Worse than Jimmy Carter
by Nile Gardiner
04/29/2009
It is hard to think of a U.S. president who has done more to weaken his country on the world stage in such a short period of time -- and that includes the hapless Jimmy Carter. President Obama’s first 100 days as a world leader have been an overwhelming failure, a damaging mix of diplomatic gaffes and humiliating apologies for America’s past, combined with a naïve outreach to American-hating tyrants and despots, as well as an overwhelming indifference towards traditional allies, including Britain.
While the Anglo-American Special Relationship has been downgraded to a “special partnership”, the new president has been busy sending polite video messages to the Mullahs of Tehran, bowing to the King of Saudi Arabia, and having a cuddly chat with Venezuelan thug Hugo Chavez. In little over three months, the fledgling president has also succeeded in jettisoning the War on Terror, alienating America’s intelligence services with the selective release of interrogation memos, while undercutting the armed forces with a series of threatened defence cuts.
There have been moments when the new administration has shown some backbone – the decision to withdraw from the farcical UN Durban Review Conference, the ordering of missile strikes against al-Qaeda and Taliban positions inside Pakistan, the deployment of 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, for example. But these have been rare exceptions to an overall foreign policy that has projected weakness, indifference and even incompetence, unbefitting of the most powerful nation on the face of the earth.
And what has Washington gained in return for its new approach? More sneering condescension from ...
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