Obama's Foreign Policy is an Utter Failure

Great Debates
1

Yesterday, I read this article in the Globe and Mail, about how Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper achieved pretty much all of Canada’s objectives at the G20 summit - most of them opposed by the Obama administration:

  • Obama wanted an international tax on financial transactions. Canada didn’t. Canada won.

  • Obama wanted more action on Global Warming. Canada’s position was that global warming policy should not undermine economic growth. Canada won.

  • Obama wanted international aid for pregnant women to include abortion funding. Canada didn’t want that. Canada won.

In all of these cases, ‘winning’ involves building coalitions with other countries. As the article details, Canada was able to build bigger coalitions than the Americans, allowing Canada to control the agenda. That’s shocking.

This made me reflect on the Obama administration’s foreign policy in general, and whether it’s been successful. And I can’t think of a single thing that has improved over Bush. Let’s go down the list:

  • North and South Korea are on the brink of war.
  • China has broken off high-level military cooperation with the U.S.
  • Turkey is turning radical and jockeying for power in the Middle East
  • Iran is ratcheting up its rhetoric and speeding up its nuclear program.
  • Israel is not listening to the U.S.
  • U.S. apathy to Eastern Europe is causing many countries to move into the Russian sphere of influence
  • The Afghanistan war is going badly, with the Karzai government openly hostile to the Obama administration at times, and making overtures to the Taliban.
  • Relationships with America’s traditional allies have deteriorated. The U.K, France, Germany, Australia, Canada… The U.S. has lost political stock with all of them.

On financial policy, the Obama administration has been completely snubbed at almost every turn. Its attempts at global warming policy have been rejected, its call for more stimulus has been met with outright derision, and instead governments throughout the world are implementing financial austerity programs. Trade policy has stalled out after two decades of progress. And now all of its proposals have been shot down by the G20.

To me, none of this is a real surprise. It’s Jimmy Carter 2.0. The world is a tough, dangerous place, and realistic foreign policy starts from a position of strength. Obama started by going on a worldwide apologize-for-America tour, and has been feckless in response to provocations around the world. His theory was that a kinder, gentler America would usher in a new area of cooperation. This flies in the face of history. The reality is that a kinder, gentler America is generally met with opportunism and emboldened aggression from competitors and enemies.

As an example, Obama’s repeatedly weak stance with respect to Israel has caused Israel’s enemies to feel like they have an opportunity. Israel was always protected by the knowledge that America had its back. That in turn gave Israel the security it needed to handle the constant attacks on its, and it gave the U.S. clout over Israel. But now, America’s support is not clear, so Israel is being forced to take actions on its own, and Israel’s enemies are looking for ways to damage it. Thus the attempt to break the blockade, Egypt’s removal of citizenship for Egyptians marrying Israelis, etc. This is incredibly dangerous, and could easily lead to war.

So… Would anyone like to defend Obama’s foreign policy? Can you point to some concrete successes directly attributable to his policy changes?

2

Oh come now, Sam. Obama’s been president over a year now, and he hasn’t started even a single new war, or milked any of the wars bequeathed upon him for a sympathy vote the way Bush milked them for most of his eight years. If you don’t think that’s an improvement, you’re not amenable to reason.

3

“On the brink of war” is not a clearly defined term. They are still at war, and have been since the '50s.

They have? Not necessarily doubting you, but a cite would be nice.

This is Erdogan (sp?), who has been in power since before Obama was elected. I don’t see what Obama has to do with that.

True, but it’s just a natural extension of what they’ve been doing for years. I guess you could say this is an Obama “failure”, but it’s unclear anyone would have gotten any different results.

Since when did they do this? We weren’t too happy with what they did in Lebanon.

Again, a cite would be nice.

I view the Afghanistan war as a no-win situation.

Again, a cite would help.

Well, that’s an interesting point. I’m not really sure I can point to any successes, so I’ll let someone else address that.

I do think your critique needs some fleshing out, though.

4

Compared to what?

5

I’ll get into the details in a mo, but I disagree with your fundamental comparison here. You talk about a position of strength but surely by any measure the US still outweighs Canada?

Therefore Canada’s successes can be attributed to multilateralism, cooperation and shared values as much as anything else?

The stuff about tax and global warming? I feel that the views of China and India had more influence upon that then Canada’s, in essence Harper was arguing with the Majority, Obama against, so it’s not that suprising who won.

I don’t see how you blame the Korea issue on this administration, what do you think any other President would have done?

Ditto Eastern-Europe, that’s our (EU’s) turf these days, by staying out of it he’s avoiding pointless aggravation with important allies. It doesn’t reflect on him at all. (I presume you’re talking about Ukraine or Georgia here?)

As for the Israel-Palestinian issue which the rest of your points boil down to. So what? Why does America have any responsibility towards Israel, if Israel is acting against the USA’s interests? After all its a tough world out there, right?

6

An utter failure, indeed. I am so pissed about the fact that yesterday afternoon, North Korea nuked the country into a 4.5 million square mile sheet of glass, and I (and everyone and everything I hold dear) was vaporized into a cloud of ionized particles.

Or not.

“Utter failure” must (by any reasonable definition of the words “utter” and “failure”) mean that the nation has been annihilated (when the term is applied to foreign policy). The purpose of foreign policy is to prevent that outcome.

7

“Obama’s been in office over a year now, and he *still *hasn’t made everything perfect! What a loser!”

I swear, the only people who thought Obama was The Messiah were the ones who voted against him.

8

I just read it as well, and didn’t get the same message from it that you did, apparently.

I would argue that China won. Canada sided with China, sure. As your cite says: “China, other Asian nations, Brazil and Mexico also have strong, well-regulated banks, partly because of previous financial crises that they endured and survived. Mr. Harper found them ready allies in his campaign to thwart the tax.”

It sounds like the leaked communique will match Canada’s position, yes. The current Democratic position on Global Warming is not popular in the US or abroad. This is perhaps unfortunate, but I can’t really blame Obama for failing to get China and India to agree to curtail their economic expansion - I doubt any other administration could either.

From your cite: "A draft copy of the communiqué that will be released at the G8 summit in Muskoka reveals that the maternal health initiative will focus on “better access to strengthened health systems, and sexual and reproductive health care and services, including voluntary family planning.”" I see nothing regarding abortion in that language. If anything I would think that abortion funding would fall under the “sexual and reproductive health care services” clause.

Hm. I would include the new nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia for a start. I believe a new set of sanctions against North Korea was also agreed to.

There seems to be movement towards an agreement on fuel enrichment in Iran, but I admit it is not as far along as one would hope. Obviously Israel’s belligerence and obvious contempt for American interests is not helpful in the Middle East, but I’m not sure what can be done about that - change must come from within Israel.

I would agree that Obama’s foreign policy successes are few and far between at this point in his first term. However, the sizable domestic victories more than outweigh this fact, in my opinion.

9

Like Canada.

10

“Utter Failure” in the sense that I can’t think of any improvements that can be attributable to Obama’s foreign policy, nor have I seen any advantages from his ‘kinder, gentler’ approach to diplomatic relations. I can, however, see a lot of things that have deteriorated since Bush left office.

Obama’s promise when he was elected was that he was going to restore relations between the U.S. and the world, leading to greater cooperation, less tension, and less violence. I see no evidence that his approach has worked, and lots of evidence that it has been counter-productive.

John:

China military contacts:
China Defends Ban on High-Level Contacts with U.S. Military

North Korea:

Sinking a South Korean ship, and then threatening war if any retaliation is made, is certainly a ratcheting up of the conflict.

Turkey:

I think the uncertainty of American support for Israel has a hell of a lot to do with Turkey’s decision to help break the Gaza blockade. I think that the retreat of American power in general and the softer stance of the Obama administration has created power vacuums in a number of places in the world which opportunists are taking advantage of.

Regarding Russia Gaining influence, there are many issues here, but here’s one cite for you: Putin Woos Former Republics:

Ukraine has also abandoned its bid to join NATO, and Russia is ignoring U.S. requests and selling advanced anti-aircraft systems to Iran. Russia has also been strengthening ties with Venezuela and working to establish more influence in Central and South America.

On Iran’s belligerence:

Yes, but one of Obama’s claims was that his ‘more understanding’ foreign policy and his outreach to Muslims and his apologies for America and all that would lead to an Iran that was less frightened of America, and this would lead to better relations and an opening to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program. Didn’t happen. It seems to have worked the other way.

I’m not going to cite the deterioration of America’s relationship with other allies, because it’s a picture built up of many things. But a good example would be his track record of getting Europe to implement, well, pretty much anything he wanted.

It’s true that public opinion of America around the world has generally improved, but this has not translated into greater American influence. It’s entirely possible that people see America in a better light because they think that America is more likely to cave in to what they want rather than the opposite.

11

You know, you can only define “utter failure” as “no improvement” if you defined Bush’s foreign policy as an “utter failure”. Did you?

12

You are free to imagine that McCain’s policies would be a vast improvement. Myself, I try not to imagine McCain’s foreign policy, as it requires me to change my trousers.

13

I’m getting a little tired of this standard comeback. Any criticism of Obama is met with a straw man argument that perfection is being demanded and that he must be a messiah or be deemed a failure.

I didn’t hold him to a standard of ‘making everything perfect’. My standard was much lower: Point to ANY successes he’s had, and compare them to the failures.

I never said he was the Messiah, nor am I holding him to that standard. I’m making a perfectly rational argument that the claims of the Obama campaign about the fruits of its approach to foreign policy have not been met, and in fact so far Obama’s critics have been correct that his obsequious behavior to foreign leaders and his apology tour have resulted in little more than bad actors taking advantage of apparent weakness and in America losing influence around the world.

14

The rest of us- specifically those who voted for him and actually live in the country of which he is now President have realistic expectations of him. He’s got a lot on his plate after the mess that the Republican left. Demanding that he make everything perfect Right Now is unrealistic, especially since the other side has made it their goal to make sure he fails.

15

While Bush was in office, NK detonated a nuclear bomb and tried to launch a medium range missile. This isn’t a tu qoque, so much as an observation that NK does what they do and neither foreign policy option (Republican belligerency vs. Democratic appeasement) seems to have much effect. The last thing that actually worked was open bribery by Clinton.

16

I’m convinced. We need to invade Canada.

17

Or surrender?

18

I thought I did that. The Russian nuclear disarmament treaty and the sanctions against NK. Potentially some minor progress on the Iranian nuclear enrichment issue. One might also add the generally effective response to the Haiti disaster. Whether our more negative stance towards the current Israeli government will lead to positive developments or not is not known at this time, but for now the peace process appears well and truly stalled.

In all, probably not enough to make the overall assessment positive. But, certainly, a better return that what the first few years of the Bush presidency brought us (or, I might argue, what McCain/Palin might have brought).

19

“No Improvement”? I just listed a number of areas where the international situation has deteriorated from the American point of view.

Feel free to list the major foreign policy successes of this administration, and compare them against the number of ways in which America’s foreign policy positions have deteriorated. Maybe there’s a debate in there somewhere.

Did I think Bush’s foreign policy was an utter failure? Not all of it. Bush had significant successes.

  • Bush greatly improved public opinion of the U.S. in Africa and saved millions of lives through his AIDS and HIV programs.
  • He built up a large coalition in Afghanistan.
  • You can disagree with the Iraq war, but Bush was successful in getting a large coalition to fight it.
  • Libya renounced terrorism and turned over its WMD programs
  • The U.S. shepherded peace talks between India and Pakistan which have held
  • The Bush Administration managed to move China into multilateral talks with North Korea, which kept NK under control for quite a long time.
  • The Bush administration expanded U.S. influence in Eastern Europe dramatically.
  • The Bush administration strengthened ties with Japan, South Korea, and China, including the high-level military cooperation that was just canceled.
  • Early in his presidency, Bush adroitly handled a crisis with China over a surveillance plane forced to land in Chinese territory.
  • Bush expanded trade through the WTO, the Free Trade Agreement with the Domican Republic, and in general expanded U.S. trade.
  • The Bush administration helped stabilize Columbia.

There were plenty of failures of foreign policy as well. Some have argued that he pushed Eastern Europe too fast. He flirted with protectionism over steel tariffs. He certainly deteriorated world public opinion of the U.S. If you strongly disagree with the Iraq war, that probably overshadows everything. But Bush had plenty of successes.

20

Same as when you talked about it last January. Of course, back then Bush was still in office, so you presented Afghanistan as an intrinsically intractable and unwinnable situation. Now that Obama’s in office, you claim that the Afghanistan situation is somehow Obama’s fault.

But now that it’s Obama in the hot seat, you come around pretending to be disappointed because he hasn’t achieved success in Afghanistan in months rather than in years or decades. Yeah, that’s real convincing.