Give President Obama a round of applause.
He seems to be doing a good job on at least one front in the War on Terror: spying. And we’re not being sarcastic.
True, we don’t often applaud Obama’s policies, especially when it comes to fighting terrorists.
But when so many foreign leaders are whining about US National Security Agency surveillance, it suggests the president must be doing something right.
Complaints such as those German Chancellor Angela Merkel reportedly raised in a “furious” call to the White House were sparked by disclosures about NSA data collection targeting perhaps the leaders themselves. Other allies angry over US spying include France, Mexico and Brazil.
But what did these leaders expect? At the Brandenburg Gate during the 2008 campaign, Obama promised a cheering crowd he represented a new era of “allies who will listen to each other.”
Truth is, some of President Obama’s best policies have come from not keeping his promises, such as the one to close down Guantanamo.
Though we do wish Obama had kept his vows to bolster alliances. In the Mideast right now, for example, Jordan, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and (most notably) Saudi Arabia have all signaled their displeasure with a US foreign policy they rightly sense is waffling over the key threats to the region: Iran and Syria.
So let’s put the “outrage” over American spying in context. World leaders understand that even allies have spies in each other’s countries. Americans should be glad to learn Obama uses them, too.