I have been pretty hard on our President and his party in recent posts. In an effort to be fair, let me state that executive agendas are usually constrained by the larger cultures in which they play out. Nowhere is this so true as in foreign policy. It would take an extraordinary man to take command of the culture of foreign policy instead of being taken in by it. Neither Bill Clinton nor George W. Bush was such a man. Barack Obama has never risen above a culture in his life.
To be sure, President Obama might have chosen some other day than the anniversary of the Soviet Invasion of Poland to announce that he was leaving our Central European allies high and dry on defense. That looks like studied incompetence. But the general idea behind the policy—give the Russians something they want so they will help us with Iran—is pure State Department culture. There is no reason to think it will work, and it openly insults nations that have stood by us in trying times, but hey you got to believe in reaching out!
On Afghanistan, it was pretty certain that as soon as Dubya left D.C. the good war would suddenly become another quagmire in the eyes of right thinking Democrats and State Department luminaries. They may be right this time, but that would be a mere coincidence. So Obama is currently playing Hamlet on the Potomac with regard to a war he promised to prosecute. He hasn't caved in yet!
And then there is global warming. The President urged the nations of the world to act now on Climate Change, before it becomes irreversible. But action would require that they and we intentionally hobble our economies at a point when they are already limping along. If the history of the Kyoto Protocol is any indication, they ain't and neither are we. China and India sure ain't. So President Obama is left exercising world leadership by urging nations to do what none of them is going to do. It is easy to blame him for his, and say he should go back to the drawing board, but world political culture doesn't put that button on the webpage.
And then there is the Middle East. The President greeted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and leader of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas in New York this week. He wants them to come to some sort of agreement so the thorny problem of Palestine can be dethorned. He has long been arguing that this problem is at the root of the regional troubles, and if he could solve it then it would make it easier to deal with problems like the Iranian nuclear weapons program. Except that he can't, and it wouldn't.
Consider the figure of Abbas. Is he a leader? Is the Palestinian Authority an authority? No, and no. Abbas exists because the Israelis and the U.S. provide him with protection. He lost the civil war in Gaza, the only territory where Palestinians control anything. He has nominal authority in the West Bank territory (see comments on protection). Abbas has no power to make peace, nor does anyone else among the Palestinians. And Hamas, which does have some power, has not the slightest inclination to make peace.
And even if the problem of Palestine was somehow miraculously settled, it wouldn't help with Iran one bit. The Iranians are building nukes because they care about Palestine? No. They are building nukes because they want to be a regional power that the U.S. can't touch.
The President's foreign policy is pure State Department fantasy. It is very feeble, and that is why the President finds himself in New York with no clout at all.
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