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What’s Obama’s Biggest Foreign Policy Mistake, and Why?
There’s no lack of options. Off the top my head, we have:
- The “Reset” with Russia, leading to the Ukraine crisis;
- Failing to stand up for the Green movement in Iran, followed by the hopelessly naive policy of negotiating with the regime;
- Blustering that Assad’s use of chemical weapons would cross a “red line,” followed by inaction;
- Prematurely withdrawing from Iraq, precipitating the rise of ISIS–and then barely responding to it .
That I can’t bring myself to include Libya and Afghanistan among the worst mistakes only emphasizes how bad things have been.
The Iranian problem is probably the most serious issue, given the more-than-even odds that they’re crazy enough to use a nuclear weapon, and the regional arms race that will ensue even if they aren’t. (Sen. Tom Cotton’s comments to Jay and Mona very much changed my mind on that latter point). But the president never had any good options there.
Depending how things pan out in the next few months, I might bump the rise of the Islamic State to the top slot. It’s definitely moving in that direction. But there’s blame to spread around there.
For now, my vote is with his “red line” comments. First, the consequences were very serious. The president unambiguously threatened to use force against a foreign state if a specific event took place. It took place, and there were no consequences. The importance of showing the world that your threats aren’t empty isn’t even Statecraft 101. It’s grade-school.
Moreover, it was an entirely unforced error. The leftist narrative is that George W. Bush “rushed us into war,” but in fact his administration undertook months of effort to persuade the American people, Congress, and a host of allies that if Saddam refused to come clean about his weapons programs, we would be obliged to act. Obama committed the United States to an unpopular new conflict–one in which we’d previously had no stake–and made no attempt to persuade anyone that we should be involved.
What do you think?
Published in General
I’ll go for #2: Failing to stand up for the Green movement in Iran. Iran is the greatest threat to world peace right now, but Russia is close behind.
You’re right. Libya wasn’t the worst but it was truly inane. For years the left has attacked Bush for taking out the strong leader in Iraq thus creating chaos there. Then they do the exact same thing in Libya. At least Iraq was reasonably stable when Bush left office. Obama didn’t even bother with the mess he made of Libya.
I pick #4, premature withdrawal from Iraq. Success in Iraq could have set a new tone for the entire region, which was the Bush administration’s strategy.
#4 Iraq. It’s killing the most people.
I’m inclined to go with #2 (abandoning “Green” Iran), for the same reasons you gave for #3 (the Red Line). I was the first concrete sign that Obama really wouldn’t do anything that required substantive risk against a US rival. It also prompted the half-assed Libya adventure.
The Russian reset was a goofy gesture, but it came so early that it’s hard to say it was fatal in and of itself. If the “more flexibility” message to Putin via Medvedev had been a choice, I might have picked it. It was a clear sign to Russia that Obama was ready to fold.
I never bought that Iraq was particularly stable when Bush 43 left office. Sure, the surge made a big difference, but Maliki had waited out W and a withdrawal schedule was in place. I believe Maliki was willing to gamble he could consolidate the country under the Shia thumb…and Obama was more than happy to accommodate him.
Not that Obama didn’t make things worse, but it was going to require a lot of US energy to keep Iraq relatively peaceful.
Sorry Libya is the worse because you have to take into consideration everything going on in Mali is because of that war. The French would not be fighting a war in Mali if Obama had not gone to war. You can’t claim ISIS is all of Obama’s fault Libya and Mali are 100% his fault.
His birth in Kenya ;)
#4.
It is a fuster cluck entirely of his making. The escalating violence and rise of Islamic extremists were widely predicted prior to the withdrawal plans.
Number 4.
Close second for the “red line” fiasco of non action. Can the phrase even be used anymore, by anyone, now that Obama has turned it into a threat from a paper tiger?
Tom,
Definitely #2. This set the tone for everything else. If it had happened quickly and he missed it because his team wasn’t in place then I could say he’s not great but OK. However, he had ample time and chances to move. Months to evaluate and speak to all the right people.
Only a fool or an ideologue would have chosen not to take the opportunity to topple the present Iranian Regime. Everyone else in the region would have been quietly pleased. By now they are ready to be openly pleased with an end to the threat from this Jihadist aggressor state.
BTW, #1, #3, & #4 are major screw ups all their own. Not knocking out the Iranian threat put us behind the eight ball. If BHO had taken them out he would have had momentum and real credibility. He might have finessed the other goofs.
I’d be stretching to give him a D- on foreign policy. Nope, he gets the full F.
Regards,
Jim
I’m torn between the following three options, which led to all of the above:
I am unable to choose between # 2 & # 4. They are connected & not just geographically.
Nowhere near biggest as far as direct consequences, but I think it might be a factor in quite a few of the others – “Accepting the Nobel Peace Prize.” How can you try to take any strong military stance (that a situation might call for) when you’ve implicitly agreed to meet the expectations of europeans who want to give you a prize for peace based soley on your “promise.”
Agreed.
Though the consequences of ISIS, and Iran’s subsequent involvement, will probably be worst in effect, I don’t understand what the alternative to our withdrawal from Iraq was supposed to be.
The American-trained Iraqi troops our political and military leaders expressed so much confidence in proved themselves to be incompetent cowards. The Iraqi political leadership demanded our withdrawal; so remaining would have made the claim of Iraqi freedom a lie. If we had remained, the necessary changes probably would have required another decade (at least) of occupation — which most American voters were not willing to grant. And those changes arguably required a more forceful mindset than any of our leaders were willing to commit to.
The Russian dilemma had clearer terms. Give an inch and they take a mile. Give away Czechoslavakia and lose France as well.
I would also include the failure to catch and punish leakers of classified information. Allies will be less willing to trust us with their secrets for decades to come.
#10 James Gawron
Wish I could “Like” this a gajillion times.
You needn’t worry about that one.
“CNN’s Tapper: Obama has used Espionage Act more than all previous administrations”
“Obama’s efforts to control leaks ‘most aggressive since Nixon’, report finds”
“Charting Obama’s Crackdown on National Security Leaks”
“Everything you need to know about Obama’s war on leakers in one FAQ“
#2 but #4 is closely related. I think Obama really is just insane- or stupid-or evil- enough to want Iran to be a regional hegemon and is determined to do whatever he must to make that hideous reality come to pass.
Barrack Obama is the mistake.
As I’ve said so many times, the biggest surprise is that Obama turned out to be a Shiite, not Sunni.
His biggest foreign policy mistake was thinking that the US is a force for evil in the world and withdrawing our presence from the global stage while at the same time doubling our total debt so as to box future presidents in and prevent them from being able to bring the US back to the fore of global politics where we need to be. He did all of this by design. It’s Cloward and Piven on a global scale.
I’ll go with Clinton as Secretary of State because she was the Democrats’ heir apparent to the presidency, and she’s now tangled in conflict of interest stories thanks to her husband’s work—which somebody in the Obama administration had to know about. Every disaster that flows from Obama’s foreign policy can now cruelly be summarized thus: the right people didn’t bribe Slick Willie.
Leaving Iraq without first installing, by treaty, a large and permanent series of bases was HUGE. The loss of both Iraq and Syria and the rise of ISIS are directly due to this.
#2 (Iran) is a close second. Not as clear whether that would have worked or not, though.
Biggest of all? What Obama is NOT going to do going forward: arm Iranian citizens with airdrops of millions of pistols across the land. That would allow a new revolution.
#4. Bush created a relative stability. After 60 years we still have troops in Korea and Germany, and yet Obama decided Iraq was self reliant. Satiating the political left was at best gullible malfeasance.
I think we are writing off the Iranian nukes a little too quickly. Just because there were no good options doesn’t mean that Obama isn’t hellbent on picking the worst.
In support of #2, as well as the comments by Hartmann and Quinn:
http://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/2015/02/obamas-secret-iran-strategy/
Even Vox wanted to know more (!), and asked Michael Doran for further input:
http://www.vox.com/2015/4/20/8453267/iran-deal-case-against
Danny,
Isn’t amazing how even Vox gets the idea that the Iran deal could be the disaster of the 21st century but when it comes to Senator Tom Cotton it’s “the antics of people like Tom Cotton”. Nobody is as close-minded as Vox. There are all these people out there like Tom Cotton who are intentionally doing things, you know antics, that upset the great and powerful BHO.
Anyone who has ever listened to Tom Cotton objectively for 5 minutes gets that he is highly intelligent, very serious, and completely sincere. Too bad Vox must be in its alternate reality to survive. They can follow the logic and realize its validity but they just can’t lose their BHO heavy addiction.
Regards,
Jim
The planted assumption in your question is that these are mistakes. What we are seeing is not the failure of the Obama foreign policy, but the unfolding of the Obama foreign policy. Regrettable as all of these actions are, and as predictable as the consequences were, the administration does not consider them to be mistakes, nor the consequences failures. Their vision of the world includes (articulated differently, of course) an untidy world where things, sometimes horrible things, work themselves out without the active involvement of the United States. In their view, almost all terrible things in the world are in some way a result of the morally flawed intervention of the West, including the United States, and the only appropriate thing to do is withdraw and allow history to take its course. I am certain that the severest regret in the White House is that domestic political considerations are forcing the administration to take the limited, ineffectual, fig-leaf ameliorative steps that they are pretending to take now.
The fact that Iran is becoming ascendent in the Middle East is probably considered a brilliant strategic move in the White House. Obama thinks he is Nixon heading to China, not Chamberlain heading to disaster.
I don’t know enough about foreign policy to answer the question. That being said, I’d like to make a point that’s off topic, if I may: #3 was breathtakingly callous. Aside from causing a massive blow to the U.S.’s credibility, his inaction made it crystal clear to dictators the world over that mass murder and other large scale atrocities against innocent civilians will yield no consequences from the U.S. (at least during his presidency). I have no doubt that to whatever extent dictators had been deterred from doing things like this in the past for fear of being punished by the U.S., Obama’s blatant display of indifference makes it even less likely that people like Assad will restrain themselves in the future. Heck, I don’t even have to speculate: Assad kept gassing people! Obama’s inaction has been and will continue to be responsible for the death and suffering of many.
The next time Obama either insinuates or says explicitly that fiscal conservatives are callous for being against the expansion of social welfare programs that harm those they’ve been created to help, I’d like to tell him to take a good hard look in the mirror and see who’s really callous. Then I’d point out that his house and the mirror are made of the same material and ask him whether or not he should be throwing stones.
My theory is not that there is an BHO addiction. I think that lots of liberals define themselves in opposition to conservatives. It like when some conservative comes out about vaccinations and they scream “war on science” but melt and faun when Robert Kennedy, Jr. says the same thing. To them, the validity of the argument is determined by who makes the argument, not the logic or evidence.