and rejects the image of American exceptionalism.
His main priority is not a strong foreign policy but in domestically establishing a socialist welfare state where national sovereignty is diminished in favor of the international order, the private sector is either severely diminished or controlled by government, and enough of the American people are desperate and dependent on government for a paycheck, health care or other entitlements to ensure political dominance for himself and the Democrats for years to come.
In that context, disengagement from foreign affairs and military cutbacks are seen as a means to an end, freeing up money, energy and space for Obama's domestic agenda.
To get us out of the Middle East, he's prepared to remove US forces from the region, acquiesce to a nuclear armed Iran and essentially torpedo the long standing alliance between America and Israel.
To get America out of Europe, he's prepared to allow Russia a free hand with the old Soviet Empire - what the Russians refer to as Russia's 'near abroad'- and allow the Russians to blackmail Europe with its control of energy.
In East Asia, he is obviously prepared to let China and North Korea dominate the region, or at least not to impede them in any direct way.Japan,another long standing US ally, can expect to have to look to its own defenses without any significant American backup.
This new policy can be seen even in Afghanistan. Obama made a lot of noise during the campaign about Afghanistan. He was going mend relations with our allies, and it would be easy for him get our NATO allies to send more combat troops there. And he was going to pull American troops out of Iraq to go to the 'real war'....
if you remember, he was going to invade Pakistan with a couple of brigades and made much of the fact that he was going to 'follow bin-Laden to the ends of the earth" unlike Bush "who took his eye off the ball".
Remember all that?
Of course none of this happened. As I predicted, aside from undermining Musharraf, an American ally, Obama's blather about something he obviously knew diddly squat about was a certain way to ensure that our European allies did nothing in the way of pitching in - after all, why should they send more troops if the Americans were going to provide manpower for Afghanistan from Iraq? Once Obama got in, they essentially dealt themselves out. And as for Pakistan, somebody finally convinced the Chosen One to look at a map, realize Afghanistan is landlocked and that ticking the Pakistanis off by invading their territory would not only involve him in yet another war he didn't want but cause Pakistan to choke off the 75% of supplies to Afghanistan that comes via the port of Karachi and into Afghanistan through the Torkham Pass.
Remember, Obama's primary goal is to pull US forces out of the Muslim world, which is a large part of what al-Qaeda wanted in the first place. So our policy now by the admission of Obama's own commander, Brig. Gen. Lawrence D. Nicholson is not to go on the offensive and kill our enemies but to win hearts and minds, drink tea, eat goat and attempt to stabilize the situation enough so we can say our mission is over and skedaddle.
To try and ensure this, Obama was willing to make deals with the Russians to get them to allow transport of supplies for Afghanistan through Russian territory and for Russia give Kyrgyzstan permission to re-rent the Manas air base to us. And Obama will continue to walk lightly with Iran and try to bargain with the mullahs to keep Iran's interference and arming of insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan to a minimum until we're safely out.
Given the political fallout that might occur here at home from a precipitous pull out, both Putin and the Mullahs have something Obama wants very much.
The real question, Afghanistan aside, is whether retreating from various points of global conflict and ceding those areas to countries that are not exactly our friends will help us or hurt us in the long run. I hope I'm mistaken, but I have the feeling it's going to cost us a great deal in blood and treasure to find out.
6 comments:
FF,
You said
"The real question, Afghanistan aside, is whether retreating from various points of global conflict and ceding those areas to countries that are not exactly our friends will help us or hurt us in the long run"
That's a rhetorical question, right?
Apparently not for Obama!
I have this argument with my wife. I argue that he's not weak but a committed ideologue. Even if he believes that the result weakens the USA, he wouldn't necessarily consider that a bad result.
Someone who was trying to project American power but did it stupidly would be weak. I don't know if I consider Obama weak.
Or do you think that I'm just splitting hairs?
while i was sitting here thinking about this essay, soccer dad beat me to the punch.
except i don't argue with soccer dad's wife.
as i see it, hussein believes it is in our best interest to align ourselves with russia, syria, and venezueala.
they are, after all, run by despots.
just like the USA, right?
so we/they should be allies.
hussein is a communist, so why should we not?
i just think that is where he sees the US going.
it doesn't matter if that means the country goes down the tube. then and only then will america achieve greatness.
i.e., greatness = nothing = banana republic = the country formerly known as the united states of america
Hi SD,
You argue with Mrs. SD??? Who wins?(lol!)
Are you splitting hairs? Sorta, kinda.Being an ideologue and being weak are not necessarily exclusive to each other.
Weakness, like strength, is a perception the way I see it.
Obama is definitely perceived as weak in the judgment of our adversaries and allies.
Weakness is also part of character. And character, to paraphrase Plutarch, is destiny. In our president, we have a man noted setting a record for voting present in the Senate, someone who makes his moves almost entirely based on his own self-advancement and aggrandizement rather than any principle or conviction, a man who's actual accomplishments and ideas have to be hidden by a docile media in order to preserve him as a figurehead. What else is that but a definition of weakness?
Now, I agree with you,Obama is indeed an ideologue -
( "Barack Obama is a domestic policy guy and at his core, an anti-military isolationist like most Leftists. And like most Leftists, he resonates to their common view of America as an imperialist power that needs to be taken down a peg, and rejects the image of American exceptionalism.")
- so you're correct about that.But it doesn't mean he isn't weak.
M'kay?
Regards,
Rob
Ahh, Louie...
The thing to understand about BHO is that his primary concern is his OWN best interest, the interst of his backers behind the scenes, and the interests of his political allies - in that order.
Anything he does is designed with those interests in mind, whatever rhetoric might be used to dress it up about it being for 'the good of the country.'
I have long felt that to a degree, BHO is a sociopath, in the classic psychological sense...as a reaction to his childhood, being essentially abandoned by both Mom and Dad. He thus has a huge chip on his shoulder.
He is not so much a committed communist so much as a committed narcissist.
And yes, Louie, America will survive him. Although whether it will be in the form of a democratic republic I'm not sure.
Regards,
Rob
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