Sunday, April 5, 2009

President Obama's Lackluster Foreign Policy

President Obama promised a new approach to foreign policy.So far, he's delivered on his promise, with results to show. After lambasting the Bush Administration's 'unilateralism,' he hasn't wooed our allies, and in fact, has inadvertently annoyed South Korea, Britain, and Japan.

But no matter, at the NATO Summit, the President was supposed to show that President Bush was unable to build meaningful coalitions. He conveniently forgot that, in terms of countries sending troops, President Bush commanded the first and second-largest coalitions in history. But no matter.

Instead, we got a small amount of non-combat troops for the ISAF mission in Afghanistan. While this is a positive development and the President had the right idea, it goes to show that the world will not take him as seriously as our former President. President Bush was able to get the world to send over 80,000 troops to Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, Somalia, and Lebanon. Without a convincing rationale (to Europeans) for the Afghan Surge, the President's agenda is falling flat.

In North Korea, the People's Republic has decided to push the envelope by launching a Taepodong-2 ballistic missile. It crashed unceremoniously in the sea. But the President did not order the shooting down of the missile or for strict sanctions. Instead, the UN will meet....

The President needs to realize that calling our country 'arrogant' sometimes feeds into anti-US propaganda. Fahreinheit 9/11 was watched by Hezbollah and shown in Cuba. We need to stand forthright. If our goals are noble, we must not diminish them.

So, Mr. President, take some advice from our last Commander in Chief and show the world some backbone. The self-depreciating phoniness will only go so far.

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