One of President Barack Obama's most important legacies is a sense that the U.S. is no longer the dominant global power: It can be ignored. It's a new reality that became apparent this year as various authoritarian regimes and populist movements have tested it out...
The growing tendency to exclude or ignore the U.S. is a direct result of Obama's incoherent foreign policy. It has been billed as a values-based one, but much of the world doesn't share U.S. values, suspects the U.S. of hypocrisy, or accuses it of arrogance.
-Leonid Bershidsky
Black Africans are being sold in open-air slave markets, and it’s Hillary Clinton’s fault. But you won’t hear much about that from the news media or the foreign-policy pundits, so let me explain.
Footage from Libya, released recently by CNN, showed young men from sub-Saharan Africa being auctioned off as farm workers in slave markets.
And how did we get to this point? As the BBC reported back in May, “Libya has been beset by chaos since NATO-backed forces overthrew long-serving ruler Col. Moammar Gadhafi in October 2011.”
And who was behind that overthrow? None other than then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
-Glenn Harlan Reynolds
The Era of Hope and Change has been one prolonged act of suicide.
If anyone had said that Obama would manage to alienate Israel and the Philippines, lose Turkey, pay Iran a hundred billion dollars, preside over the loss of a won war in Afghanistan, lose billions of dollars in military equipment to ISIS, watch a consulate burn, restart the Cold War with Russia, cause Japan to re-arm and go the knife's edge with China, would you have believed it?
If someone had told you in 2008 millions of refugees would be heading for Europe and that the UK would leave the EU after Obama went there to campaign for them to remain, would you not have laughed?
He promised "smart diplomacy" and the restoration of American prestige in the world. How did it come to this?
-Richard Fernandez
If the president and his senior adviser are such geniuses by comparison, why have they presided over a steady deterioration of the American position of the world?
Why, on their watch, has China stepped up its aggression in the South China Sea? Why has Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea? Why has Libya descended into chaos along with Iraq and Yemen? Why has Syria been torn apart by a civil war that has killed nearly half a million people and sent millions of refugees flooding neighboring states? Why has an Islamic State arisen in the heart of the Middle East along with numerous other terrorist groups? Why is Iran, the No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism, more powerful than it has ever been since the ancient heyday of the Persian Empire?
-Max Boot
Footage from Libya, released recently by CNN, showed young men from sub-Saharan Africa being auctioned off as farm workers in slave markets.
And how did we get to this point? As the BBC reported back in May, “Libya has been beset by chaos since NATO-backed forces overthrew long-serving ruler Col. Moammar Gadhafi in October 2011.”
-Glenn Harlan Reynolds
Foreign affairs, for their part, have been an unmitigated disaster. Everywhere one looks—Russia, China, the Middle East—the situation is more dangerous than it was before President Obama took office.
That is the inescapable consequence of a presidential reluctance to trust military affairs to generals, and to rule out of bounds, virtually categorically, the use of American ground troops to stem the violence in the Middle East.
The relative stability that George W. Bush bequeathed to Obama in 2009 has been shattered in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, and by the rising power of Iran. -Richard A. Epstein
On the May 29 edition of CNBC’s Squawk Box, Richard Engel, NBC’s chief foreign correspondent, conceded that he could not name a single nation where relations have improved with the United States since President Obama took office six years ago. Engel generally stays above the political fray, so this admission about the president’s foreign policy is revealing. -Connor Williams
Democrat, Editorial, Liberal, Incompetence, Obama, Oops
Secretary of State John Kerry told a painful truth on Sunday, admitting that President Obama’s “red line” fiasco in Syria “cost us significantly” by leading other nations to see America as weak.
The president had blinked at making good on his own threat. Around the globe, US allies and enemies were on notice that America might not live up to its word.
It’s no coincidence that Russia took control of Crimea within the year, and later intervened decisively in Syria to save Assad. Nor that Iran was able to virtually dictate the terms of its nuclear deal with Team Obama. -New York Post Editorial Board
Democrat, Liberal, Incompetence, Obama, War
[Oct 2016]: Global disapproval of President Obama and U.S. leadership is at its highest ever driven by Russia's nearly invisible 1 percent approval rating, according to a new world survey. Around the world, disapproval in U.S. leadership has reached 28 percent, up from 21 percent in 2009, according to Gallup's "Rating World Leaders: 2016" report.
"Just 1 percent of Russians approved of U.S. leadership in 2015 — the worst rating in the world last year and the lowest approval Gallup has measured for the U.S. in the past decade. Remarkably, this is even worse than their previous record-low 4 percent approval in 2014," said Gallup.
They carried placards and banners, and shouted 'down with America', 'down with NATO', 'Yankees go back'
... he has damaged his presidency and weakened the nation’s standing in the world. It has been one of the more stunning and inexplicable displays of presidential incompetence that I’ve ever witnessed.
Barack Obama's Fast and Furious Operation...
"How could this be? A government that invades in this way, that flagrantly violates sovereignty, international laws."
Democrat, Liberal, Crime, Guns, Obama, Character, Oops, Lie
Mexico’s president on Friday urged the United States to shed light on a gun-running sting that caused bilateral friction under the Obama presidency, questioning the behavior of past U.S. administrations for the third time this week.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said his government would send a diplomatic note to Washington for information on the 2009-2011 operation known as ‘Fast and Furious,’ a topic that has resurfaced in recent days amid a debate over historic U.S.-Mexico cooperation on security and possible corruption under previous administrations...
“How could this be? A government that invades in this way, that flagrantly violates sovereignty, international laws,” Lopez Obrador said at his daily news conference.
Eight years of leading from behind has left America's standing in the world diminished, its moral authority compromised and its foreign policy in tatters.
Hope and Change From Above...
"Turns out I’m really good at killing people. Didn’t know that was gonna be a strong suit of mine."
Democrat, Liberal, Incompetence, Obama, Oops, War
[June 2016]: The Taliban's warm-weather offensive has shown the insurgents to be bolder and better organized, holding more territory now than at any time since 2001, when their regime was overthrown by the U.S.-led invasion, according to recent U.N. estimates.
"One of the proudest things of my three years in office is helping to restore a sense of respect for America around the world, a belief that we are not just defined by the size of our military."
"The world has not become stronger and more stable, but weaker and more unstable."
Gum-Chewing Obama Offends Chinese
The president has strained relations with nations extending from Canada to Germany, from Israel to Afghanistan to Poland and the Czech Republic to many others. All from a man who promised to heal the planet and slow the rise of the oceans. -Peter Wehner
"We made this meeting so luxurious, with singing and dancing, but see Obama, stepping out of his car chewing gum like an idler." -Professor Yin Hong, Tsinghua University
One of the allies' problems in dealing with the president, according to the official, is that Mr. Obama "does not do consultation, and he doesn't do discussion with allies. He reports, and he describes his analytical process."
The Nobel Peace Prize Winner...
“On January 20th I will become the first President of the United States to serve two full terms during a time of war.”
When you review the series of foreign policy disasters over which Obama presided—the names Libya, Syria, and Iran offer a good start—and then contrast it with his warmhearted rhetoric, you begin to understand why Graham Greene could warn that 'innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.'"
The sad truth is that the United States today is weaker economically, more divided socially, and more disrespected across the globe than it was before Obama took office.
President Barack Obama appeared to have been slighted by the country’s first lady without realizing it. Bun Rany, wife of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, appeared to greet Obama with a dismissive gesture meant to be used in addressing servants.
It’s long been obvious that Vladimir Putin and his inner circle view Barack Obama with utter contempt. To the hard men in Moscow, who got their schooling in the KGB, our diffident, wordy Ivy League lawyer president is a weakling—almost a caricature of everything they despise about the postmodern West.
Here the Kremlin mirrors most Russians, who find Obama a puzzling and contemptible man. -John R. Schindler
Democrat, Liberal, Incompetence, Obama, Narrative, Oops
Anti-communist crusader and former president of Poland Lech Walesa tells Newsmax that of all the national leaders currently on the world stage, the one who has "disillusioned" him the most is President Barack Obama. Walesa also asserts that Obama "wasn't ready" to take on the task of leading the world's most dominant superpower.... So Hillary Clinton wins the "Stopped Clock" award for being right about only one thing. It's 3 A.M. somewhere. -Bourgeois Norm
Russia, Dec. 2016:
As everybody, including US people, will be glad
to see the last of this hapless administration
President Obama expels 35 🇷🇺 diplomats in Cold War deja vu. As everybody, incl 🇺🇸 people, will be glad to see the last of this hapless Adm. pic.twitter.com/mleqA16H8D
— Russian Embassy, UK (@RussianEmbassy) December 29, 2016
Thanks to Barack Obama for restoring respect for America after George W. Bush.