So 2011 has come and gone - yet another bleak chapter in our national security outlook under President Obama. Considering that we have a president who made it a point to apologize for our superpower status, the notion that he would somehow weaken the country should not be surprising. After all, he's only matching his words with deeds. The Obama administration naturally would dispute this assertion, citing the "elimination" of al Qaeda icons Osama bin Laden via SEAL Team 6 in Pakistan and U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki via drone strike in Yemen. True, both moves were bold, and the president deserves credit for making those tough decisions. However, in the grand scheme of things, targeted killings of terrorist leaders are more a series of one-offs than a comprehensive strategy to strengthen...
Since Reagan, American presidents have been less successful at stopping the pendulum. According to national polls dating back to the 1950s, voters opposing the party that occupies the White House become more dissatisfied with American foreign policy than the president's own party. At what point will he refresh America's commitment to freedom as the foundation of security, an effective diplomacy backed by military leverage, a world market that accepts risks to achieve higher growth, and a style of leadership that is not subordinate to the slowest camel in the caravan?
WASHINGTON - Foreign policy challenges are intruding on President Obama's promise to focus on the economy after the Democrats' election debacle and threatening to knock the White House off message altogether. The escalation of tensions between North and South Korea this past week capped a post-election period that included two presidential trips abroad, discussions about America's future in Afghanistan and a debate in Washington over Senate ratification of a nuclear treaty with Russia.
Re "What about Obama's foreign policy?" (Question of the Week, June 28): Our president's foreign policy has, so far, been insulting to our friends and encouraging to those governments who would destroy our way of life. The dreadful disrespect shown to England and Israel demonstrate a contempt not heretofore seen.
President Barack Obama is learning some hard lessons about foreign policy. The war in Afghanistan and Pakistan is no longer George Bush's war; it is now Obama's war. This war doesn't respond to soft options, despite Obama's strategic review completed in March. During the week, the president got rid of Gen. David McKiernan, his top military man in Afghanistan, who was said to be wedded to the failed policies of the past. He was replaced by Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, a 6-foot-2 ascetic who is a recognized expert in counterinsurgency. McChrystal is also renowned for his 6:30 a.m. briefings, staff in tow. What his staff thinks of this Spartan regimen has yet to be revealed. Then there are the seemingly insoluble problems of the Middle East: Israel, Palestine and Iran. The U.S. and the res...
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Voters gave no clear direction to U.S. foreign policy in this month's congressional elections, leaving President Barack Obama and his strengthened Republican opponents plenty of room in which to find common ground - or duke it out over pressing international challenges. Senior GOP lawmakers say Republicans will challenge Obama over his approach to Iran's nuclear program, and are balking at Senate approval of a new nuclear arms control accord with Russia.
If you're trying to grade President Barack Obama's foreign policy one year after he took office, my advice is: Wait until next year. It's tempting to jump the gun and call his foreign policy a washout. After all, the sky-high global ratings inspired by Obama's victory have not yet produced any tangible foreign-policy triumphs - - in the Middle East, South Asia, or on global warming. Even an early Obama supporter like security expert Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine that Obama "has not yet made the transition from inspiring orator to compelling statesman. Advocating that something happen is not the same as making it happen.
From an unlikely quarter - Pakistan. President Obama gets much credit for changing America's image in the world - he was probably awarded the Nobel Prize for doing so. But if you asked even devoted fans to cite a specific foreign-policy achievement, they would probably hesitate. "It's too soon for that," they would say. But in fact, there is a place where Barack Obama's foreign policy is working, and one that is crucial to U.S. national security - Pakistan. There has been a spate of good news coming out of that complicated country, which has long promised to take action against Islamic militants but rarely done so. (The reason: Pakistan has used many of these same militants to destabilize its traditional foe, India, and to gain influence in Afghanistan.) Over the past few months, the Pa...
Whatever the motives by all parties behind the Libya intervention, the worst fears expressed in the U.N. resolution "authorizing" the use of force are coming true. At this writing, a half-million civilians in Libya's third- largest port city of Misrata are feeling the blast of Col. Moammar Gadhafi's only half-crippled firepower. Pitifully, they include tens of thousands of black African illegal migrants trying to get to Europe - hostages in Col. Gadhafi's blackmail games with the Europeans. The deaths of two Western journalists last week dramatized what could well turn into the kind of humanitarian catastrophe the U.N. warns about but repeatedly fails to prevent. (A harbinger of the coming disaster, ignored by the media, was the loss of 200 souls on a refugee ship in early April.)
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