When an American president evidently dislikes our national heritage, distrusts capitalism and despises Israel, we might expect a troubled foreign policy. But the consistently naïve, occasionally vicious and thoroughly incompetent set of confused initiatives masquerading as a foreign policy under this administration amount to a catastrophe.
It takes a sort of genius to get the entire world completely wrong.
The simplest way to critique the Obama administration’s inept overseas efforts is just to list the failures. Set aside the tawdry efforts of this timid president to portray himself as the bold commander-in-chief who all but dispatched bin Laden with his bare hands (were the SEALs even there?). There’s enough of a mess without that stolen valor:
Iran: We’ve spent four years talking. Tehran’s spent four years pursuing nuclear weapons. When brave Iranians challenged their oppressors in the street, begging for “hope and change,” our president cowered in silence, protecting his cherished “strategy” of negotiations with a regime that kills Americans and wants all Israelis dead. The ayatollahs’ thugs crushed the uprising.
Predictably, negotiations failed. Now we’re told that sanctions are the answer. But there’s zero chance that Iran’s leaders will abandon their nuke program. If they did, their domestic authority would collapse. (I believe that this administration has privately accepted that Iran will get nukes.)
Israel: An election-eve military exercise can’t compensate for four years of disdain. As our president made clear in his iniquitous Cairo speech, he regards Israelis and Palestinian terrorists as, at best, morally equivalent. Obama deems Israel not an ally, but a nuisance. Want to understand this man’s antipathy to Israel? Study the sermons of the president’s old Chicago pastor, which mirror the Muslim Brotherhood’s view of the world.
Libya: While the Bush administration failed to plan for a post-Saddam Iraq, the Obama gang refused to plan for a post-Khadafy Libya. Turning the situation over to leftists in the State Department — who prefer local thugs to US Marines — Obama slighted the secular elements who reflect at least some of our values. Now al Qaeda’s embedded in a country where it never had a presence. And four Americans are dead.
Egypt: Our president has shown more understanding toward the Muslim Brotherhood now ruling Egypt than toward Israel’s truly democratic government and Prime Minister Netanyahu. And we’re still subsidizing the Egyptian military.
Syria: Dithering yet again, this Hamlet of a president (forever asking “To be, or not to be?”) neglected the secular freedom fighters struggling against a regime that killed Americans with its support for terrorists. The consequence? Secular freedom fighters are starved of arms, while the administration condones the supply of weapons to Islamist extremists by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
This is tragic. Those “allies” don’t want a democratic Syria that observes basic rights for women. They want post-Assad Syria to look like a down-market Saudi Arabia. And our president’s content to let it happen.
The operative word in “lead from behind” is “behind.”
Iraq: We won, Obama surrendered. After all the blood and treasure expended to achieve victory, the administration faked efforts to get a Status of Forces Agreement (which would’ve allowed a few thousand US troops to stay as a stabilizing force), but honored at least one campaign promise to the left: He got us out of Iraq. Now Iran’s in. Historians will regard this as a disaster of the first order.
Afghanistan: With stunning hypocrisy, the man who campaigned claiming he was going to “fix” Afghanistan and who launched a surge that only caused more carnage is now on the campaign trail congratulating himself for ending the surge he ordered. This is cynicism as an art form.
Pakistan: The Pakistanis hid bin Laden, and Obama lets them hide from responsibility. They help the Taliban kill our troops; our president continues to send them billions. They curse us publicly, and we insist they’re allies. And Obama never targets the senior Taliban leadership, because they’re under Pakistan’s protection.
Russia: What are we to make of a president who tells his Russian counterpart off-mike to wait until after the election and then he’ll offer Moscow better deals? The ballyhooed “re-set” hasn’t stopped strongman Vladimir Putin from stripping off the last rags of democracy (while our president stays mum); from invading our ally, Georgia; from blocking our every move at the United Nations, or from jailing the bold young women from Pussy Riot (the best name for a rock band since The Grateful Dead).
This president so desperately wanted a treaty with Moscow he could wave to declare peace in our time that he agreed to a strategic-arms-reduction deal in which we gave up vital dual-use weapons, while the Russians kicked in junk they’d marked for the scrap heap. Bewilderingly, this administration measured our might solely against that of decrepit Russia, despite the proliferation of global threats.
China: In 1492, Columbus discovered America. In the election season of 2012, Obama discovered China. After exporting millions of jobs, ignoring massive human-rights abuses and refusing to address Beijing’s currency manipulation, our president decided a month ago that China may be cheating us. And no, pursuing minor trade cases for political cronies doesn’t count as standing up for America.
Latin America: Utterly ignored. Leftist demagogues run rampant and drug violence on our borders resembles a civil war, but Hispanics living south of Miami don’t vote.
Europe,
whose economic incompetence hampers our recovery: Not worth a mention from the president.
Africa: Bush reached out, Obama stepped back.
Al Qaeda: Vanquished, done, finished. Except that, over the past four years, it’s spread to more countries than ever before. And those drone attacks? Nice, but not enough. Our enemies need to be pursued with all of our resources, not just politically safe technology. Oh, and those drones were ordered under Bush, Mr. President.
We haven’t even gotten to the cover-ups of the Benghazi debacle.
Obama makes Jimmy Carter look like the Incredible Hulk, LBJ look like a man of flawless integrity and Bill Clinton look like Henry Kissinger. But give the guy credit: At least he kept his promise to close Guantanamo.
Ralph Peters is Fox News’ Strategic Analyst and the author of the recent bestseller “Cain at Gettysburg.”