December 30, 2011, 7:37 AM
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In recent months, a curious argument has surfaced in favor of US President Barack Obama. His supporters argue that Obama's foreign policy has been a massive success. If he had as much freedom of action in domestic affairs as he has in foreign affairs, they say, his achievements in all areas would be without peer.
Expressing this view, Karen Finney, a former Democratic spokeswoman who often defends the party in the US media, told The Huffington Post, "Look at the progress the president can make when he doesn't have Republicans obstructing him."
According to a Gallup poll from early November, the US public also believes that Obama's foreign policy has been successful. Whereas 67 percent of Americans disapproved of Obama's handling of the economy and the federal budget deficit, 63% of Americans approved of his terrorism strategy. So, too, 52% approved of his decision to remove US forces from Iraq. In general, 49% of Americans approved of Obama's handling of foreign affairs while 44% disapproved.
These support levels tell us a great deal about the insularity of the American public. For when one assesses the impact to date of Obama's foreign policy it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that if the US public was more aware of the actual consequences of his policies, his approval rating in foreign affairs would be even lower than his approval rating in domestic policy.
Indeed, a cursory examination of the impact so far of Obama's foreign policies in country after country and region after region indicates that his policies have been more damaging to US national interests than those of any president since Jimmy Carter. And unlike Obama, Americans widely recognized that Carter's foreign policies were failed and dangerous.
The failure of Obama's foreign policies has been nowhere more evident than in the Middle East.
Take Iraq for instance. Obama and his supporters claim that the withdrawal of all US forces from Iraq is one of his great accomplishments. By pulling out, Obama kept his promise to voters to end the war in "a responsible manner." And as the polling data indicate, most Americans are willing to give him credit for the move.
But the situation on the ground is dangerous and getting worse every day. Earlier this month, just ahead of the departure of the last US forces from Iraq, Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki visited with Obama at the White House. Immediately after he returned home, the Shi'ite premier began a ruthless campaign against his Sunni coalition partners in a no-holds barred bid to transform the Iraqi government and armed forces into partisan institutions controlled by his Dawa Party.
Forces commanded by Maliki's son arrested and allegedly tortured several of the Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi's bodyguards. They forced the guards to implicate Hashimi in terror plots. Maliki subsequently issued an arrest warrant for Hashimi. So, too, he issued an arrest warrant for the Sunni Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlak and fired him without permission from the Iraqi parliament.
Hashimi and Mutlak are now in hiding in Erbil. Maliki is demanding that the Kurdish regional government extradite them to Baghdad for trial.
Maliki's actions have driven Sunni leaders in the Sunni provinces of Diyala, Anbar and Salahadin to demand autonomy under Iraq's federal system. He has responded by deploying loyal forces to the provinces to fight the local militias.
The situation is so explosive that three prominent Sunni leaders, former prime minister Ayad Allawi, who heads the Iraqiya party, Parliament Speaker Osama Nujaifi and Finance Minister Rafe al-Essawi published an op-ed in The New York Times on Tuesday begging Obama to rein in Maliki in order to prevent Iraq from plunging into civil war.
THEN THERE is Egypt. Obama's decision in February to abandon then-president Hosni Mubarak, the US's most dependable ally in the Arab world, in favor of the protesters in Tahrir Square was hailed by Obama's supporters as a victory for democracy and freedom against tyranny. By supporting the protesters against the US ally, Obama argued that he was advancing US interests by showing the Muslim world the US favored the people over their leaders.
Ten months later, the Egyptian people has responded to this populist policy by giving jihadist parties a two-thirds majority in parliamentary elections. For the first time in 30 years, the strategic anchor of US power in the Arab world - the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty - is in danger. Indeed, there is no reason to believe it will survive.
According to the Gallup poll, 48% of Americans approve of Obama's handling of the war in Afghanistan and 44% disapprove. Here, too, it is far from clear what there is to approve of. Against the public entreaties of the US commanders on the ground, Obama is carrying through on his pledge to withdraw all US surge troops from Afghanistan before the US presidential election in November. In the meantime, the US is engaged in negotiations with the Taliban. The purpose of these negotiations is to reach a political agreement that would set the conditions for the Taliban to return to power after a US pullout. That is, the purpose of the talks is to set the conditions for a US defeat in Afghanistan.
The administration hails its success in overthrowing Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi without sacrificing a single US soldier. And certainly, this was a success. However, Gaddafi's opponents, who are now taking charge of the country, are arguably worse for the US than Gaddafi was. They include a significant number of al-Qaida terrorists and are dominated by jihadist forces. Attempts by the NATO-backed provisional government to convince them to disarm have failed completely.
Since Gaddafi was overthrown, large quantities of advanced weapons from his arsenal - allegedly including stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction - have gone missing. Significant quantities of Libyan shoulder-to-air missiles have made their way to Gaza since Gaddafi's overthrow.
In Syria, while the administration insists that dictator Bashar Assad's days in power are numbered, it is doing essentially nothing to support the opposition. Fearing the instability that would ensue if a civil war were to break out in Iran's Arab protectorate, the US has chosen to effectively sit on its hands and so cancel any leverage it ought to wield over the shape of things to come.
AS FOR Iran, Obama's policies have brought about a situation where the regime in Tehran does not fear a US military strike on its nuclear installations. Obama's open opposition to the prospect of an Israeli strike against Iran's nuclear installations has similarly convinced the regime that it can proceed without fear in its nuclear project.
Iran's threat this week to close the Straits of Hormuz in the event that the US imposes an embargo on Iranian oil exports is being widely characterized by the US media as a sign of desperation on the part of the regime. But it is hard to see how this characterization aligns with reality. It is far more appropriate to view Iran's easy threats as a sign of contempt for Obama and for US power projection under his leadership.
If Iran's ambitions to acquire nuclear weapons are thwarted, it will be despite Obama, not because of him.
Then there is the so-called peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. Due to Obama's unbridled hostility towards Israel, there is no chance whatsoever that Israel and the PLO will reach a peace deal for the foreseeable future. Instead, Fatah and Hamas have agreed to unify their forces. The only thing standing in the way of a Hamas takeover of the PLO is Congress's threat to cut off US aid to the Palestinian Authority. For his part, Obama has gone out of his way to discredit the congressional threat by serving as an indefatigable lobbyist for maintaining US financial support for the PA.
Of course, the Middle East is not the only region where the deleterious consequences of Obama's foreign policy are being felt. From Europe to Africa, from Asia to Latin America, Obama's determination to embrace US adversaries such as Vladimir Putin and Hugo Chavez has weakened pro-US forces and strengthened US foes.
So how is that that while Carter was perceived by the majority of the American public as a foreign policy failure, a large plurality of Americans views Obama's foreign policy as a success?
Obama's success in hiding his failures from the American public owes to two related factors. First, to date the US has not been forced to contend directly with the consequences of his failures.
Carter's failures were impossible to ignore because the blowback from them was immediate, unmistakable and harsh. His betrayal of the shah of Iran led directly to the takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran and the hostage crisis. Carter could not spin to his advantage the daily stories about the hostages. He could not influence CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite's decision to end every broadcast by reminding viewers how many days the hostages had been in captivity.
So, too, the consequences of Carter's weakness in confronting the Soviet Union were impossible to ignore or minimize with images of Soviet tank columns invading Afghanistan dominating the news.
To date, Obama's foreign policy failures have yet to explode in a manner that can make the average American aware of them.
Then, too, Obama and his advisers have been extremely adept in presenting his tactical achievements as strategic victories. So it is that the administration has successfully cast the killing of Osama bin Laden as a strategic victory in the war on terror. Obama has upheld the mission, as well as the killing of al- Qaida leader Anwar al-Awlaki, as proof of his competence in securing US interests. And to a large degree, the US public has accepted his claims.
Because it is impossible to know when Obama's failures will begin to directly impact the America people, it is possible that he will not pay a political price for them in the 2012 election. Be that as it may, the Republican presidential contenders would provide an invaluable service to both themselves and the American public as a whole if they made exposing Obama's disastrous stewardship of US foreign policy a central plank of their campaigns.
At a minimum, forewarned is forearmed. And the dimensions of Obama's failures are so enormous, that it is clear that the American people will suffer their consequences for years to come.
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.
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Caroline. It seems that others are voicing the same opinions as yourself. Can they all be wrong?
Here are two articles from Daniel Pipes and Barry Rubin.
http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2011/11/obama-leftist-conundrum#.TvjFpwfCJyM.facebook
http://www.gloria-center.org/2011/12/when-obama-preaches-anti-american-dictators-first-sneer-at-him-then-spit-at-us/?fb_ref=.TviM-5tWxzI.like&fb_source=profile_oneline
The American public is so focused on Obama's preening before the camera that most fail to see the forest for the trees. The remainder like myself who see the inherent danger in this man and his cohorts are laughed at for our bias. I wonder who will have the last laugh and at what cost. Shabbat shalom.
The media are of course Marxists and so is he, which is why you hear nothing about his and their failures. As you correctly pointed out Carter couldn't hide from his but then the media still had people within it who weren't all leftists. Today one cannot say this. You see this obviously there in Israel, because this is an international, not local problem. The left uses the same tactics and techniques the world over and one wonders about it's origins...
The Republicans have been told by political managers, not to attack Obama or hold him accountable in any way in public, lest they lose public support and lose the coming elections. They believe this. Just like George Bush believed in not defending himself or his policies, which is the same as allowing a bully to punch you in the face every day at school, in the hope that he won't do it the next day, and won't do the same to your friends.
Don't be to enamored of polling because the Marxists are gearing up for the elections and as you know, they will lie at the drop of a hat, and then drop the hat, while pointing a finger at and blaming others for both the lie and dropping the hat. Since they now control much of the world's information, it's easy to see how the Soviets remained in power because the same thing is happening to us, right now and in living color!
They just don't call themselves Socialists, Marxists or Communists anymore but that's who they are.
Excellent as always Caroline. Let's not forget the media propaganda. We do not hear of the slaughter of Christians and Jews in Egypt, Nigeria, etc. We do not see a report in the media of the burning of the library in Cairo. Most news in oppoaition to Obama, comes from blogs or foreign sources. There isn't even any coverage of theconsewquences of NDAA to americans that I am aware. Thanks again
Being nice to the enemy is but one facet of an international delusion brought about through group-think and political correctness under the approving eye of the United Nations and jealously nurtured by a liberal progressive news media. Unfortunately for all of western civilization the constant flow of disinformation has become the norm until evil appears to be good and what has always been good is now regarded as evil.
"These support levels tell us a great deal about the insularity of the American public." - They tell us, first and foremost, about the tremendous power of American left-wing media. Growing up, as we did, in the Soviet Union, every minimally intelligent adolescent knew he couldn't trust a single word of the state media. Paradoxically, the situation is much more pregnant with massive-scale disasters in the so-called democracies where people are exposed to indoctrination in the guise of free and democratic press.
What few have noticed, is that Obama blundered when he immediately disclosed the OBL operation. Had he kept his mouth shut, there would have been more time to exploit the time-sensitive intelligence gathered.
Obama was so desperate for a poll ratings boost that he couldn't wait,
despite the costs to America.
The basic problem in foreign policy is that Islamists and nationalists have seized the western-owned oil infrastructure, and used the money to build the infrastructure of terrorism and for direct terrorism. Also prohibition subsidizes Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Al Qaeda downstream in distribution gangs as far away as Latin America.
Nationalization of oil infrastructure needs to be reversed; what cannot safely be "privatized" should be set ablaze.
Prohibition (for adults) should be immediately and unconditionally ended; and American enforcers with guilty knowledge should be tried for treason.
(In the US, federal grand juries have the power to issue presentments, which are similar to indictments issued by a US Attorney).
Victory needs to be achieve in at least these three areas:
--military (overthrow all Islamist regimes and do not occupy/nation-build/pay tribute);
--economic (deprive Islamists of their two main sources of funding)
--cultural (replace other-directed faith with inner-directed meditation and confidence to support higher brain functions).
That is the path to tomorrow.
Ms. Glick brings up the issue of Obama's failure in foreign affairs, and it's painful to read...because it's true. But what should anybody with a mind expect? He has no background in anything except domestic organizing and leftist ideology-basically a rabble rouser. He's a vindictive, nasty, cynical, Chicago thug-politician..that's all, people. As for Americans, well, sadly, many have college degrees and know nothing-can't critically think for themselves. And the youth are so spoiled and enamored of shallow role models and narcissism that nothing can be expected of them. The fact that a looney-tune like Ron Paul is even seriously considered as a Presidential candidate should sober anybody up to the failure of Americans to grasp and deal with their changing world and its threats. We'll wait until the next Pearl Harbor comes in the form of a nuke or dirty bomb and then wonder how this happened.
Great article! My take on this is Obama's policies may very well start WWIII. The 12'ers are counting on his philosophical naivety and inept foreign policy. Chavez called him a clown, but no one is laughing here in the US.
dear ms glick , once again you are "right on" in your article and the american people have their "heads in the sand " about what is truly going on !!! it will not come clear to "us" until it truly affects this country !!!!!! . unfortunately it will happen "sooner " than later and we will pay a "HEAVY" price for our ignorance !!!!!!! . this whole country will go under due to the "idiocy " of this government !!!!!!!!!!!!!! ,"GOD" bless you and yours and stay safe in this "cesspool" of lies and deceitfulness !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The US and other Western nations enabling of the Muslim Brotherhood in multiple countries in the Middle East is the biggest strategic blunder by the West since the 1500's.
Of course most Americans agree with Obama's foreign policy as most think that an independent state will briong peace to Israel. However,this doesn't make any sense as the P.A. and Hamas still have the primary aim of destroying Israel and do not want peace. Obama is also appreciated in destroying Al-Queda. He has partially done this but only to be able to replace them with a less violent and more effective Islamism. That is his strategy and it is not beneficial to America. Lastly he has supported the Arab Spring which is now obviously getting rid of secular dictators in favour of more fascist Islamists. Again that is bad for the world and bad for America. So although he is supported in his foreign affairs by many Amerians it is because he is hoodwinking them. If they realized his true agenda they would not support him
The issues which Caroline and readers cover are of extreme importance as we face a new year.
There is just one point that I wish to refer to.
I am not a conspiracy theorist. I always need to have evidence and to have proper research along scientific lines done before venturing any hypothesis about anything.
But what if the US and the EU countries are not operating on the "bumbling bear in the china shop" analogy, but are actually consciously creating an alliance with Islam, with the Muslim Brotherhood, with Hitler type antisemites like Qaradawi.
In other words if THAT is strategic.
And if not only Obama and Bush were involved in such an alliance, themselves starting from their own individuals points but still following through on a strategy, that is to create a grand alliance between international capitalism and with Islam, which itself is actually an integral part of international capitalism, which people tend to forget.
Let me test this for a second.
First of all Bush. His father was very central in the US elite, at the centre of the CIA, and thus central in what Ken Timmerman refers to as the "politicising of the CIA". George Junior also was essentially an oil man, he made his money and gained his position solely from that, and in fact I believe it is true that the Saudis aided george Jnr at a critical time in his business life (I have read that bankruptcy was avoided because of said Saudi intervention but that needs to be checked) If so then you can easily see how the personal becomes political. For example the personal to george Jnr would be keeping his wife and daughters in the position which he thinks they deserve.
Second then Obama. Obama is part of that unstable black middle class, has little in common with the poor blacks of the US, adopts the typical and fanatical belief in Palestinism, which has become the "faith" of a disorientated Left. Part of this is his belief in the US and Israel, but especially Israel, as the bully in the Middle East. I see this all the time on groups of this discredited Left like Indymedia. It runs very deep and goes back to the use of antisemitism by the Stalin faction against Trotsky and the Left Opposition, as fart back as 1925 to 1927. But which became a mania for Stalin in the so-called Doctors Plot before Stalin died (was poisoned), and was then intensified by other Stalinist leaders of the Soviet Union in the period following the defeat of the Arabs in the 1967 War. Although a deep reactionary the Catholic paul Johnson has a very good description of just that in History of the Jews. Obama essentially comes out of there and I mean he comes out of there ideologically. It is ideology that counts.
Thus the alliance with Islam is sprung.
I write as a Marxist and I am non dogmatic.
What is in it in this alliance for Western capitalism, especially the US and EU or speaking speculatively what might be in it for them?
I think this: Islam as is well explained by many now is a very reactionary and repressive religion cum political ideology AND practice.
Islam is tailor made for repression of vast chunks of humanity and it is in place, obviously, to do so.
We talk all the time about a world system of capitalism, a world market. The US and especially the British among the Europeans have long had a world outlook. They have VAST resources in intelligence gathering.
I emphasise I am opposed to conspiracy thinking and thus I think the evidence points to the US not being a "bumbling bear" but acts very consciously and very often decisively too.
My take on the destruction of Gadhafi was different to most. I say that he who controls the Med. controls the world. If Hitler had taken the Med. before Russia he may have actually won in Russia, because the med. has always been a central and strategic point.
Egypt is the oldest standing civilization on earth. Iraq is where much began. Ideologically the Jewish nation is central to humanity.
Control those and you control a lot.
This explains to me at any rate the visceral antisemitism of the British and US elites. They hate Jews because they themselves want and need in their desparate economic, then moral, crisis to control Jerusalem.
Out of this springs their urgent building of an alliance with Islam.
Naturally they do not tell their own people any of this. They fill their heads with I-Pods and sessions of X Factor and Come Dancing!
" violent crazies set to transform Israel - in the words of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton - [will turn Israel] into another Iran ..."
Oh boy. Israel, beware of the Soros-Obama-Hillary-Samantha Powers team and their "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine. They used it in Libya and have likely been grooming it for application to Gaza. Could they also be grooming it for application to Israel? This could be the harbinger of new White House aggression against Israel.
As the Obama team faces extinction in 11/2012, it will likely become even more dangerous in the interim. In the "Arab Spring" they were just getting tuned to the potential of social networking for instigating revolution. Chaos is a favorite tool of this team, and their Soros bankroll is an indeed formidable enemy of Israel.
We have seen how Obama the imperial president bypasses our Constitution whenever it fits his ideology. And when he says he has done more for Israel than any other president, his words resonate like Hitler's promises after each of his pre-1940 adventures in territorial expansion. On both the domestic and foreign affairs front, Obama is a loose cannon.
When I read comments critical of Obama, I usually assume the authors are from the right side of the political spectrum. So I want to say up front that I'm a lifelong Democrat and when I voted for him, it was first and foremost because the alternative choice of an elderly McCain with Sarah Palin as his vice president terrified me. I tried to explain to Israeli friends that although I didn't think Obama would be very helpful to Israel, the reality is that since Harry Truman none of our presidents has been very helpful to Israel and our State Department has been downright anti-Semitic (or to be more precise pro-oil), so I just relied on the Congress to do what they could and meanwhile hoped that Obama could at least bring back economic stability and repair relations with the rest of the world following Bush's "America Over All" cowboy presidency. I have to admit I was shocked at how pro Arab-world Obama was from the beginning and as I assured myself that he was just starting off that way to give Moslems that warm, cozy feeling to entice them into peace negotiations with Israel, it became sadly evident that his version of peace negotiation is to strong-arm Israel into submitting to Arab pre-conditions. Obama's administration has lately taken to pointing out how supportive his administration has been of Israel in dollars, but the problem is that Israel is being attacked in the court of world opinion and Obama's support there has been non-existent. The danger is that world opinion does translate into action from economic boycotts to the potential for Israel being cut off from defensive weapon sales, a real danger now that the Arab spring has made the entire region unstable. I really wish the hype about Obama being pro-Moslem had turned out to be false. I am contemplating, actually seriously considering voting Republican for the first time in my 40 years of voting. I'm not happy about it, but as much as I believe Democrats take better care of this country, I also believe someone like Romney will take better care of our greatest friend and ally in the middle east, and now is the time for America to finally take a stand for Israel.