| | | It is astonishing to glance over the foreign policy errors made by the Obama administration since 2009.
The deliberate alienation of the UK. Thanks to direct and malicious efforts made by President Obama personally (the Churchill bust, Region 1 DVDs), the oldest and most fruitful alliance of the modern age entered into its frostiest period since the Civil War... in the midst of a civilizational conflict in which the Anglosphere comprised the sole serious opposition.
The deliberate undermining of Israel. Again, a loyal and steady ally was cut off for no rational reason. In this case, a country to which the U.S., as the chief representative of the West, owes an unquestionable moral debt. I guess O was listening to all those Jeremiah Wright sermons after all.
The dismissal of India. Though generally overlooked, this marks a crucial blow against a future alliance promising profound benefits. The Bush administration put particular effort into widening relations with Asia’s largest democracy. Obama allowed this to collapse, evidently as an insult directed at George W. Bush.
The abandonment of Africa. Again, Bush did yeoman’s work in reviving American involvement in Africa, an effort that generated praise even from his political enemies. As with India, our first African-heritage president dropped this without even a second glance.
A back of the hand to Central Europe. Both Poland (the ABM system) and the Czech Republic (Early warning and control for the same system) had the rug pulled out from under them by Obama. Not a smart way to treat our most steady allies on the continent.
The Russian “reset,” A goofy, ill-informed, and badly-executed reversal of post Cold War policy evidently designed to assure the Russians that we feel bad about 1989 and won’t do it again. Repaid with invasions of Georgia and Ukraine.
The North African apocalypse. Someday, somebody is going to drill down to the bottom of this episode and reveal exactly what was going on; contemporary media is too busy attacking the tea parties. It appears that this was the result of a scheme to “liberate” the Mediterranean littoral states, a mixture of U.S. allies and neutralized dictatorships, and transform them into mass democracies under the rubric of the “Arab Spring.” The “democrats” all seemed to be associates of the Moslem Brotherhood and Al Qaeda, the liberation a cataclysm that threatened to spread across the Islamic world. Obama, as is his custom, dropped all involvement and walked away. Thank Allah for the Egyptians.
The demolition of Syria. A direct result of the “Arab Spring” strategy, the Syrian collapse piled one humiliation after another on the administration in the form of Benghazi and arms for al Qaeda. Almost unnoticed, the people of Syria are suffering a humanitarian catastrophe fully the equivalent of Rwanda and the Balkans in the 90s. Obama is handling it with same dynamism that Clinton did back then.
The failure to back the “Green Revolution” in Iran. This is something of a mystery -- why undercut an uprising that promised to remove a active threat in the form of theocratic Iran and then two years later embark on something as foolish as the Arab Spring? Perhaps Valerie Jarrett’s future memoirs will enlighten us.
Refusal to address the Iranian nuclear threat. See above.
The collapse of Iraq. This is undoubtedly another case where Obama was intent on throwing away a Bush success. Fumbling the Status of Forces agreement and dropping all attempts to influence the Maliki government, the administration stood aloof while Noor al-Maliki, essentially a primitive tribal leader in a fancy suit, deliberately trashed the laboriously (not to mention bloodily) established postwar status quo. The smartest man of his epoch somehow couldn’t foresee how this was going to work out.
The China Seas confrontation. The administration has allowed the Chinese to get away with their “blue territory” scam at direct cost to our closest allies in the region with minimal response. I guess that “swing toward the Pacific” is still in mid-motion.
The rape of Ukraine. The sole reason Putin hasn’t seized the rest of Ukraine must be that he can’t believe what he’s being allowed to get away with. For all the reaction from the White House, he could reoccupy Ukraine, the Asian republics, Alaska, and then move on to Canada with no serious worries. |
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