This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
What Obama Gets Wrong On Foreign Policy
Last year, in what was surely one of the more unfortunately timed declarations in recent foreign policy history, President Obama described Yemen as a counter terrorism success story.
The first thing that sticks out about that statement is that, as we documented in June, it’s at least possible that Abdullah Saleh and his lieutenants not only turned a blind eye to AQAP operations in the country, but in fact played a direct role in facilitating al-Qaeda attacks even as the government accepted anti-terrorism financing from the US government, but the truly ridiculous thing about claiming that Yemen should be viewed as a "success" is that here we are less than a year later and the country is the exact opposite. That is, it’s a failed state, and if it weren’t for the Saudi boots which, no matter what Riyadh says, are most assuredly on the ground in Yemen, the country would be controlled by Iran-backed Houthi rebels wielding some $500 million in arms that the US "lost" after President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi was forced to flee to the Saudi capital.
Of course that isn’t the only example of foreign policy debacles that have unfolded on the current administration’s watch. There’s Ukraine, for instance, where deposing a Russia-backed leader led, in short order, to civil war and may soon culminate in a coup by fascist militants. Then there’s Syria, where efforts to support "freedom fighters" in their battle against the Assad regime ended up creating a marauding band of blag flag-waving jihadists, bent on establishing a medieval caliphate. Finally there’s the deteriorating relationship with China, which culminated in a tense war of words after Beijing essentially threatened to shoot down a US spy plane over the Spratlys.
Against that backdrop we bring you the following excerpts from "What Obama Gets Wrong" as originally published in Foreign Affairs' September/October issue:
Gideon Rose’s intriguing essay on President Barack Obama’s foreign policy raises a vexing question: When does the statute of limitations on blaming President George W. Bush for the record of the current administration finally expire?
Rose devotes much of his article to rehearsing a litany of the Bush administration’s sins in an effort to persuade readers that Obama inherited a uniquely bad set of cards when he came to the White House—a “mess,” as the president liked to say—and must therefore be judged accordingly. But this is doubtful as a matter of history and past its sell-by date as a form of apology.
Every president inherits a mixed bag when he comes to office, and Obama’s was hardly the worst.
Obama’s supporters also need to acknowledge that they cannot celebrate the president’s supposed successes at one point and then disavow responsibility later when those successes turn to dust. If Obama can take credit for putting the core of al Qaeda “on the path to defeat” and bringing the war on terror effectively to an end—as he did at the National Defense University in May 2013, to much liberal applause—then it becomes difficult for him to evade responsibility for the resurgence of jihadism in the two years since then. If the administration can celebrate the success of its Iraq policy in 2012 (“What is beyond debate,” said Antony Blinken, one of Obama’s senior foreign policy advisers, “is that Iraq today is less violent, more democratic and more prosperous, and the United States more deeply engaged there, than at any time in recent history”), then maybe Bush can be exempted from blame for Iraq’s travails in 2014.
Every president should be judged on a few fundamentals—his ability to deliver what he promised, weaken the country’s foes and strengthen its friends, elaborate a concept of the American interest that is persuasive and true, and pass on a world heading in the right direction. Obama rates well on none of these.
[Stability was supposed] to be restored in such places as Cairo, Istanbul, and Damascus. Israeli settlement expansion [was supposed to have] ended, and peace with the Palestinians would be forged. Much of this was to be achieved, so it seemed, through the sheer moral force of Obama’s personality and the compelling logic of his ideas. Yet none of it occurred. Obama became the president who, to use one of Rose’s baseball metaphors, called his shot only to strike out.
As for U.S. enemies, the core of al Qaeda might be weaker today than it was when Obama took office, but the groups he once cavalierly dismissed as jihad’s “JV team” are vastly more potent, successful, and aggressive. The Russian economy may have been badly hit by the fall in global oil prices, but Ukraine is bracing for the next phase in a Russian offensive that Obama has opposed with only token measures. The deal with Iran exchanges billions of dollars in tangible economic relief for Tehran—some of which will be used to fund anti-American proxies in Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, the Gaza Strip, and Afghanistan—in return for the paper promise of a temporary lull in Iran’s nuclear program.
The truth is that Obama’s idea of U.S. foreign policy is that there should be less of it, that the United States generally ought not to meddle in the internal affairs of other states and certainly not do so without a UN warrant, and that Washington should focus on what it does at home more than on what it does abroad.
Now, however, the consequences of that foreign policy are becoming more obvious.
»
- 14909 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
Why wasn't this article just the word 'Everything'?
Sorry, dude u beat me 2 the punch!
Damn.
And here everyone thought that municipal ward healer from Chicago was qualified.
Why single out Foreign policy?
Easy question...
Simple answer: the fed and the dollar is what is wrong with foreign policy. Printing money that the US tax payers are on the hook for just to give it to Dictators half way across the world, so they will do anything the bankers want. And if they don't you stage a coup or arm the rebels. This would continue with every major candidate as well, except for one!!!!
yes, that and the military industrial complex, the zionist cabal and the wretched, legally invulnerable corruption that is u.s. campaign financing
Many (most) of those corporations get the newly printed 'money' from the fed first. Then they turn around and pay off politicians.
I worked in the defense industry several years back (ick). Our lobbyst said that his team wrote the bill for the House. They wrote the bill for the Senate. They wrote the questions for the subcommittees who are suppoed to pry for answers. They also wrote the answers to those scripted questions. It's all a big show to make us feel like we have a government that is for the people. Wake up people! We live in a facsist country!Fascism in Hitler's view is a government that is run by and for the corporations. Let's all get behind the biggest, scumiest corporate buinessman and cut out the games. You cut out the middle man of the politicians putting on a show. At least if Trump wins we all would know that we are 100% fascists!
"Fascism in Hitler's view is a government that is run by and for the corporations."
No, that was Mussolini.
So just who is Barrack Harrison J. Bounel Shabazz Hussein Soebarkah Flexible Obama? Those who think they know most of the story should check this out, the rabbit hole is unimaginably deep. And fuck all of you communists who are hell bent on destroying capitalism and freedom. You will lose, as always.http://theamericanreport.org/2015/08/19/clues-unlock-obama-id/
When Cleon Skousen published his 45 Communist Goals in 1963 there wasn't a snowballs chance in hell of them being attained. Fast forward fifty years and..... Every American must read this. Here's a gem:
26) Present homosexuality, degeneracy, and promiscuity as healthy, natural, and normal.
http://www.restoring-america.com/Documents/THE%20NAKED%20COMMUNIST%20GOA...
Skousen laid it all out bare in The Naked Communist. I found a soft cover edition in a used bookstore about ten years ago and picked it up out of curiosity. It left a mark that itches every time I see what he illustrated so many years ago. It provides a polarizing filter that illuminates the agenda that has been acting out under our noses for decades if not a century. And few give a shit as they just want from it what they can get.
the following from the post is as absurd as was bush's promise of a "humble foreign policy" matched against his later acts.
"The truth is that Obama’s idea of U.S. foreign policy is that there should be less of it, that the United States generally ought not to meddle in the internal affairs of other states and certainly not do so without a UN warrant, and that Washington should focus on what it does at home more than on what it does abroad."
obama has continued, not well but continued nonetheless, all of bush's wars and started quite a few of his own. "not meddle in the internal offairs of other states"??!!! tell that to libya, yemen, syria and the ukraine, not to mention pakistan and egypt. this writer is a fool, a liar or both.
Fuck no. When we elected Obama. we surrendered as a nation. Obama is a Marxist who absolutely hates White America. He is definitely not a Christian; I don't think he is actually a Muslim (though this is possible), but an Atheist with deep Muslim sympathies. While he IS a Marxist at heart, he is a frustrated one because we are still a Capitalist country (though increasingly a Crony Capitalist one) and he is beholden to the Corporate world. So, all he can do is slowly choke Capitalism in a way that doesn't piss off his direct backers. It really explains everything.
right, he keeps on killing Muslems whenever he can but he is with "deep Muslem sympaties". Sure. A Marxist who keeps on giving billions to the Corporations.
Man, you are a total idiot.
Muslims are very good at killing other Muslims. Duh. Pull your head out of your ass.
obirdbrain is a third world criminal progressive at heart, can't help but enrich himself, just like the clintons.
Don't forget, the progressive stupid, it burns.
Grimaldus
Tyler, um, shouldn't you show the proper attribution to Bret Stephens and/or foreignaffairs.com?
You normally run a tight ship, but I think your proofreader dozed off.
Nobel Prize #2 on its way
Why that is easy: Everything!
- Ned
Not agressive enough for zio-cunts like you?
he should have bombed Assad, based on proven lies, pussy!
pulling out of the hell-holes of Iraq and Afghanistan, pussy!
now he's making a deal with Eye-ran, which hasn't had a "nukular" weapons program for at least 15 years according to IAEA, pussy!
Wake the fuck up!
Obama is the one who has funded and supplied training to Syrian rebels, invaded Libya, supported overthrow in Egypt and Ukraine as well as other countries. Sure he pulled out of Iraq at the same time as he was supporting radical Muslim insurgencies to ensure it fell back into chaos, and is likely doing the same in Afghanistan after "surging" and losing many American lives. As with our economy, regardless of what he had to begin with he has only made it worse, I believe deliberately because while a crisis is too good to waste, an unending one is a gift from the gods.
Know one knows what the real outcome of a deal with Iran will be, but given his feckless and disruptive record so far, it is easy to imagine it will be end of times.
wake the fuck up to what? that's the same shit US has been doing for decades, and Obozo is guilty as well.
but when he doesn't toe the line 100% for you and Ned's zio-con agenda he becomes a giant pussy worthy of personal scorn
I bet you were a big fan of Operation Freedumb in 2003? and screeching to stop this "bad deal" with Iran? right?
Intelligent for sure.
Pointing out Obama's agenda of destruction is somehow implying a zio-con agenda?
Lost in the fucking woods. Bias blinds you.
Traitor
What's wrong is the idea of a foreign policy or any other abstraction of statism.
It would be an even shorter article if it was, "What Obama Get Right on Foreign Policy".
I do not think he even really knows what it is. I suspect he skipped all those classes in college while he lit up some weed with the other foreign students. Of course, I could be wrong. Let's check his college transcripts. Oh, wait...
He skipped 70% of his foreign policy briefings to play golf.
What Tyler Durden gets wrong about all presidential policy... everything...
No trolling before sundown please.
Obama is not in charge of our foreign policy and neither was Bush.
Exactly. These headlines are a complete distraction.
Why would the fact that they were or were not acting on behalf of other nefarious actors is no reason to not point out the agents criminal acts. If we held them accountable for their treasonous acts, maybe they would not be so compliant to their corruption.
Hmm
If we held them accountable for their treasonous acts, there would be no one left in office.
No traitors anyway.
Everything operates on incentives.
Sex was made pleasurable, not to sell porn, but to ensure reproduction.
When corruption is held to account, then and only then will it recede.
yes
Not if corporate corruption is held to account by government corruption.
That's the way it works.
Clearly its Bush's fault that Libya, Egypt, Iraq and Syria are fucking basket cases because of Arab Spaahriiing! and that the national debt will double before this moron leaves office to something infinitely worse than he inherited.
You see it must be Bush's fault, as progressives firmly believe that the only people who should be held to account are those who actually try to accomplish something and that those who just show up should get the awards or "trophy", it only makes perfect sense that Obama should not be blamed, as he never really actually tried to fix or save the economy.
As they are so willing to admit, it is the crisis is something far to valuable to waste. If Obama inherited a crisis (which he did) and actually believed a crisis was something too good to waste,
then WHY IN HELL WOULD HE EVER ATTEMPT TO RESOLVE IT?
I'm just relieved to find that the progs were correct (again, sorta, not really, TAPI...lol) that the big ass WESTERN OIL pipeline got built through some of the most treacherous terrain, among some of the most fanatically independent people on the face of the planet.
Oh wait, what could possibly go wrong with that scenario? ;-)
I equate Saudi Arabia with terrorism. And the people of Ukraine selected the prezzie who got overthrown in the State's coup.
Failed Foreign policy entanglements are a distraction from failed domestic policy and will only get worse until failed political doctrines are overcome by successful head removal devices.
Chaos is the distraction...everywhere...all the time. It creates the fear the drives the population to desperation to accept any tyrant that promises to bring order.
Shhhhh, you're talking sensical and the humans hate that. Better to just focus on foreign affair bullshit and looking to find some boogeymen to bitch about while the country goes to shit. USA! USA!
Yes, but its all Bush's fault, along with Rachel Dolezal being white, that black lives matter guy being white, its all Bush's fault. I heard some moron on the radio today stating that the huge rash of wild fires here in my area of WA are Bush's fault for not funding the Forest Service. Certainly not our idiot governor Jay Inslee kowtowing to every environmental group opposed to forest management. Family members of mine have 100s of head of cattle and crops at risk so this hits home, where do the Seattle area libs think their wheaties and steaks come from?
"The truth is that Obama’s idea of U.S. foreign policy is that there should be less of it, that the United States generally ought not to meddle in the internal affairs of other states and certainly not do so without a UN warrant, and that Washington should focus on what it does at home more than on what it does abroad"
-Yes, there is much more opportunity for a conniving politician to be had by fomenting racial tensions at home, in order to justify a burgeoning police-state budget...
Why bother having to put Marines on a ship to kill people overseas, when there are ample crops to be harvested right here ...?
Seriously "Obama’s idea of U.S. foreign policy is that there should be less of it, that the United States generally ought not to meddle in the internal affairs of other states" ?
So attacking Libya and turning it into a failed state was less meddling in the internal affairs of other states? Likewise the attempt to do the same in Syria, which has given us ISIS overrunning much of Iraq. And of course encouraging the Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and the US initiated coup in Ukraine?
The one common thread in Obama's foreign policy is that every action has made the US's global position weaker.
I suppose it's all incompetence, there couldn't be a plan behind it could there?
every one is entirely mixed up,
need i say moar?
Deez Nuts will undo all of O'dummers executive orders and place the USA on the road to sanity once again.
VOTE FOR DEEZ NUTS 2016!
Obama's Foreign Policy?
Is there any doubt that the DELENDA RUS faction of the Pentagon, State Department, CIA and NSA have been making Foreign Policy since
The State department has driven our foreign policy to its own agenda for decades, back to FDR at least. It was he State Department that made sure the Yalta agreement gave part of China to the Communist Russian, creating what we call North Korea, as they were responsible to withholding any aid to Chinese resistance to Mao as well as resistance to Castro in Cuba. It goes on and on. Career government employees, all with similar ideologies on a mission. It accelerates under progressive administrations and holds its own with Republicans. It would truly be interesting to see what would happen with a conservative holding a bright light on their activities. How many Victoria Nuland's do we need to realize what is happening. They will claim the banner of any group that will help them retain their power. They will claim conservatism as a neocon, or as a progressive toiling for human rights.
And before Yalta and FDR, the Department of War was in the drivers seat. Outrage at the Spanish administration of Cuba in 1898, turned into the US gaining control of Cuba and Puerto Rico in the East and Guam and the Philippines in the West. The US navy, now iron clad and steam driven needed more coaling stations and Spain had them.
If your view of humankind and America as its crown is anything but an abject failure, I'm afraid you are wrong.
As Hamlet says in his "to the manner born" speech
If the last sentence is difficult to understand, the previous sentence makes clear what Shakespeare was trying to say.Russia Keeps Winning
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/world-report/2015/08/19/russia-keeps...
Watch this brand new term: Islamo-Bolshevik. In article above.
http://tarpley.net/isis-czar-allen-boosts-erdogan%e2%80%99s-scheme-for-c...
The truth is that Obama’s idea of U.S. foreign policy is that there should be less of it, that the United States generally ought not to meddle in the internal affairs of other states.
I wish that statement had been the first line of the article. I wouldn't have bothered to read the rest. Obama's, indeed, the entire US's idea of foreign policy is directed at meddling in the internal affairs of not just other states, but everyone. Between spying, both domestic and foreign, plotting coups (Ukraine), ouright murder of foreign leaders (Qadaffi, or however the hell you spell his name), Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan.....just to name a few, I'd be surprised if there's a country we're not meddling with.
US foreign policy has been a disaster for as long as I have been alive and that's saying something.
Obozo bums cigarettes and bj's for a living.
You cannot take Hamburger Mary out of the faggot.
we don't need governments any more... chaos seems better and more honest
Breaking all of his '08 campaign promises getting us out of Iraq and Afghanistan... Closing down Guantanamo.. And in return for getting elected????
Opening up 3 new wars and being imbued with tyrannical power unequaled in U.S. history with the NDAA in 2011, I'd say the President has a lot of explaining to do to those who voted for him?...
But then again... How the fuck did he get reelected?!!!
Fool me once... Shame on... ... ME!!! George W. Bush
Oh, you remember how the Negro whispered into the mike, that his aides had made live for him, "I need to get reelected for the reset, Dmitry.
Flash back to Peter Sellers as President Merkin Muffley talking to the Big Enchlada on the hotline to Moscow.
"What Obama Gets Wrong On Foreign Policy"
People still insist on insisting that CIA-Obama is calling the shots.
I would bet that his "strings" would beg to differ.
Zion is a scheme, not an ethnicity.
So the author's take seems to be that the U.S should be meddling in the affairs of everyone and looking to dictate to the world how everyone should be and how everything should be run. The U.S should be big brother. Gotcha.
All Americans who think like that can go fuck themselves.
I also find it funny people actually don't think things that go on are basically how the powers that be want them to be.
The Arab Spring...ha, ha ,ha!!
Obama, President...HA, HA, HA!!!
_"... but Ukraine is bracing for the next phase in a Russian offensive that Obama has opposed with only token measures."
Now just what planet is the OP on here?
I fear he doth project too much.
Obama is a Retard. Nuff said.
Obama is a giver.
He 'resets' with Putin and 'gives' Crimea to Russia
He wants to heal racist America and it explodes with more
'BlackLivesMatter' and now all they want is special treatment and reparations
He gives Iran all they want in the nuclear deal and they want 'Death to Americans'
He suspends deportations and La Raza wants California back
He says China is playing economics games, China devalues the Yuan
He wants normalization with Cuba and Castro demands millions in reparations
He supports Palestinians with billions in foreign aid and they demand he pushes Israel out
He 'supports' the rioters in Baltimore and they burn another 50 businesses.
When you give, people take more. You might think he would have learned from the 1938, "Peace in our time" ... He didn't and America will pay the consequences. There is still a lot that he can 'give' ... like sovereignty of the US to the UN.
It had been much more easier to list, where things went right.
Why does one assume that the son of Communists, who was mentored by Communists, who started his political career in the home of domestic terrorists, whose closest advisor is an Iranian born woman raised by Communists, who was married in a church run by a radical America hater, etc...IS ACTUALLY ON AMERICA'S SIDE.
This is a false quarrel and looking thru the binoculers from the wrong end.
As PCR points out the US has to see the "bigger picture" in historical terms.
In that perspective what Obama is doing is a continuation of US MIC/Financialized hegemonial plays which are disastrous for Humanity and puts the US administration on the "wrong side of history".
Karma.