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The collapse of the president’s foreign policy is reaching critical mass. The head of the Council of Foreign Relations, and even Maureen Dowd have seen enough. But, we will start with our regulars first. Here’s Jonathan Tobin posting on the man who has learned nothing.
… President Obama arrived in the White House in 2009 determined not to repeat his predecessor’s mistakes. But as with every general who sought to win the next war with the winning strategies employed in the last one, he has now a record of colossal miscalculations of his own to defend.
History will judge the rights and wrongs of the Iraq debate and right now it looks as if those who wished to stay out have the better argument–though that is as much the result of Obama’s failure to follow up on the victories won in the 2007 surge than the inherent fault of the original plan. But being right on Iraq, if indeed he really was correct, tells us nothing about what the best course of action is on Syria, Iran, or Ukraine. It should be remembered that George W. Bush re-evaluated his Iraq strategy after 2006 and his course correction enabled him to hand off a conflict to Obama that had been largely won.
Obama remains forever locked in a time warp labeled 2008. Making a blunder is one thing but, as the president has demonstrated, not having the grace or the wit to recognize that you’ve made a mistake is far worse. Based on today’s performance and the certain prospects of future humiliations at the hands of Putin, Assad, and Iran’s ayatollahs, Barack Obama will go down in history as the president who learned nothing.
Craig Pirrong is next.
… Obama is the thinnest skinned president ever. And his response has the opposite effect of what he intended: it lends credence to the criticism. It is also classic Obama. Dishonest and partisan. Blaming his political opponents or his long-departed predecessors for his failures. Total war against an army of straw men.
No one is seriously arguing for military involvement in Ukraine. But they-we, for I am included-are arguing for far more robust economic measures. Funny Obama totally ignores that. He knocks down arguments no one makes and ignores the ones they do.
That’s our Obama.
Henry, or someone else, should have demanded that Obama name one serious figure advocating a replay of Iraq in Ukraine. One.
The record speaks for itself. Obama’s foreign policy is a concatenation of clusterf*cks. Syria. Ukraine. Israel-Palestine.
Speaking of the last issue. Kerry was quoted making a remark saying that if it continues on its present course, Israel will turn into an apartheid state. He made these remarks in front of Russians. Who duly leaked them.
Why would he say anything with any Russian in earshot, especially in the aftermath of the “f*ck the EU” leak fiasco?
With such clueless morons in charge, no wonder US credibility and influence is imploding. But if you challenge Obama on the implosion, he explodes.
This is where we are, and it is not a good place to be.
Jennifer Rubin calls it the “worst foreign policy team ever”. And she was just talking about barry, hagel, and kerry. Don’t forget ben rhodes and susan rice.
We’ve made the point that President Obama, like any president, is ultimately responsible for his foreign policy. This is especially true in this administration because virtually all policy-making (or policy-avoidance) is centered in the Oval Office. But this does not mean the president’s advisers are immune from criticism. To the contrary, the Obama national security team is arguably the worst in history.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is widely disparaged on the Hill and by national security insiders. His statement in his confirmation hearing that he wouldn’t be making policy turns out to be true.
Then there is Secretary of State John F. Kerry, who previously suggested an intifada would occur and the boycott movement would intensify if Israel did not make peace. He has struck again, suggesting Israel would become an “apartheid state” if it didn’t make peace. This outrageous comment was flawed in two respects. …
Paul Mirengoff posts on the “apartheid” comment.
… Kerry has always been prone to over-the-top expression and imagery. If he hadn’t compared American servicemen in Vietnam to “the Army of Genghis Khan,” he might have been elected president.
But Kerry craved attention when he returned from Vietnam and he still thirsts for it. Above all, I believe, he wants that Nobel Peace Prize. As he feels it slipping away, his rhetoric becomes increasingly desperate.
But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe his utterances are simply the product of a third-rate intellect.
Now Richard Haass of the Council of Foreign Relations.
American foreign policy is in troubling disarray. The result is unwelcome news for the world, which largely depends upon the United States to promote order in the absence of any other country able and willing to do so. And it is bad for the U.S., which cannot insulate itself from the world.
The concept that should inform American foreign policy is one that the Obama administration proposed in its first term: the pivot or rebalancing toward Asia, with decreasing emphasis on the Middle East. What has been missing is the commitment and discipline to implement this change in policy. …
… The default U.S. policy option in the Middle East seems to be regime change, consisting of repeated calls for authoritarian leaders to leave power. First it was Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, then Moammar Gadhafi in Libya, followed by Bashar Assad in Syria.
Yet history shows that ousting leaders can be difficult, and even when it is not, it can be extremely hard to bring about a stable, alternative authority that is better for American preferences. The result is that the U.S. often finds itself with an uncomfortable choice: Either it must back off its declared goals, which makes America look weak and encourages widespread defiance, or it has to make good on its aims, which requires enormous investments in blood, treasure and time.
The Obama administration has largely opted for the former, i.e., feckless approach. The most egregious case is Syria, where the president and others declared that “Assad must go” only to do little to bring about his departure. Military support of opposition elements judged to be acceptable has been minimal. Worse, President Obama avoided using force in the wake of clear chemical-weapons use by the Syrian government, a decision that raised doubts far and wide about American dependability and damaged what little confidence and potential the non-jihadist opposition possessed. …
Finally, Maureen Dowd tells him to stop whining.
… An American president should never say, as you did Monday in Manila when you got frustrated in a press conference with the Philippine president: “You hit singles; you hit doubles. Every once in a while, we may be able to hit a home run.”
Especially now that we have this scary World War III vibe with the Russians, we expect the president, especially one who ran as Babe Ruth, to hit home runs.
In the immortal words of Earl Weaver, the Hall of Famer who managed the Baltimore Orioles: “The key to winning baseball games is pitching, fundamentals, and three-run homers.” A singles hitter doesn’t scare anybody.
It doesn’t feel like leadership. It doesn’t feel like you’re in command of your world.
How can we accept these reduced expectations and truculent passivity from the man who offered himself up as the moral beacon of the world, even before he was elected?
As Leon Wieseltier wrote in the latest New Republic, oppressed and threatened swaths of the world are jittery and despairing “because the United States seems no longer reliable in emergencies, which it prefers to meet with meals ready to eat.”
The Times’s Mark Landler, who traveled with the president on his Asia trip, reported that Obama will try to regain the offensive, including a graduation address at West Point putting his foreign policy in context.
Mr. President, don’t you know that we’re speeched out? It’s not what we need right now.
You should take a lesson from Adam Silver, a nerdy technocrat who, in his first big encounter with a crazed tyrant, managed to make the job of N.B.A. commissioner seem much more powerful than that of president of the United States.
Silver took the gutsy move of banning cretinous Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling for life, after many people speculated that there was little the N.B.A. chief could do except cave. But Silver realized that even if Sterling tries to fight him in court (and wins) he will look good because he stood up for what was right. …