Posted on 07/16/2013 3:30:55 AM PDT by Kaslin
Foreign policy is hard. That's a lesson Barack Obama has been learning throughout his presidency. The world is not responding as he expected.
It looks simpler from the outside. Promise to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, proclaim yourself the tribune of hope and change, receive the adulation of giant crowds in Europe and accept the Nobel Peace Prize.
Obama entered office, as many presidents have, with the assumption that his predecessor's policies were wrongheaded and could readily be reversed.
Because he didn't look like other presidents, in his phrase, he believed he could change the attitudes unfriendly leaders had towards America and have special appeal to Muslims.
This has proved to be naive. Many, if not most Americans, including those who didn't vote for Obama, believe that the election of a black president was a step forward in American history.
But it doesn't have that resonance in much of the rest of the world. Obama went to Cairo in early June 2009 to deliver a speech proclaiming a "new beginning" of the relationship between America and the Arab and Muslim worlds.
Later that month he showed icy indifference to the Green Movement protestors in Iran, presumably hoping that he could still change the attitude of the mullah regime toward America by his willingness to engage in direct negotiations. His expectations were in vain. The mullahs showed they were interested not in talking but in getting nuclear weapons.
And polls show that attitudes in many Arab and Muslim countries are now more negative to America than they were when George W. Bush was president.
Obama's multiple responses to the Arab Spring uprisings and their aftermath have been part of the problem.
Tunisia, the first, presented few problems. In Libya he was content to, as one aide put it, "lead from behind."
This has resulted in the chaos and disorder that resulted in the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi. Obama retired to the White House family quarters while the attack was going on and jetted off the next day to a campaign event in Las Vegas.
Egypt is the largest Arab nation by far and one critical to U.S. interests. Under Hosni Mubarak, it remained at peace -- though it was a cold peace -- with Israel. It controls traffic and therefore the flow of oil through the Suez Canal.
When protests broke out against Mubarak in January 2011, Obama originally said Mubarak's time had not passed, then a month later said he must leave. When he did, Obama urged Egyptian military leaders, with whom the U.S. military has close ties, to push toward elections.
Those resulted in a narrow victory in June 2012 for the one organized political force in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood. President Mohammed Morsi then put in a new constitution and put the military on a short leash.
When vast numbers started protesting against Morsi last month, U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson supported him. But Obama acquiesced in his ouster and called for elections soon.
The result is that Obama, as Kori Schake wrote in foreignpolicy.com, "has achieved the hat trick of alienating all the factions in Egypt."
He has probably done so in Syria as well. There, he predicted that Bashir Assad would be quickly ousted, and when he wasn't, said he must go. But he denied the Syrian rebels military aid until last month.
Unfortunately, the rebels seem weaker and more dominated by jihadists than they were two years ago.
Now it must be said that it is hard to anticipate how these protests and rebellions would turn out. Most outside observers probably expected Assad to be ousted quickly, as other leaders believed.
But it can also be said that Obama entered office with misperceptions that proved damaging. His assumption that he would be hailed in Cairo in 2009 as he had been in Berlin in 2008 was always unrealistic.
As is his apparent assumption that everything will be fine if the United States just withdrew, as our military did in Iraq when Obama failed to negotiate a status of forces agreement in Iraq.
Things have not turned out fine there, or in Libya, Egypt, and Syria. And Iran gets closer to having nuclear weapons every day.
Military intervention can be costly. But so can withdrawing and leading, hesitantly, from behind.
President Obama is a president in training. He was not up to the job. Now his only goal is the loot the treasury—reward his friends and keep the Progressive/Democrats in power for generations. But, his weakness in foreign policy and his ignorence of business will steer the nation into harms way. It is only with luck we have kept out of a major war.
It really sucks to get gored with the Unicorn;s Horn
The emperor has no clothes !!!
Who knew ?.../ S
His goal WAS to "loot the treasury—reward his friends and keep the Progressive/Democrats in power for generations." and he's right on target...............
Your comment assumes he is trainable. I have to respectfully disagree.
Many things are hard when you don’t have a clue as to what you are doing.
Experience , Expertise, Common Sense and taking good advice sometime help. Obama has none of these things. So certainly it is hard. His only experience is with Community organizing a people with a chip on their shoulder.
He knows nothing of our system of Government ,his mentor Frank Davis only taught him Marxism and Communism. He gets his advice from Valerie Jarrett who is a racist of the first water, and knows nothing of foreign policy.
No training will work on an indoctrinated communist muslim... none.
Sending homosexual ambassadors to Christian countries doesn’t work, either.
I mean, really, you have to try really hard to pi$$ off the Dominican Republic. What a bunch of Leftist ‘juniors’ we have in place.
Yet our party cowers in the corner and is afraid to challenge him. Wusses.
This is the first I've heard regarding his whereabouts during the attack.
-——the election of a black president was a step forward ——
The Obama election was a step, but not forward. To even consider such a thought is racist.
When comparing the death of the the hate criminal Travon Martin to the scores of similar shooting deaths in Chicago, it is apparent that Obama’s only real life experience was a failure.
The community he organized is literally killing its self. A death of a black felon in Florida pales when considered against the death upon death upon death of black street thugs in Chicago.
There is no justice in America until Obama is gone
Thanks Kaslin.
True.
I’m no fan of Obama but he’s not doing much better or worse than any other US president would amidst the turmoil of the Arab uprisings.
What was he supposed to do in Egypt? Tell the army to massacre Tahrir Squade in Feb 2011? His policy has been to try to stay on the good-side of all parties, even though this eventally upset them all.
In Syria he wisely kept the US out of another Sunni-Shia catfight (we don’t need another Iraq disaster, thanks), and now its a fight between Iranian-backed Shiites and Al-Qaeda-backed Sunnis. Even without AQ involvement, even the moderate Sunnis were always going to support an “Islamic government.” Is it in the USA’s interest to support such a thing? Is it worth American blood and treasure?
The US cannot micromanage the Middle East, and has no business in trying to anyway.
The region is a backwards, hopelessly divided place with an alien culture and an alien religion. The US needs to pull out, cut ties with everyone and start fixing things at home.
Israel can look after itself.
Since Jul 16, 2013
You signed up yesterday to post this?
TROLL ALERT
Calling the Kitty
Remember when Biden said the presidency is not a training session? Obviously he still hasn’t been trained after 41/2 years
My pleasure
Sorry, what’s wrong with what I posted?
Is there something horrible about looking after one’s own nation before seeking to police a chaotic region thousands of miles from home?
Perhaps you can explain what’s wrong with this sentiment.
Ah, now I see what your problem is.
Your profile has a fawning picture of George W Bush - your favorite president. The know-nothing who scared America into Iraq with tales of mushroom clouds and threw away 4,400+ Americans and several TRILLION dollars on some half-baked nation-building experiment in a sectarian powder-keg that no one in the administration bothered to read up on beforehand.
No wonder you’d object to me calling that a disaster.
Because if that was a disaster then it calls into question the competence of those who led us into it, no?
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