While the world waits for the Leader of the Free World to articulate something remotely resembling a coherent strategy regarding the Islamic State, self-satisfied White House flacks cleverly remind that the administration’s overarching foreign policy is “don’t do stupid s***.” (Kissinger wishes he were as deep.)
This wins the prize for galactic obtuseness. The flacks’ brilliant hero cancels missile defense for Eastern Europe, naively presents Russia with a “reset” button, touts his post-election “flexibility” to Medvedev, and then is flummoxed when the rapacious Putin sees a green light to reconstitute the former Soviet Union.
Obama utterly squanders an historic opportunity to change the calculus in the Middle East by supporting the nascent Green Revolution, engages in transparently futile negotiations with madmen intent on developing nuclear weapons, and now Iran is on the verge of becoming the most dangerous country in the world.
Our sophisticated president leads from behind in Libya, ignores the ensuing chaos — even when it results in the deaths of four Americans – and now that country has devolved into a terrorist safe haven with mountains of sophisticated weaponry (and possibly even eleven weaponized airliners) at the disposal of al-Qaeda affiliates.
The visionary commander-in-chief insouciantly declares the Iraq War over and the country stable, fails to negotiate a status-of-forces agreement, and pulls out all U.S. troops from the theater. As predicted by less enlightened souls, the country implodes, thousands are killed, the region destabilizes, and America’s enemies are on the march.
In Afghanistan, he telegraphs the withdrawal date to the enemy and, well, see above . . .
He draws a red line in Syria, erases it, and is caught off-guard when bad actors from the Islamic State to Putin see that as an invitation to adventurism. Yet, as conflicts erupt in every corner of the planet, he slashes the military to levels not seen in more than 80 years.
Intelligence experts, including some of the administration’s own national-security team, say foreign threats to the homeland have never been greater.
Nowhere in the world are American interests better off than they were at the outset of this administration. Nowhere are we more respected. Nowhere are we more feared.
Don’t do stupid s*** indeed. This administration’s foreign policy — to the extent one can be discerned — is better described by another blunt phrase: Stuck on stupid.