Obama's Foreign Policy Gap with Lawrence Solomon

What this article makes abundantly clear is the sparseness of Obama’s foreign policy record itself.  What was presented was another round of the old appeasement argument which generated the usual worsening environment in exchange for ‘peace’ in Obama’s time.  I question Mr Obama’s historical perspective since the last time around it cost the lives of twenty million Russian Socialists.

On a more positive note, old age appears to be sorting things out in North Korea, Burma and even China without much nastiness so far.

More troublesome, the Arab Spring, which was inevitable, is presently dissolving into a grab for power by fascist elements that need to be isolated and controlled.  This could only be done with UN intervention forces whose task would be to establish proper democratic structures and a responsible bureaucracy.

Obama did not lose the Arab Spring, but failed to actively participate and protect the interest of the demos.  Present failure in Syria is that the people are not aided or protected and the rebel factions will use victory to rationalize their own grab for power and suppression of minorities.  Boots on the ground now can change that outcome.

The USA prospers when they intervene to protect the demos and install some such system.  Iraq is in trouble, but the institutions are in place that can sort it all out.  It is rarely satisfactory but the hopeful trend lines do emerge.

What history has taught us over and over again is that passively sitting back and hoping for the best is stupid and only tosses up another thug who the demos must either out live or overthrow.

 

Lawrence Solomon: Obama’s ­foreign-policy gap

Lawrence Solomon | Oct 19, 2012 

http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/10/19/lawrence-solomon-obamas-%C2%ADforeign-policy-gap/#

No match for Nixon, Carter, Reagan and Bush

During the presidential debate on foreign policy Monday evening, President Obama will likely be asked to explain top-of-mind issues such as the Libyan ambassador’s death in Benghazi, Iran’s bomb, the Russian reset, and China’s emergence as a military and economic power. Obama will likely not be asked why, unlike almost every other president in our lifetimes, he has few accomplishments likely to last, and not a single foreign-policy triumph to his name.

Richard Nixon famously travelled to Red China to open relations with Mao Zedong and he ushered in a new era of “peaceful coexistence” with the USSR that fostered trade and limited the threat of nuclear war through two landmark arms control treaties: the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT 1) and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Among Nixon’s lesser but still significant foreign-policy achievements, he ended the Vietnam War through the Paris Peace Accords, he launched a joint mission of the American Apollo and Soviet Soyuz spacecraft, he riskily airlifted arms to Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and he then established relations with Egypt, to move it out of the Soviet camp.

Gerald Ford, who unexpectedly became president following Nixon’s Watergate-related resignation, nevertheless managed a foreign-policy triumph during his brief two-and-a-half year presidency. His Helsinki Accords committed the USSR to respect the self-determination of peoples and their human rights, including fundamental freedoms such as the freedom of thought and religion. Although the Soviets signed it cynically at the time, it empowered the peoples of the East Bloc countries and the Jews within the Soviet Union to demand rights of their Communist leaders, ultimately leading to their freedom from Communism. In lesser accomplishments, Ford opened America to Vietnamese boat people and used his military to overcome crises involving Cambodia and North Korea.

Jimmy Carter, although generally viewed as weak on foreign policy, logged a triumph in ending three decades of hostility between Israel and Egypt through the signing of the Camp David Accords. Among other lasting accomplishments, he negotiated the Panama Canal Treaties, which gave Panama the Panama Canal, and SALT 2 with the USSR, to reduce the number of nuclear weapons. Although SALT 2 was not ratified, the countries nevertheless honoured it.

Ronald Reagan had too many foreign policy accomplishments to list here — the end of the Cold War and the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement were among his triumphs. Reagan’s successor, George H. Bush, triumphed in winning the first Gulf War while logging lesser accomplishments by continuing the SALT disarmament talks and invading Panama to depose its dictator, Noriega.

Bill Clinton’s foreign-policy triumphs included NAFTA, a major trade agreement with China, and two wars in the Balkans against the Serbs, which secured Bosnia and led to the creation of Kosovo. Clinton also deployed a military force to Haiti to reinstate President Jean-Bernand Aristide.

All the presidents had failures as well as triumphs, and even their accomplishments are very much in the eye of the beholder — many considered Carter’s return of the Panama Canal a mistake, for example. I am listing the lasting accomplishments and the triumphs only to describe the scale of achievements, not to suggest they are or were universally viewed as wise.

Obama’s immediate predecessor, George W. Bush, certainly had controversial foreign-policy achievements, many of them viewed as unwise; some of them, such as the democracies he established in Afghanistan and Iraq, may prove to be fleeting successes. Yet Bush did succeed in overthrowing the Taliban government in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, in a risky military surge that expelled al-Qaeda from Iraq, and in giving the citizens of these countries the experience of electing their own governments. Bush also won plaudits for leading the battle against HIV/AIDS in Africa by providing antiretroviral treatment to some two million Africans, and in signing the six-country Central America Free Trade Agreement, as well as individual free trade agreements with eight other countries.

As for Obama, none of his foreign-policy accomplishments rise to the level of triumph; moreover, his accomplishments are few and often unlikely to be lasting. Obama did help overthrow Gaddafi from Libya, he did pull out troops from Iraq and is on track to do so in Afghanistan. But Libya is in flames with jihadis, including al-Qaeda, resurgent. With the departure of American troops, Iraq has become subservient to Iran and civil war looms. And in Afghanistan, the Taliban seems set to come back once the U.S. leaves. Obama’s one unalloyed foreign success — killing Osama bin Laden — was not a policy success. In fact, in policy terms it appears a failure — Obama no longer claims that al-Qaeda is in retreat. Obama’s lasting accomplishments? He signed a new version of the SALT treaties with Russia and free trade deals with Colombia, Panama and South Korea.

Obama’s would-be triumphs — the Russian reset, the negotiations with Iran that would placate the Mullahs, a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, making the U.S. loved around the world, especially in the Muslim world — have all gone down in flames, not unlike the effigies burned during the recent embassy riots in 20-odd cities around the world.

LawrenceSolomon@nextcity.com