In the aftermath of the incongruous attempt by Michelle Obama to curry social media support with the #BringBackOurGirls [10] campaign, many were left scratching their heads: was this meant to be a legitimate attempt at foreign policy? If so, it was clearly an abysmal failure because as Reuters reported [11]yesterday, "Nigeria wrapped up its inquiry into the abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls by militants on Friday with little progress to show, reporting almost none had been freed after the initial kidnapping some girls escaped from."
So while the "heartfelt" plea (because the petulant picture accompanying it was clearly very sincere) of Obama's "Smart Diplomacy" failed, it certainly succeeded in being mocked not only on the right, but the left as well, and everywhere inbetween.
[12]
However, until this moment, mocking the administration's imploding foreign policy was largely a domestic issue, for the simple reason that foreigners were too busy annexing Crimea, taking over Kurdish oil fields, or repelling US-trained, if divided Al-Qaeda militants to spare time to troll the first lady.
That changed this past week when none other than the Al-Qaeda extremist spinoff which in recent weeks has overrun half of Iraq, ISIS, and which as we reported managed to "confiscate [13]" an unknown number of US-made Black Hawk helicopters and Humvees, decided to use the same outlet, Twitter, to not only mock Michelle Obama, but US foreign policy in Iraq. It is here that Obama's foreign policy is currently paralyzed with the president seemingly unable to decide if he will send in troops, or he will not (and just "Military advisors"), whether he will side with Iran or with Saudi Arabia, whether he will protect the Maliki cabinet that until last week had America's blessing, or he will let it flounder even as the Iraqi PMI suddenly has become bosom friends with Vladimir Putin, and so on.
According to Al Arabiya [14], "the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has made a mockery of the U.S. first lady Michelle Obama through series of tweets accompanied by the hashtag: #bringbackourhumvee."
[15]
The militant group photo-shopped a popular image of Michelle carrying a sign that reads #bringbackourgirls, part of a global campaign to rescue 276 Nigerian school girls who were kidnapped by Boko Haram last month.
The #bringbackourhumvee tweets being shared by ISIS members and their supports on Twitter refer to American-made Humvees confiscated by the extremist militants in Iraq last week, the UK-based Daily Mail said.
[16]
The image posted on Twitter by a self-proclaimed Oxford student shows
the alleged Humvee transported from Iraq to Syria. (Photo courtesy: Twitter)
The bitter irony: the U.S.-made military hardware seized by ISIS in Iraq could be used for in battles against the forces of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
A senior official from the opposition Free Syria Army said ISIS moved Humvees and helicopters among smaller weaponry, like Kalashnikovs, across the border from Iraq to Syria, the International Business Times reported last Thursday. It is unclear if there they would be returned to yet another group of extremist Al Qaedans, the Al-Nusra front. It is unclear if and how much the US funds that particular branch of Al Qaeda as of this moment.
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So while US foreign policy has sadly yet to generate one commendable result in the past 6 years, one can certainly say that if nothing else, it is resulting in a lot of increasingly louder laughter, first in the US and then globally. We hope that was not Obama's intention.
