In response to the government crackdown of the killings in Kiev, President Obama stated, “There will be consequences if people step over the line.” The unfortunate aspect, know one paid him any attention! The killings still continued.
This was very reminiscent of the president’s redline statements regarding the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government, and then backtracked by the administration.
Friday, a compromise deal was reached, but the crisis is still ongoing. The unfortunate part of this it was done without impute from the United States, regulating President Obama as a mere sideline observer.
Niall Ferguson, a history professor at Harvard and a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, commented the beginning of this global retreat began in the presidents first term.
Examples abound in the presidents first term of the administration playing a submissive role on the world stage.
The situation in Iran, during the “Green Revolution” as the president passively watched the Iranian people rise up against the Mullah’s in Iran, but decided to only remain a sideline observer.
The “Arab Spring” caught the administration off guard and then compounded the situation by giving conflicting and often chaotic strategy to the public outcry for removing long time U.S. ally, Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak.
The confusion in the U.S. Egyptian policy manifested when the president backed the Mohammed Morsi government after the Muslim Brotherhood won the 2012 elections. When the Egyptian people rose against the Muslim Brotherhood, the administration switched to backing the military coup which removed him from office last year.
During the whole Libyan adventure, the president took a “lead from behind” strategy and still was not in touch with the situation on the ground which culminated in the deadly attack in September 2012.
Professor Ferguson stated “Syria has been one of the great fiasco of post-World War II American foreign policy. When President Obama might have intervened effectively, he hesitated. When he did intervene, it was ineffectual. The Free Syrian Army of rebels fighting against the regime of Bashar Assad has not been given sufficient assistance to hold together, much less to defeat the forces loyal to Assad.”
This continued paralysis in U.S. foreign policy by President Obama has continued into his second term and leaving our allies perplexed at the lack of U.S. leadership on the world stage.
This weakness manifested itself last week with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry coming to the conclusion Syrian leader Bashar al Assad is failing to live up to his promise to give up its chemical weapons, and Russia is being disingenuous in helping to resolve the matter. The Geneva II talks he helped organize to solve the Syrian conflict have broken down and are on the verge of not succeeding.
No one is clamoring for the U.S, to intervene militarily, but missing in the president’s foreign policy is his ability to understand the unique role the U.S. plays on the international stage.
The president and his administration all too often foreign policy strategy is “I am not George Bush,” this is not a strategy.
The president needs to understand the unique attribute of U.S. leadership on the world stage not in some mistaken rhetorical concept portrayed by those believing we are the problem.
A less engaged America only makes the world more dangerous not less.
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