{"id":7014,"date":"2014-02-18T09:44:30","date_gmt":"2014-02-18T17:44:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=7014"},"modified":"2014-02-18T09:44:30","modified_gmt":"2014-02-18T17:44:30","slug":"obamas-foreign-policy-enemy-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-foreign-policy-enemy-action\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama’s Foreign Policy: Enemy Action"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/\u00a0FrontPage Magazine<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s often hard to determine whether a series of bad policies results from stupidity or malicious intent. Occam\u2019s razor suggests that the former is the more likely explanation,<\/p>\n

\"US
US Dept. of Labor via Flickr<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

as conspiracies assume a high degree of intelligence, complex organization, and secrecy among a large number of people, qualities that usually are much less frequent than the simple stupidity, disorganization, and inability to keep a secret more typical of our species. Yet surveying the nearly 6 years of Obama\u2019s disastrous foreign policy blunders, I\u2019m starting to lean towards Goldfinger\u2019s Chicago mob-wisdom: \u201cOnce is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times, it\u2019s enemy action.\u201d<\/p>\n

Obama\u2019s ineptitude started with his general foreign policy philosophy. George Bush, so the narrative went, was a trigger-happy, unilateralist, blundering, \u201cdead or alive\u201d cowboy who rushed into an unnecessary war in Iraq after alienating our allies and insulting the Muslim world. Obama pledged to be different. As a\u00a0Los Angeles Times<\/i>\u00a0editorial advised him in January 2009, \u201cThe Bush years, defined by ultimatums and unilateral actions around the world, must be brought to a swift close with a renewed emphasis on diplomacy, consultation and the forging of broad international coalitions.\u201d Obama eagerly took this advice, reaching out not just to our allies, but also to sworn enemies like Syria, Venezuela, and Iran, and serially bowing to various potentates around the globe. He went on the apology tour, in which he confessed America\u2019s \u201carrogant, dismissive, derisive\u201d behavior and the \u201cdarker periods in our history.\u201d And he followed up by initiating America\u2019s retreat from international affairs, \u201cleading from behind,\u201d appeasing our enemies, and using rhetorical bluster as a substitute for coherent, forceful action. Here follow 3 of the many mistakes that suggest something other than inexperience and a lack of knowledge is driving Obama\u2019s policies.<\/p>\n

Russia<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

Remember the \u201creset\u201d button Obama offered to Russia? In September 2009 he made a down payment on this policy by reversing George Bush\u2019s plan to station a radar facility in the Czech Republic and 10 ground-based missile interceptors in Poland. Russia had complained about these defensive installations, even though they didn\u2019t threaten Russian territory. So to appease the Russians, Obama abandoned Poland and the Czech Republic, who still live in the dark shadow of their more powerful former oppressors, while Russia\u2019s Iranian clients were emboldened by their patron\u2019s ability to make the superpower Americans back down. As George Marshall Fund fellow David J. Kramer prophesized at the time, Obama\u2019s caving \u201cto Russian pressure . . . will encourage leaders in Moscow to engage in more loud complaining and bully tactics (such as threatening Iskander missiles against the Poles and Czechs) because such behavior gets desired results.\u201d<\/p>\n

Obama followed up this blunder with the New START arms reduction treaty with Russia signed in 2010. This agreement didn\u2019t include tactical nuclear weapons, leaving the Russians with a 10-1 advantage. Multiple warheads deployed on a missile were counted as one for purposes of the treaty, which meant that the Russians could exceed the 1550 limit. Numerous other problems<\/a>\u00a0plague this treaty, but the worst is the dependence on Russian honesty to comply with its terms. Yet as Keith B. Payne and Mark B. Schneider have\u00a0written<\/a>\u00a0recently, for years Russia has serially violated the terms of every arms-control treaty it has signed, for obvious reasons: \u201cThese Russian actions demonstrate the importance the Kremlin attaches to its new nuclear-strike capabilities. They also show how little importance the Putin regime attaches to complying with agreements that interfere with those capabilities. Russia not only seems intent on creating new nuclear- and conventional-strike capabilities against U.S. allies and friends. It has made explicit threats against some of them in recent years.\u201d Busy pushing the reset button, Obama has ignored all this cheating. Nor did Obama\u2019s 2012 appeasing pledge to outgoing Russian President Dmitri Medvedev\u2013\u2013 that after the election he would \u201chave more flexibility\u201d about the proposed European-based anti-missile defense system angering Russia\u2013\u2013could convince Vladimir Putin to play ball with the U.S. on Iran and Syria. Obama\u2019s groveling \u201creset\u201d outreach has merely emboldened Russia to expand its influence and that of its satellites like Iran and Syria, at the expense of the interests and security of America and its allies.<\/p>\n

Syria<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

Syria is another American enemy Obama thought his charm offensive could win over. To do so he had to ignore Syria\u2019s long history of supporting terrorists outfits like Hezbollah, murdering its sectarian and political rivals, assassinating Lebanon\u2019s anti-Syrian Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005, and facilitating the transit of jihadists\u2013\u2013 during one period over 90% of foreign fighters\u2013\u2013 into Iraq to kill Americans. Yet Obama sent diplomatic officials on 6 trips to Syria in an attempt to make strongman Bashar al Assad play nice. In return, in 2010 Assad hosted a cozy conference with Hezbollah terrorist leader Hassan Nasrallah and the genocidal Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, where they discussed \u201ca Middle East without Zionists and without colonialists.\u201d Despite such rhetoric, even as the uprising against Assad was unfolding in March 2011, Secretary of State Clinton said, \u201cThere\u2019s a different leader in Syria now. Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he\u2019s a reformer.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to the growing resistance against the \u201creformer\u201d Assad, Obama once again relied on blustering rhetoric rather than timely action to bring down an enemy of the U.S. Sanctions and Executive Orders flew thick and fast, but no military aid was provided to Assad\u2019s opponents, the moderates soon to be marginalized by foreign terrorists armed by Iran. As time passed, more Syrians died and more terrorists filtered into Syria, while Obama responded with toothless tough rhetoric, proclaiming, \u201cFor the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside.\u201d Equally ineffective was Obama\u2019s talk in 2012 of a \u201cred line\u201d and \u201cgame-changer\u201d if Assad used chemical weapons. Assad, obviously undeterred by threats from the world\u2019s greatest military power, proceeded to use chemical weapons. Obama threatened military action, only to back down on the excuse that he needed the permission of Congress. Instead, partnering with the Russian wolf his own weakness had empowered, he brokered a deal that in effect gave Assad a free hand to bomb cities and kill civilians at the price of promising to surrender his chemical stockpiles. The butcher Assad magically changed from a pariah who had to go, into a legitimate partner of the United States, one whose cooperation we depend on for implementing the agreement. Given such cover, he has continued to slaughter his enemies and provide invaluable battlefield experience to tens of thousands of terrorist fighters.<\/p>\n

Of course, without the threat of military punishment for violating the terms of the agreement\u00ad\u00ad\u2013\u2013punishment vetoed by new regional player Russia\u2013\u2013the treaty is worthless. Sure enough, this month we learned that Assad is dragging his feet, missing a deadline for turning over his weapons, while surrendering so far just 5% of his stockpiles. And those are just the weapons he has acknowledged possessing. In response, Secretary of State John Kerry has blustered, \u201cBashar al-Assad is not, in our judgment, fully in compliance because of the timing and the delays that have taken place contrary to the [Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons]\u2019s judgment that this could move faster. So the options are all the options that originally existed. No option has been taken off the table.\u201d You can hear Assad, Rouhani, Nasrallah, and Putin rolling on the ground laughing their you-know-what\u2019s off over that empty threat.<\/p>\n

Iran<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

Now we come to the biggest piece of evidence for divining Obama\u2019s motives, Iran. The Islamic Republic has been an inveterate enemy of this country since the revolution in 1979, with 35 years of American blood on its hands to prove it. Even today Iranian agents are facilitating with training and materiel the killing of Americans in Afghanistan. The regime is the biggest and most lethal state sponsor of terrorism, and proclaims proudly a genocidal, anti-Semitic ideology against Israel, our most loyal ally in the region. And it regularly reminds us that we are its enemy against whom it has repeatedly declared war, most recently in February when demonstrations celebrated the anniversary of the revolution with signs reading, \u201cHey, America!! Be angry with us and die due to your anger! Down with U.S.A.\u201d At the same time, two Iranian warships crowded our maritime borders in the Atlantic, and state television broadcast a documentary simulating attacks on U.S. aircraft carriers.<\/p>\n

Despite that long record of murder and hatred, when he first came into office, Obama made Iran a particular object of his diplomatic \u201coutreach.\u201d He \u201cbent over backwards,\u201d as he put it, \u201cextending his hand\u201d to the mullahs \u201cwithout preconditions,\u201d going so far as to keep silent in June 2009 as they brutally suppressed protests against the stolen presidential election. But the mullahs contemptuously dismissed all these overtures. In response, Obama issued a series of \u201cdeadlines\u201d for Iran to come clean on its weapons programs, more bluster the regime ignored, while Obama assured them that \u201cWe remain committed to serious, meaningful engagement with Iran.\u201d Just as with Russia and Syria, still more big talk about \u201call options are on the table\u201d for preventing the mullahs from acquiring nuclear weapons has been scorned by the regime.<\/p>\n

Doubling down on this failed policy, Obama along with the Europeans gambled that sanctions would bring Iran to its knees before it reached breakout capability for producing a weapon. Odds of success were questionable, but just as the sanctions appeared to be pushing the Iranian economy, and perhaps the regime, to collapse, in November of last year Obama entered into negotiations that resulted in a disastrous agreement that trades sanction relief for empty promises. This deal ensures that Iran will become a nuclear power, since the agreement allows Iran to continue to enrich uranium in violation of numerous U.N. Security Council Resolutions. Finally, in an act of criminal incoherence, Obama threatened to veto any Congressional legislation imposing meaningful economic punishment for future Iranian cheating and intransigence.<\/p>\n

Given this \u201cabject surrender,\u201d as former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton called it, it\u2019s no surprise that the Iranians are trumpeting the agreement as a victory: \u201cIn this agreement, the right of Iranian nation to enrich uranium was accepted by world powers,\u201d the \u201cmoderate reformer\u201d Iranian president Hassan Rouhani bragged. \u201cWith this agreement \u2026 the architecture of sanctions will begin to break down.\u201d Iranian foreign minister Mohammed Javad Zarif,\u00a0agreed<\/a>: \u201cNone of the enrichment centers will be closed and Fordow and Natanz will continue their work and the Arak heavy water program will continue in its present form and no material (enriched uranium stockpiles) will be taken out of the country and all the enriched materials will remain inside the country. The current sanctions will move towards decrease, no sanctions will be imposed and Iran\u2019s financial resources will return.\u201d Memo to Mr. Obama: when the adversary loudly brags that the agreement benefits him, you\u2019d better reexamine the terms of the deal.<\/p>\n

As it stands today, the sanction regime is unraveling even as we speak, while the Iranians are within months of nuclear breakout capacity. Meanwhile the economic pain that was starting to change Iranian behavior is\u00a0receding<\/a>. According to the International Monetary Fund, Iran\u2019s economy is projected to grow 2% in fiscal year 2014-15, compared to a 2% contraction this year. Inflation has dropped over 10 points since last year. Global businesses are flocking to Tehran to cut deals, while Obama blusters that \u201cwe will come down on [sanctions violators] like a ton of bricks.\u201d Add that dull clich\u00e9 to \u201cred line,\u201d \u201cgame-changer,\u201d and the other empty threats that comprise the whole of Obama\u2019s foreign policy.<\/p>\n

These foreign policy blunders and numerous others\u2013\u2013especially the loss of critical ally Egypt\u2013\u2013 reflect ideological delusions that go beyond Obama. The notion that aggressors can be tamed and managed with diplomatic engagement has long been a convenient cover for a political unwillingness to take military action with all its dangers and risks. Crypto-pacifist Democrats are particularly fond of the magical thinking that international organizations, summits, \u201cshuttle diplomacy,\u201d conferences, and other photogenic confabs can substitute for force.<\/p>\n

But progressive talk of \u201cmultilateralism\u201d and \u201cdiplomatic engagement\u201d hides something else: the Oliver Stone\/Howard Zinn\/Noam Chomsky\/Richard Falk self-loathing narrative that the United States is a force of evil in the world, a neo-colonialist, neo-imperialist, predatory capitalist oppressor responsible for the misery and tyranny afflicting the globe. Given that America\u2019s power is corrupt, we need a foreign policy of withdrawal, retreat, and apologetic humility, with our national sovereignty subjected to transnational institutions like the U.N., the International Court of Justice, and the European Court of Human Rights \u2013\u2013exactly the program that Obama has been working on for the last 5 years. Given the damage such policies are serially inflicting on our security and interests, it starts to make sense that inexperience or stupidity is not as cogent an explanation as enemy action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/\u00a0FrontPage Magazine\u00a0 It\u2019s often hard to determine whether a series of bad policies results from stupidity or malicious intent. Occam\u2019s razor suggests that the former is the more likely explanation, as conspiracies assume a high degree of intelligence, complex organization, and secrecy among a large number of people, qualities that usually […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[22,196],"tags":[233,12,249,51,1055,74,1039,1074,1041,76],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1P8","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2545,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-libya-venture-and-double-standards\/","url_meta":{"origin":7014,"position":0},"title":"Obama’s Libya Venture and Double Standards","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 10, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine The champion of shameless chutzpah has always been the guy who murders his parents then throws himself on the mercy of the court because he\u2019s an orphan. But White House spokesman Jay Carney might be the new champ, given his response to the House\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Libya"","block_context":{"text":"Libya","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/libya\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8729,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-schizophrenic-foreign-policy\/","url_meta":{"origin":7014,"position":1},"title":"Obama’s Schizophrenic Foreign Policy","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 14, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"An analysis of a recipe for serial disasters. by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/ FrontPage Magazine What are the roots of Barack Obama\u2019s foreign policy? Some focus on the man and his flaws of character, particularly his inability to learn from his mistakes and to adjust his ideas to changing facts\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Our Contributors"","block_context":{"text":"Our Contributors","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Photo via FrontPage Magazine","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/ov-500x281.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8260,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/bad-ideas-breed-bad-foreign-policy\/","url_meta":{"origin":7014,"position":2},"title":"Bad Ideas Breed Bad Foreign Policy","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 4, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/ FrontPage Magazine Barack Obama\u2019s foreign policy will go down in U.S. history as one of the most dangerously inept ever. Created by equal amounts of ignorance, arrogance, and partisan politics, the president\u2019s policies have left behind a world in which rivals and enemies are on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Our Contributors"","block_context":{"text":"Our Contributors","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Photo via FrontPage Magazine","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/201113jobs.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3144,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/where-does-republican-foreign-policy-go-from-here\/","url_meta":{"origin":7014,"position":3},"title":"Where Does Republican Foreign Policy Go From Here?","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 24, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage The GOP\u2019s continuing analysis of last November\u2019s debacle has now sparked a debate about foreign policy. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul\u2019s 16-hour filibuster and his speeches at the Heritage Foundation and CPAC have reignited the perennial conflict between isolationists and interventionists of various stripes. As the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":694,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-potemkin-president-disintegrates\/","url_meta":{"origin":7014,"position":4},"title":"The Potemkin President Disintegrates","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 18, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine After nearly four years in office, the tinsel and cardboard persona of Barack Obama is starting to fall apart. The political unifier who claimed, \u201cThere is not a liberal America and a conservative America \u2014 there is the United States of America,\u201d has been\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Punditry"","block_context":{"text":"Punditry","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/punditry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":390,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-stakes-in-tonights-foreign-policy-debate\/","url_meta":{"origin":7014,"position":5},"title":"The Stakes in Tonight’s Foreign Policy Debate","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 22, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce Thornton FrontPage Magazine Foreign policy, the topic of tonight\u2019s debate, was suddenly thrust into the voters\u2019 consciousness by the murder of 4 Americans, including our ambassador, in Benghazi on the anniversary of 9\/11. Intensifying the fallout of this event has been the Obama administration\u2019s incoherent, clumsy, duplicitous, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Libya"","block_context":{"text":"Libya","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/libya\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7014"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7014"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7016,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7014\/revisions\/7016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}