In ‘Rocking Obama’s World,’ Caroline Glick hammers the president’s foreign policy towards North Korea, Iran, Israel, Lebanon and Russia. Here are some excerpts from her op-ed piece which appeared in the November 26 issue of Jewish World Review:
……….is Obama really worse than everyone else or is he just the latest in a line of US Presidents who have no idea how to run an effective foreign policy?
The short answer is that he is far worse than his predecessors.
A US President's maneuver room in foreign affairs is always very small. The foreign policy establishment in the Washington is entrenched and uniformly opposed to bending to the will of elected leaders. The elites in the State Department and the CIA and their cronies in academia and policy circles in Washington are consistently unmoved as well by reality which as a rule exposes their policies as ruinous.
The president has two ways to shift the ship of state. First he can use his bully pulpit. Second, he can appoint people to key positions in the foreign policy bureaucracy.
Since entering office, Obama has used both these powers to ill effect. He has travelled across the world condemning and apologizing for US world leadership. In so doing he has convinced ally and adversary alike that he is not a credible leader; that no one can depend on US security guarantees during his watch; and that it is possible to attack the US, its allies and interests with impunity.
Obama's call for a nuclear free world combined with his aggressive stance towards Israel's purported nuclear arsenal, his bid to disarm the US nuclear arsenal, and his ineffective response to North Korea's nuclear brinksmanship and Iran's nuclear project have served to convince nations from the Persian Gulf to South America to the Pacific Rim that they should begin developing nuclear weapons. By calling for nuclear disarmament, he has provoked the greatest wave of nuclear armament in history.
Given his own convictions, it is no surprise that all his key foreign policy appointments share his dangerous views. The State Department's Legal Advisor Harold Koh believes the US should subordinate its laws to an abstract and largely unfounded notion of international law.
Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy believes terrorists become radicalized because they are poor. She is advised by leftist extremist Rosa Brooks. Attorney General Eric Holder has decided to open criminal investigations against CIA operatives who interrogated terrorists and try illegal enemy combatants in civilian trials.
In all these cases and countless others, Obama's senior appointees are implementing policies that are even more radical and dangerous that then the radical and dangerous policies of the Washington policy establishment. Not only are they weakening the US and its allies, they are demoralizing public servants who are dedicated to defending their country by signaling clearly that the Obama administration will leave them high and dry in a crisis.
When a Republican occupies the White House, his foreign policies are routinely criticized and constrained by the liberal media. Radical Democratic presidents like Woodrow Wilson have seen their foreign policies reined in by Republican Congresses.
Given the threats Obama's radical policies are provoking, it can only be hoped that through hearings and other means, the Republicans in the Senate and the House of Representatives will take an active role in curbing his policies. If they are successful, the American people and the international community will owe them a debt of gratitude.
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