President Obama recently gave a speech to West Point’s graduating cadets, in which he attempted to explain his foreign policy. Not surprisingly, most conservatives gave it a thumbs-down, but more notable was its panning by usually-reliable Obama supporters like the New York Times, Washington Post, etc. For the record, count me with the critics, as President Obama essentially doubled-down on his foreign policy course which has been an unmitigated disaster, in my humble opinion.
America’s traditional allies around the globe fear they can no longer trust the United States to lead. And our adversaries, in some cases flat-out enemies, have been emboldened by an Administration that is indecisive and lacks resolve.
Particularly newsworthy was Obama’s announcement that he was pulling all but 9,800 U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year, halving that next year, and pulling out altogether by the end of the next year, 2016. Now I recognize that many Americans feel we can’t get out of there quickly enough, but announcing our exact date of departure, no matter what the conditions on the ground, just tells the Taliban how long they have to wait us out before they take over the place. All the sacrifices our men and women in uniform made there over the years, may well be for naught. And the women and girls of Afghanistan may be cast back into the horrific suppression of sharia law. And this from a President whose party peddles the fiction that the Republican party espouses a “war on women.”
If you want another example of U.S. gains, after considerable sacrifice, being flushed down the toilet, you need look no further than Iraq. U.S. service personnel suffered over 4,200 killed, and 25,000 wounded between 2003 and 2009. The often-bloody war was finally essentially won as a result of the surge. It was always assumed that the U.S. would maintain a residual military force there to secure the gains won at so high a cost. Instead, President Obama surprised the world by pulling all U.S. troops out. The result has been a bloody, chaotic mess. Places like Fallujah which Marines had fought and won so bravely, have fallen to Al-Qaeda. And now, rather than a U.S. ally in a critically important part of the world, we have Iran wielding considerable influence over Iraq. Truly the nightmare scenario is now the reality there. And all so Barack Obama can say he kept a campaign promise and got us out of Iraq. Callous. Short-sited. Shameful.
And there have been other failures. In Libya, President Obama committed U.S. air power, without bothering to get Congressional authorization in overthrowing the Libyan government. Once the government was overthrown, Obama seemed to lose interest in Libya, and we suffered the loss of an Ambassador and three other brave Americans. Apparently no military assets had been kept close enough to help Americans in trouble. Then the Administration through Susan Rice lied to the American people five times in one day, about what had actually led to the deaths of the four Americans. Oh, and by the way, Libya is now a basket-case too, with Islamic Jihadists potentially running the place within a few years if President Obama continues with his hands-off approach. General Colin Powell had famously said, “if you break it, you own it.” In Libya’s case, Obama helped to break it, and then he washed his hands of any responsibility for its future.
In Syria, President Obama painted red lines not to be crossed, and when they were crossed, he did nothing. And his dependence on Putin to bail us out there may well have emboldened the Russian bully to later act more aggressively in Ukraine. President Obama did announce in his speech at West Point that he would finally okay U.S. assistance to moderate Syrian opposition groups. Unfortunately this is probably several years too late to make a difference. The Al-Qaeda Jihadists are now probably too powerful to stop, due to Obama’s dithering. So if Bashar al Assad is ever successfully overthrown, he may well be replaced by an even more dangerous, more anti-American, Syrian government.
And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Iran is still on the march to obtaining a nuclear weapons capability. The Obama/Kerry talks are going nowhere. The Obama/Kerry Palestinian-Israeli peace talks predictably went nowhere. China is getting progressively more aggressive and assertive in southeast Asia. Crazy North Korea still has its nukes.
And now President Obama has exchanged an American soldier in Afghanistan whom it appears deserted his post, for five top Taliban terrorist leaders, who will probably go back to leadership positions in killing more Americans.
And this President has two and a half more years to go. God help us.