One point about the Obama Administration is significant but has
been little remarked on — the global failure of its
foreign policies. These failures have taken different forms in
different parts of the world, but looking at the big picture one
fact is obvious: Obama’s leftism and denigration of the U.S. does
not appear to have won the U.S. a single friend even among leftist
and anti-U.S. regimes and individuals.
One cannot call this Obama’s own failure with certainty,
because his personal agenda, if any, remains a mystery.
Nonetheless, the fact remains that the most left-wing U.S.
President ever, and a far-left Secretary of State, have failed to
modify the anti-Americanism of any significant left-wing government
or movement anywhere is the world.
Some years ago Irving Wallace wrote a novel, The
Man, about an Afro-American becoming president through a
series of accidents. Within a few months his resolute Statesmanship
had crowds in Africa cheering the U.S. Flag. It hasn’t exactly
worked out like that.
There was some hope at the time of Obama’s inauguration
that his administration might lead to a softening of relations with
Iran. Instead relations have moved to the verge of war. In Egypt
Mubarak has been removed with Obama’s encouragement — now 19
American NGO workers, who has been teaching civics unmolested under
Mubarak have been arrested and it has been announced that they will
be put on trial. The aim is plainly a break in relations with the
U.S. It is also reported that Egypt is again allowing arms
shipments into Gaza. Influential figures in the new Egyptian
Government have been telling the U.S. they no longer want its aid
despite the fact Egypt’s precious tourism industry has been
wrecked. Does this mean they are looking to a resumption of Russian
aid? And don’t forget he’s managed to alienate Israel as well.
Could the “Arab Spring” have been handled better from the US point
of view? It is impossible to say, but it is hard to imagine how it
could have been handled worse.
The crazy states of North Korea and Venezuela have not
modified their behavior in the slightest since Obama succeeded
Bush, except perhaps to get a bit crazier. Hugo Chavez raves
against Obama as incoherently as he did against Bush and is
increasing the systematic violation of human rights.
The same goes for Putin’s Russia. We all know that it was
Ronald Reagan who converted the Russia of Gorbachev and Yeltsin
from the supreme enemy into, at least temporarily, something like a
friend, and did so without compromising, but on the contrary by
reaffirming, U.S. principles.
It is China, not the U.S., that is increasingly
penetrating the wealthier parts of Africa. Gaddafi, before he was
overthrown and murdered, gave some signs of moving towards
rationality and a friendlier stance. His successors’ position is
ambiguous.
And what about Obama’s Whacko scheme to turn NASA into a
feel-good psychotherapeutic agency to make Muslims feel better
about their lack of achievements in modern science? I haven’t
exactly noticed any Muslim gratitude.
The list goes on and on, but at the bottom line, it
appears Obama and Clinton have not won the U.S. the friendship of
as much as a single Somalian goat-herd. Worse yet, the U.S.’s
important natural allies in the Third World, the Christian
communities in Asia, the Middle East, and North and Central Africa,
have been attacked with apparent impunity. No one seriously expects
a pro-U.S. government to survive in Afghanistan after the U.S.
withdrawal. It is a near-miracle and a fantastic tribute to their
sense of duty that U.S. servicemen keep fighting there with so
patently hopeless an outcome.
Afghan officers have been quoted as asking: why should
they risk their lives when it is obvious the Taliban will return in
force after the U.S. withdrawal? They will probably not be as
fortunate as the South Vietnamese officers who went into
re-education camps. Have any plans been made to evacuate
Afghanistan’s small westernized elite when the U.S. pulls
out?
Pakistan is no friendlier to the U.S. than it ever was, as
proved by its long sheltering of Bin Laden.
In Britain and Europe, of all the obscene creatures who
cheered and gloated over 9/11, I do not know of one who the Obama
presidency has moved to recant. Speaking of Britain, still the
U.S.’s major ally, Daily Telegraph correspondent Con
Coughlin
wrote recently:
When the Obama administration announced that it was to end US
combat operations in Afghanistan in the summer of 2013 — a year
earlier than agreed — it did so without bothering to inform its
British counterpart, despite the fact that the UK has a full
division committed to fighting alongside American troops in
southern Afghanistan. Only a few days previously, at Chequers,
David Cameron gave Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, his personal
pledge that British forces would continue combat operations until
the Afghans were ready to take care of their own security, rather
than being tied to some artificial timetable. At a stroke President
Obama had undermined the Prime Minister’s position. If this is how
the Afghan mission is being handled, then what is the point of
Prince Harry being asked to risk his life for a cause no one
believes in?”
Hundreds of British (and other) servicemen have died in
Afghanistan only to have the rug pilled from under the Western
commitment.
The one possible success, in Iraq, was set in
motion by President Bush, not Obama. In South East Asia the U.S.
appears to have good friends and is quietly strengthening its
position. But this is because, at present, it has little or no
competition there. India is largely anti-Muslim, but is big and
wealthy enough not to need the U.S., and China has not yet impinged
on U.S. areas of influence too much.
It wasn’t meant to be like this. Obama was meant to bring
the Third World onto America’s side.
