1/13/2012

Obama's Foreign Policy Shambles - Looking Good For 2012

Ironically Obama will go into Presidential debates claiming to have 'destroyed the AQ leadership' and be believed by the US electorate. 'Ending' the war in Iraq and helping the Afghan 'democrats' will be thrown into the mix. But he won't mention the real picture, which is one of devastating failure:
The Failed Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Obama arrived in office with the ambition to create a Palestinian state within two years. But his diplomacy was based on a twofold misunderstanding: that the key to successful negotiations was forcing Israel to stop all settlement construction – and that the United States had the leverage to make that happen. Observers of the Mideast “peace process” shook their heads in wonderment as what at first appeared to be a beginners error evolved into a two-year standoff between Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu. There was only one possible explanation for this persistence in futility: The president himself was fixed on it.
Obama’s next big project was global nuclear arms control – an initiative so impressive to Swedes that it won him the Nobel Peace Prize before he could act on it. The results are paltry.
The New Start nuclear arms agreement with Russia merely ratifies warhead reductions already under way in Russia, while imposing a modest cut on the U.S. arsenal. More ambitious multilateral initiatives by Obama – to control nuclear materials, for example – have made little progress, despite an elaborate summit the president hosted in 2010.
But the most dangerous proliferation threats emanate from countries that don’t attend summits or sign international treaties, such as North Korea and Iran. In terms of nuclear capability, both are ahead of where they were in 2009.
This brings us to Obama’s most distinctive – and most ill-fated – idea, and the one most identified with his 2008 campaign: the determination to 'engage' with U.S. adversaries such as Iran, North Korea, Syria and Venezuela. Obama promised 'direct diplomacy' – even one-to-one meetings – with the likes of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Kim Jong Il. More broadly, he made the case that the United States could benefit by reaching out to autocratic regimes, while dropping the George W. Bush administration’s moralizing 'freedom agenda.'
In his first year Obama dispatched two letters to Khamenei while keeping his distance from the revolutionary Green movement. He shook hands with Hugo Chavez. He launched a 'reset' of relations with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and dispatched envoys to reason with Bashar al-Assad in Damascus. He delivered a sweeping address to the Muslim world from Cairo. Meanwhile he is drone-bombing Muslims again in Pakistan. As far as the Pentagon and the media in the US are concerned all this has distilled down into no more than sabre-rattling at Iran in 2012. Oh, and supporting by excuses and prevarications political assassinations by Israel.

3 comments:

  1. An excellent summation of where we are.

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  2. Its campaign season.
    More sabre rattling to come.
    One rattle too many and it all goes BOOM.

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    Replies
    1. It's a replay of The Emperor Has No Clothes," and the audience knows, is saying so, and the show goes on as though no one has noticed or said a thing. Bizarre.

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