Nobel-Prize-Winner-on-Credit fails to make Payment

I had thought that the Nobel Prize awarded to President Obama would hurt the new Chief Diplomat more than a little. I thought that the foreign policy problems facing him would make a mockery of the promise on which the award was based, which they have; but I also thought that nearly every article about his foreign policy failures would begin by reminding us of the prize.

Instead, the world seems largely to have forgotten his prize as if it were one of those little nylon ribbons that American school children get for most advanced in self-esteem. I continue to be amused by the fact of the prize, especially when I read this article from Der Spiegel.

US President Barack Obama glided off the stage to thunderous applause. He had just given a speech that commentators around the world, particularly those in the Muslim world, would characterize within minutes as "historic."…

Eight months later, the president was forced to admit that he had not even come close to reaching the goal he had set for himself. "We overestimated our ability to persuade [both sides] to [negotiate]," he told Time reporter Joe Klein in the White House Oval Office in January. "If we had anticipated some of these political problems on both sides earlier, we might not have raised expectations as high." It was an astonishing admission.

Never before had a US president enjoyed such trust in the Middle East -- and gambled it away in such a short time. Obama has vacillated to an extent that has confused friend and foe alike, even baffling veteran observers of the region.

That's pretty devastating. This is even worse:

Obama's failure in the Middle East is but one example of his weakness, though a particularly drastic and vivid one. The president, widely celebrated when he took office, cannot claim to have achieved sweeping successes in any area. When he began his term more than a year ago, he came across as an ambitious developer who had every intention of completing multiple projects at once. But after a year, none of those projects has even progressed beyond the early construction phase. And in some cases, the sites are nothing but deep excavations.

Barack Obama took office promising to reverse the damage that the Bush Administration did to America's standing in the world. That was an unwise promise for two reasons. One, the view of Bush Administration foreign policy was based on campaign talking points rather than any realistic appraisal of Bush's record. The relations between the United States and Europe were indeed strained by the Iraq War, but over all Bush maintained solid relations with the English, French, and Germans, to name three important old world powers. Relations with all three have soured under President Obama.

Likewise, it was puerile to assume that the problems in American foreign policy in Europe, the Middle East, or elsewhere could be solved by a mere change in attitude. The ambitions of the Iranians to acquire nuclear weapons, the resistance of Russia and China to any effective actions against Iran, the stubbornness of Israelis and Palestinians, these things have deeper roots than any supposed arrogance of the previous administration.

Obama is scarcely to blame for the difficult challenges that awaited him when he first stepped into the Oval Office. He does have to take some responsibility for the ridiculous expectations that he walked in with. He is solely responsible for the policy vacillation that has cost him so dearly among world powers great and small. It is possible that he will firm up. I wish we could count on that.

Comments

[Lynn]

The great O is really a naive, inexperienced, power hungry, marxist community organizer who has never run a business (the US is a giant business), met a payroll (the US has a huge budget), managed employees, or had any real experience in the real world of work. We people don't even know him - no birth certificate, no release of college transcripts, etc. But the majority of the gullible voters elected him anyway, and now we are reaping the results of that vote. I just hope the country survives him. He wants a legacy, and it looks like he is getting it - the destruction of the US. Sorry to be so down, but today will go down in infamy if this healthc care monstrosity passes, and I'm not in a very positive mood.