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Prof. Niall Ferguson on Obama: A colossal failure of American foreign

The result has been a foreign-policy debacle. The president has alienated everybody: not only Mubarak's cronies in the military, but also the youthful crowds in the streets of Cairo. Whoever ultimately wins, Obama loses. …

Publish Date: 09/30/2011 6:43

http://politicalarena.org/2011/09/29/prof-niall-ferguson-on-obama-a-colossal-failure-of-american-foreign-policy/

RealClearPolitics – President's Foreign Policy Failures Increase

President Obama, like most American presidents, is lucky that the public pays little attention to foreign policy and rarely casts its votes on the basis of presidential foreign-policy performance. It required something as dramatic …

Publish Date: 09/28/2011 5:53

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/09/28/presidents_foreign_policy_failures_increase_111498.html

Click on the image to enlarge it.

ObamaCare finally scraped through and seems too have given Obama a little boost back home, but his overseas agenda is looking worse and worse.

Before going into the blunders it needs to be said that although the Obama administration did achieve a missile treaty with Russia, it was far more profitable for Russia than for the U.S. because Russia needed to reduce the costs of its nuclear arsenal, and the arms talks with the U.S. gave it some wanted prestige.

So Who Has Obama Upset So Far?

Canada

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton publicly criticized the Canadians for failing to invite all eight members of the Arctic Council to a recent consultation and the following day, the Canadian Foreign announced that Canada will be ending its Afghan mission next year.

Just one day after the above was written, Clinton again publicly attacked Canada.

This time critiquing it’s approach to abortion.

Israel

Obama behaved as badly as is possible by telling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he was going to have dinner and hoped that Netanyahu would have come up with some better ideas by the time he returned.

The E.U.

The administration recently angered the EU by refusing to attend a summit in Madrid and the EU powers are no longer leaping to Washington’s support on Afghanistan.

Britain

The administration angered Britain by seeming to side with Argentina over negotiations about the Falklands Islands and a British parliamentary committee has just pronounced the US-UK special relationship as over.

Afghanistan

Afghanistan’s  President Karzai was angered because his visit was cancelled.

Brazil

Obama upset the Brazilians by rushing over to Copenhagen to try and snatch the 2016 Olympics from Rio and Brazil’s President Lula da Silva has now publicly rejected Secretary Clinton’s public request for support for a sanctions resolution at the U.N.

Turkey

Turkey is angry about the passing of another version of the Armenian genocide resolution through a key House committee and it’s now getting closer to Iran with Russia.

Obama Is Perceived As Weak And Naïve

North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela and Iran have totally rejected the administrations overtures and the administration’s actions have simply given the world the impression that the administration is weak.

It’s possible that the reason that Israel is being given such a hard time right now, is not so much because of its insistence on building homes in east Jerusalem, but because the U.S. needs to gain some badly needed credibility.

April 7, 2010

Just a quick follow up to the above;

via Ganguly: India Is Annoyed With Obama – Newsweek.com.

Alienate Friends But Don’t Convince Your Enemies

Obama’s More Obvious Foreign Policy Failures

Following his inauguration, Obama was fast out of the traps and began alienating U.S. allies almost immediately!

He started with America’s closest and strongest ally first by ordering a bust of Winston Churchill returned to the U.K. because the Brits supposedly tortured his grandfather in Africa in the 50s. In case the Brits didn’t get the message he compared the British Empire to South Africa’s apartheid regime and also to the former Soviet Union.

He then attempted to bully Israel and achieved nothing accept driving a wedge between the U.S. and its second closest ally.

Seemingly undeterred he moved on to the Russians and carefully prepared the way by stabbing two other allies in the back, namely the Czech Republic and Poland who had agreed to having U.S. missiles in their countries.

He did however manage to make Putin and Medvedev laugh all the way to the bank by suggesting that they clamp down on corruption, and didn’t even get a thank you for canceling the missile deployment on their borders, and it seems likely that he got snubbed by members of the Duma.

It’s claimed on some websites that the footage was doctored, but the explanation given as to how it was done only half explains it.

Obama then strove to win Muslim admiration, and not only failed but embarrassed the majority of Americans by literally bowing and scraping.

Obama then offered Iran serious negotiations and carrots but they had little time for him since they were too busy torturing, raping and killing demonstrators, and building new underground nuclear facilities. Obama’s reaction to the atrocities was to voice his appreciation for the “robust debate” that was taking place.

And last but not least, the Chinese smothered domestic coverage of a presidential visit but did give the world the spectacle of the American commander in chief getting a talking-to about fiscal responsibility from a Communist chieftain. The Chinese then sent a delegation to the U.S. and much to the surprise of those meeting them, the Chinese wanted to know who was going to finance Obama’s intended Health Bill.

Not So Wonderful Copenhagen

Two additional humiliations then occurred in Copenhagen, the first when the Olympic Committee delivered the bad news that the president’s effort to play hometown booster had failed utterly, before he even landed back in the U.S. and the second when the Chinese, Indians and Brazilians gave him very short shrift during the supposed Global Warming talks.

Afghanistan – To Do Or Not To Do

The decision to reinforce U.S. military in Afghanistan came after an excruciating and almost year long hesitation and dithering that undermined the confidence of our fighting men and allies, and stating that the U.S. would start pulling out after 18 months pleased the Taliban no end and seriously weakened any resolve that anti-Taliban tribes might have had.

France’s President, Nicolas Sarkozy perhaps asked the most worrying question, “Est-il faible?” (Is he weak?) and if the answer appears “Yes”, a year from now then the U.S. and the free world will be in deep trouble.

Have There Been Foreign Policy Successes?

I have simply described some of Obama’s obvious foreign policy failures, but he may have had successes too, and if I have overlooked them then please post a comment and they will be published.

And the same goes for any failures that I may have overlooked.