President Obama likes to invoke the Navy SEAL operation that killed Osama bin Laden — as he did during his touch-all-the-bases speech in Charlotte Thursday night.
That’s understandable; the perilous military mission was brilliantly executed — as was bin Laden, of course.
But that feather in Obama’s cap is getting ragged from being plucked out for show-and-tell — so often, in fact, that it draws attention to the reality that beyond bin Laden, Obama’s foreign-policy record is an embarrassment.
We understand that the principal issue driving the 2012 campaign is the economy — but that doesn’t make a sound foreign policy any less critical.
So no wonder Team Obama took a shot in Charlotte at papering over just how threadbare that record is.
“Four years ago, I promised to end the war in Iraq,” Obama said. He withdrew US troops as promised — without effecting a status-of-forces agreement that would’ve left a stabilizing US presence.
The precipitous pullout has only spelled insecurity for Iraqis and a weakening of American influence in the whole Mideast.
That vacuum is now being filled by Iran, Iraq’s new patron, which has been flying planeloads of troops and weapons into Syria through Iraqi airspace to help prop up the tyrannical regime of Bashar al-Assad, Iran’s sole Arab ally.
Obama has shown no resolve in staring down the Assad regime, which has massacred more than 26,000 people since anti-regime protests began last March.
Syria wasn’t mentioned in Obama’s speech, it goes without saying. But foreign leaders notice such silence — Iran is certainly listening, and can only have been reassured by Obama’s impotence.
The ayatollahs threaten to incinerate Israel (and the Mideast along with it) when they acquire nuclear weapons — which, if left unmolested, they soon will.
To this challenge, stated repeatedly by the region’s ascending power, Obama has no answer. Indeed, last year he actually opposed sanctions that passed the Senate 100-0.
As for the so-called “Arab Spring,” the White House is watching without action or answers as the Mideast falls into the grip of radical Islamists.
Hovering above the whole region is Russia, where Obama’s reset of relations has only upset the balance of power.
Dangerously so — the White House has made clear it is unwilling to act abroad without the approval of the UN Security Council, meaning permanent council members (like Russia and China) have veto power over many American diplomatic initiatives.
This is a recipe for disaster, but it is the balance of power Obama has engineered and that he would maintain throughout a second term.
Bin Laden is dead, but the tyrants of the world do not rest — and do not care.
Apparently, neither does Obama.