Posted on 08/25/2013 12:28:19 PM PDT by kristinn
Nearly five years into his presidency, Barack Obama confronts a world far different from what he envisioned when he first took office. U.S. influence is declining in the Middle East as violence and instability rock Arab countries. An ambitious attempt to reset U.S. relations with Russia faltered and failed. Even in Obama-friendly Europe, there's deep skepticism about Washington's government surveillance programs.
In some cases, the current climate has been driven by factors outside the White House's control. But missteps by the president also are to blame, say foreign policy analysts, including some who worked for the Obama administration.
Among them: miscalculating the fallout from the Arab Spring uprisings, publicly setting unrealistic expectations for improved ties with Russia and a reactive decision-making process that can leave the White House appearing to veer from crisis to crisis without a broader strategy.
Rosa Brooks, a former Defense Department official who left the administration in 2011, said that while the shrinking U.S. leverage overseas predates the current president, "Obama has sometimes equated 'we have no leverage' with 'there's no point to really doing anything'."
Obama, faced most urgently with escalating crises in Egypt and Syria, has defended his measured approach, saying America's ability to solve the world's problems on its own has been "overstated."
"Sometimes what we've seen is that folks will call for immediate action, jumping into stuff, that does not turn out well, gets us mired in very difficult situations," he said. "We have to think through strategically what's going to be in our long-term national interests."
The strongest challenge to Obama's philosophy on intervention has come from the deepening tumult in the Middle East and North Africa.
(Excerpt) Read more at m.apnews.com ...
It seems the inexperienced man-child truly believed his own propoganda, and that by BS speeches and fawning out-reach programs, the Muslim world would truly come to love the USA.
Alinski tactics don’t work on foreigners.
“We have to think through strategically what’s going to be in our long-term national interests.”
This grifter never thinks any further ahead than his next FREE MEAL or Tee Time!
The DAMAGE he has done to America will be felt for DECADES to come - should we not be nuked prior to that! *SPIT*
But, Obama's plan to be a global community agitator and give aid and comfort to Islamic Jihad is working well.
The world, including Putin, recognizes our what-me-worry golfer-in-chief for what he truly is: a rodeo clown.
A resume that had only 1 job - a communist street agitator.
Obamatollah was never qualified to be a night manager at McDonald’s.
No surprise he has been colossal failure OR he has achieved his goals.
I’m going with the latter.
`Well I for one will welcome our new Russian overlords ;)
Couldn’t be much worse and likely a whole lot better. Sad isn’t it?
Mediocre achedemic, community organizer, and unchallenged junior politician encounters complex real world.
Bad news for all.
God help us all,
GtG
We know that Obama is a puppet because on his own he is in way over his head. The puppet masters are the ones here that have ‘miscalculated’. Who are the puppet masters?
I asked years ago of longtime union member who was known to me personally why he voted for Obama and he went on and on about Bush’s wars. I asked in 2011 why Obama was bombing Libya and he didn’t have an answer which was no surprise.
The bombing of Libya and supporting the overthrow of Mubarak in Egypt were linked by a goal of installing radical clerics associated with the Muslim Brotherhood.
The puppet masters are closely affiliated with Islamic radicals. No other explanation exists that I can think of.
Why did we bomb Libya?
*****************
March 22, 2011
More bombs bursting in Libya. What for?
Wait a minute. How did this happen? A month or so ago, massive bombing of Libya was on no one’s agenda. Libya’s government was just as tyrannical and its leader was just as loony then as now. Other governments around the world were even worse, and still are. In fact, among the usual enthusiasts for this sort of thing, Libya was considered one of the least urgent cases of awfulocracy because we had supposedly de-fanged Col. Moammar Kadafi in 2003, when he suddenly surprised everyone by promising to dismantle his secret nuclear program, permit inspections and abide by the terms of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/22/opinion/la-oe-kinsley-libya-20110322
Nice Kent Brockman reference!
Yes, there is, you moron, it's because nobody knows. Ourselves included.
We called this on FR from Day One. Anyone who expected any foreign policy expertise out of this administration was smoking crack. What were we looking at? A one-term junior Senator without a single foreign policy bill? A former First Lady whose signal accomplishment along those lines was kissing Mrs. Arafat? A cabinet full of superannuated 70s radicals who were sure that their time was come at last?
What we got was exactly what that lineup card full of political clowns predicted. We had Hil presenting our former Cold War foes with a plastic button inscribed with a misspelled word. We had 0bama presenting our most loyal ally with the contemptuous treatment of Churchill's bust and the grotesquely inappropriate presentation to their head of state of an iPod with his own speeches on it and to their Prime Minister a set of video recordings in a format he couldn't view. This is worse than ham-handed, the most junior visa-stamper in the State Department should have caught it. 0bama wasn't listening because he didn't care and is too stupid to think it important.
This callous amateurism had a rather greater impact when human lives were lost due to it: Seal Team Six, the men at Benghazi, the long-suffering Libyan and Egyptian and now Syrian citizens who find themselves wondering just what the hell the U.S. thinks it's doing, and rightfully so.
It can get worse, much worse, in the three years cardboard cutout of a politician has to work. He managed to go from the incompetent to the downright malign in placing in the office of Secretary of State a fatuous poseur who has never believed that the United States was a force for good in the world from the first moment he betrayed it and his fellow servicemen through a wretched career of carping, hypercriticism, and deliberate subversion at the beck and call of his political mentor, one of the most evil and harmful politicians in American history, Teddy Kennedy.
That's what we have for a government and will have for the next three years. The upshot of this wreck of a foreign policy will likely be a transition from Drones Over Pakistan to Drones Over Flyover Country. We may come to envy the Egyptians.
Dunno where it came from but I figure it fit ;)
Not news to me...
I'm in if we can have the Russian 13% flat tax.
“For Obama, the World Looks Far Different Than Expected”
Yeh, thanks to the fact that he’s a total screwup.
A few days back I said something offhand about Russia taking over. Then I got to thinking about it. Made a few posts along those lines and have found overwhelming agreement.
Folks, when Vlad Putin starts to look like a better alternative to the GOP/Dems, and he does, by so many hard right conservatives, we are in REALLY deep sxit.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
