President Obama came into the office 10 months ago with virtually zero foreign policy experience, but with an expectation that he could staff his administration with smart people who specialized in the field. In a moment of supreme over-confidence, he announced in a Cairo speech that he was going to “re-engage the Muslim world in a way that would respect their “culture”, while at the same time “ work to solve the Israeli/Arab conflict” once and for all. This was his stated foreign policy priority during his first term. While it’s only been 10 months, let’s take an inventory of his accomplishments so far:
1) He set a September 30th deadline for Iran to end their nuclear efforts “or else” the US would use harsh measures. We are in November and Iran is still thumbing their nose at the world and Obama still making empty threats. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton, trying to assure Israeli’s fears, said “if Iran bombed Israel the US would retaliate” – which only served to make Israelis less secure with her inference that the US would allow Iran to have the bomb and that containment was now the goal.
2) Obama, true to his campaign promise, has pulled most US troops out of harm’s way in Iraq, and the predicted massacre of the Iraqi forces began immediately. This didn’t help US credibility in the eyes of many of our dwindling allies in the Middle East.
3) During the campaign President Obama described Afghanistan as “the good war” because that is where Al Quada is based. Eight weeks ago, our military commander in the field asked for 40,000 more troops, and Obama is still trying to decide whether to add more troops - despite the fact that this month our troops are dying there at a record pace. President Obama’s “alternative strategy” is to reduce the US forces in Afghanistan and bribe the Taliban into working with the weak Afghanistan army. Analysts on the other side of this argument suggest that the money will end up financing the Taliban war against US forces in Afghanistan because there is no evidence that you can bribe someone who is fighting for a religious ideology. Plus, what happens when you stop paying them, or someone pays them more?
4) President Obama demanded that the Israeli government stop ALL expansion of existing Israeli cities around Jerusalem that are in the disputed territories, even though previous negotiations between previous US governments, as well as with Palestinian negotiators have always allowed for natural growth in these areas. This reversal of US policy not only served to alienate and create a sense of betrayal among the Israeli public towards the US and Obama, but also served to cause the Palestinians to backtrack on previous concessions and harden their positions regarding any further negotiations. Quite predictably, the Israelis have hardened their positions in retaliation for what they see as both an American and Palestinian conspiracy to change the terms of the negotiations. Recent Israeli polls indicate that 80% of Israelis don’t trust President Obama.
5) In March, 2009 the Obama administration suggested to Russia that the US would pull its missile-defense plan in Europe in exchange for Russia more aggressively joining an international effort to stop Iran’s nuclear program and isolate Iran. In September 2009, Obama went ahead and scraped the missile plan and go nothing in return from Russia on Iran, which was interpreted by the international community as a complete US capitulation to Russian demands.
The net result of 10 months of US backtracking, backstabbing and withdrawals is that Muslim extremists all over the Middle East are emboldened and motivated like they have never been since Ayatollah Khomeini took over in Iran in 1979. All of a sudden they are now focusing on taking on the government of nuclear armed Afghanistan
I will be the first to say that the former Bush administration made some pretty big mistakes, but at the rate Obama’s “foreign policy experts” are “recalibrating US foreign policy” around the world, they are looking more like rank amateurs who have no concept of the consequences of their meddling in foreign policy.
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