“Ask Osama bin Laden . . . whether I engage in appeasement.”
— Barack Obama, Dec. 8, 2011
Fair enough. Barack Obama didn’t appease Osama bin Laden. He killed him. And for ordering the raid and taking the risk, Obama deserves credit. Credit for decisiveness and political courage.
However, the bin Laden case was no test of policy. No serious person of either party ever suggested negotiation or concession. Obama demonstrated decisiveness, but forgoing a non-option says nothing about the soundness of one’s foreign policy. That comes into play when there are choices to be made.
Advertisement
And here the story is different. Take Obama’s two major foreign-policy initiatives — toward Russia and Iran.
The administration came into office determined to warm relations with Russia. It was called “reset,” an antidote to the “dangerous drift” (Vice President Biden’s phrase) in relations during the Bush years.
In fact, the Bush coolness toward Russia was grounded in certain unpleasant realities: the Kremlin’s systematic dismantling of democracy; its naked aggression against Georgia; its drive to re-establish a Russian sphere of influence in the near-abroad; and its support, from Syria to Venezuela, of the world’s more ostentatiously anti-American regimes.
Unmoored from such inconvenient realities, Obama went about his “reset.” The signature decision was the abrupt cancellation of a Polish- and Czech-based U.S. missile-defense system bitterly opposed by Moscow.
The cancellation deeply undercut two very pro-American allies who had aligned themselves with Washington in the face of both Russian threats and popular unease. Obama not only left them twisting in the wind. He showed the world that the Central Europeans’ hard-won independence was only partial and tentative. With American acquiescence, their ostensibly sovereign decisions were subject to a Russian veto.
This major concession, together with a New START treaty far more needed by Russia than America, was supposed to ease U.S.-Russia relations, assuage Russian opposition to missile defense, and enlist its assistance in stopping Iran’s nuclear program.
Three years in, how is that “reset” working out? The Russians are back on the warpath about missile defense. They’re denouncing the watered-down Obama substitute. They threaten not only to target any Europe-based U.S. missile defenses but also to install offensive missiles in Kaliningrad. They threaten additionally to withdraw from the New START treaty, which the administration had touted as a great foreign-policy achievement.
As for assistance on Iran, Moscow has thwarted us at every turn, weakening or blocking resolution after resolution. And now, when even the International Atomic Energy Agency has testified to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Russia declares that it will oppose any new sanctions.
Finally, adding contempt to mere injury, Vladimir Putin responded to anti-government demonstrations by unleashing a crude Soviet-style attack on America as the secret power behind the protests. Putin personally accused Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of sending “a signal” that activated internal spies and other agents of imperial America.
Such are the wages of appeasement. Makes one pine for mere “drift.”
Killing Bin Laden was a tactical move, a brilliant one and kudos to the president for it but it certainly is not a strategy and shouldn’t be compared to one.
‘Reset’ very much is a strategy but a flawed one. It’s based on an underlying assumption that previous US foreign policy was wrong, imperial and criminal. Indeed America has risen to the top but Reset assumes this is due to our evil past. Obviously we are not perfect but the US has raised the standard of living for more people than any other in history and we remain the world’s best hope for promoting freedom abroad. Yes liberals will complain this is tired old rhetoric…but it is true none the less. Yes mistakes have been and will continue to be made but our track record is not so bad.
Killing Bin Laden was a tactical move, a brilliant one...
Really?
What was the brilliant part? Ordering a hit when he knew for a certainty that the scum responsible for the murder of 3,000 Americans was in that house?
I'm guessing you meant to write, "Killing Bin Laden was a tactical move, but a no-brainer..."
I agree. Obama has been given waaaay too much credit for that decision. What "risk" did he endure? He's not a Seal. If the mission had gone bad, really bad, he would have blamed it on Bush's military readiness, being stretched too thin with two wars, etc.
He had history to learn from. Clinton had the chance to get OBL in Yemen, didn't and was criticized for that. Back then OBL was a two bit thug, now he's A # 1 bad guy. If Obama waited, OBL escaped and word got out, it would have been very harmful to his creds as a "leader". So it was a very easy decision for him to make.
By sending the team in, what constituency would he upset?
It was a no lose decision for him, with no personal risk. He got way too much credit for giving the green light, way too much.
The real problem is that neither Bush nor Obama had/have a policy.
IMO, ALL Presidents make the same ego driven mistake. They all assume that Russia (and others) WANT and NEED us.
Folks this ain't no marriage and it never will be.
We should, since we are peace loving people, reach out to all nations. We should make sensible overtures while PROTECTING our interests in those acts. However if a nation rebuffs us then we should treat them as you would a dog that habitually tries to bite you when you offer it sustenance.
Pen them in as tightly as you can with regard to international law (as long as it does not conflict with constitutional requirements), then go our merry way.
If there is any truth in the idea held by most Presidents it is only that WE may be NEEDED by others, certainly not the other way round.
"Obama imagined that his silver tongue and exquisite sensitivity to Islam would persuade the mullahs to give up their weapons program. Amazingly, they resisted his charms"
“Ask Osama bin Laden . . . whether I engage in appeasement."
-President Obama
Here's the flaw in his argument:
Assuming that Bin Laden is dead, Obama refuses to provide evidence because it might upset Bin Laden's fanbase. So it's more important to Obama to avoid upsetting Bin Laden's fans than to provide closure to his thousands of victims. If that isn't appeasement, I don't know what is.
"Fair enough. Barack Obama didn’t appease Osama bin Laden. He killed him. And for ordering the raid and taking the risk, Obama deserves credit. Credit for decisiveness and political courage."
No he doesn't! From what I've read, for weeks he drank in the poison of fear and submission to Islam handed to him from his royal cup-bearer, Iranian-born adviser Valerie Jarrett. He dithered and did nothing until CIA's Leon Panetta and DoD's Bob Gates finally used authority they already had to order the raid. Essentially they dared the President to stop it. He voted present yet again and let it proceed. And now he wants to take credit for the courage of others even while he resurrects the caliphate (as a commenter has said on this thread).
Weakness toward Russia? Look to the Democratic Party's ever-useful idiots. Weakness toward Iran? Look to Valerie Jarrett.
"Blessed are the cheek turners ...", indeed. But there is nothing in the Bible that says when someone digs out your left eye, to present to them your right.
Really Mike? That's the best you can muster? Some too-clever-by-half comment that nations are not capable of showing contempt?
Since you wish to wield the bloody double-bladed axe of semantics and rhetoric, what you meant to say is that nation-states have no friends. Nations certainly have friends. I'll assume you are astute enough to understand the difference between the terms. Further, states can certainly demonstrate contempt. In fact, the bloody hue and cry for years during the prior administration was that the United States under President Bush the Younger showed nothing but contempt for the rest of the world. But, you knew that, having made the same assertion yourself. So, as with all whose arguments are ninety percent smarminess and ten percent mischaracterization, you conveniently change rhetorical track when inconvenient to maintain it.
Perhaps under the bed with your paranoid fears of imminent invasion. The only folks who have harmed us are the ones we used to coddle. I would love for you to be placed in the shoes of a Pakistani, with our drones firing away around your farm and family. They're crazy to hate us aren't they? We will set you free if you survive. Do you ever stop to think or is it all automatic now? Anyway, my guess is you sleep like a baby because you have the same blissful certainty of a child.
Follow
