Obama's Top Ten Foreign Policy Debacles

Lately we've been focusing on Barack Obama's domestic policy disasters, you know, seizure of public corporations, government control of health policy, soaring unemplyment rate . . . the whole redistribution of wealth/sacrifice our children thing. But leave it to the Brits to remind us of what the mainstream American media continues to ignore: what a dangerous and diluded foreign policy "The Chosen One" has. (wait, are we finally past everyone sans the sanity suppressed Obots thinking of Obama as "The Chosen One"?)

Nile Gardiner of the UK Telegraph has compiled a list of Barack Obama's Top Ten foreign policy follies in his first year of presidency. Fist of all, hats off to Mr. Gardiner for keeping the list to a mere ten -- yoeman's effort, that. And second, please don't read these until 30 minutes after eating if you want to avoid the bends.

Here is a list of the ten biggest foreign policy follies of Barack Obama’s first year in office. I’ve tried to make the list inclusive of all corners of the world, ranging from Tehran to Tokyo to Khartoum, and frankly could easily have expanded it to a top 20 or even top 30 list. There are plenty to choose from, including some of the most cringe worthy moments in modern American history.

1. Surrendering to Russia over Missile Defence
The White House’s betrayal of US allies in eastern and central Europe by reneging on the deal to establish Third Site missile defences sent a clear signal that Washington was more concerned about appeasing Moscow than defending its friends. It symbolized all that is wrong with Obama’s foreign policy – including the willingness to curry favour with brutal enemies while giving the boot to some of America’s
closest partners.

2. Appeasing the Mullahs of Iran
If Barack Obama makes a New Year’s resolution, I hope it will be that he stops appeasing Tehran. The White House’s strategy of engagement with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been nothing short of a spectacular failure. While Obama has been busy emulating the European Union’s dismal Common Foreign and Security Policy and sending polite video messages, the Mullahs and their puppets have been busy advancing their nuclear weapons programme, enriching uranium, supplying arms to the Taliban, capturing British sailors, test-firing long-range missiles, threatening the annihilation of Israel, and killing pro-democracy protestors.

3. Ending the War on Terror
Not only did Barack Obama order the closure of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay within hours of becoming president, but he also embarked upon ending the entire War on Terror, which was swiftly renamed an Overseas Contingency Operation. Nearly a year later the threat from al-Qaeda remains just as great, if not greater, but President Obama refuses to describe the battle in terms of a global war, and balks at identifying the enemy – Islamist terrorists. At the same time he has given the enemy a huge propaganda victory by endlessly castigating the Bush administration for supposedly “torturing” terrorist suspects, and apologizing for the
counter-terror strategy of the previous US government.

4. Announcing a Surge while Declaring an Exit
There can be no doubt that the three months of dithering by President Obama over whether to deploy more forces to Afghanistan was highly damaging to the United States, and sowed considerable uncertainty within the NATO alliance. When Obama finally made an announcement in December to send an additional 30,000 troops to the battlefield, a huge step in the right direction, his decision was immediately undercut by the simultaneous announcement of an exit timetable, starting in 18 months. It is hard to imagine Churchill or Roosevelt declaring in the middle of the Second World War that they would fight the Nazis for another year and a half, and then start withdrawing their forces on the grounds of cost.

5. Apologising to France for America’s “Arrogance”
Barack Obama’s Strasbourg speech will go down in history as one of the most embarrassing moments ever for a US president on foreign soil. As I wrote earlier, “The President of the most powerful nation on earth traveled to France to deliver a grovelling, massive mea culpa for US foreign policy, including the War on Terror. Utter humiliation for America on European soil in front of a largely French and German audience who bitterly opposed the liberation of Iraq – not even Jacques Chirac could have dreamt it up.”

6. Giving DVDs to the British Prime Minister
I’m no fan of Gordon Brown, but the treatment of the Prime Minister at the hands of the White House on his visit to Washington in March was an appalling humiliation for Great Britain. The PM was received as though he were the leader of a third world banana republic rather than America’s closest ally, denied an official press conference and even a dinner. To add insult to injury, Brown was packed off with 25 discount DVDs ranging from Toy Story to The Wizard of Oz, which couldn’t even be played in Britain.

7. Siding with Marxists in Honduras
The Obama administration has certainly been consistent in its strategy of cuddling up to America’s enemies while kicking its friends. True to form the White House and State Department rushed to condemn the constitutional removal of left-wing, America-hating, Hugo-Chavez-backed despot Manuel Zelaya from power in Honduras, and his temporary replacement with pro-American Speaker of the House Robert Micheletti. Whatever happened to the good old days when the United States actually fought against Marxist tyrants in Latin America and backed anti-communists?

8. Bowing to Emperors and Kings
The last time I checked, Barack Obama was not a subject of imperial Japan, but his bow before Emperor Akihito was a scene straight out of the 1930s. A simple handshake with the descendent of Emperor Hirohito would have sufficed, but the president opted for a full-blown bow when the two met in Tokyo in November. It is one thing to pay respect to a monarch, but quite another for an American president to prostrate himself and his nation before a foreign leader. Needless to say, eyebrows were raised not only in America but across Asia as well. This was far from an isolated incident. Obama did exactly the same when he met with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at the G-20 in April.

9. Embracing Genocidal Killers in Sudan
I’ve included this in the list because it illustrates the extraordinary lengths to which the Obama administration will go to appease the most evil tyrannies on the face of the earth. In October Obama extended the hand of friendship to the brutal regime in Khartoum led by Omar Hassan al-Bashir, responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands in Darfur, offering to lift sanctions if there were “concrete steps in a new direction”. The moral bankruptcy of this approach was summed up by Obama’s hugely controversial special envoy to Sudan, retired Air Force Major General J. Scott Gration:“We’ve got to think about giving out cookies. Kids, countries — they react to gold stars, smiley faces, handshakes, agreements, talk, engagement.”

10. Throwing Churchill out of The White House
Barack Obama’s decision to throw a bust of Sir Winston Churchill out of the Oval Office within days of taking power set the tone for his foreign policy. It sent a clear signal that the president cared little about the Anglo-American Special Relationship and the transatlantic alliance in general. It spoke volumes about Obama’s disdain for Britain, a nation that he has never mentioned in a major policy speech, as well as his scorn for the kind of powerful, assertive leadership that Churchill embodied.

H/T to Great Satan's Girlfriend: 44 So Far