James Corum – a former US Army officer who teaches at the Baltic War College – on Obama’s new foreign-policy fecklessness.

We know that Obama’s had no love lost for Israel:

Israel sensibly boycotted Obama’s nuclear summit in Washington. Israel has recently been treated with such hostility by President Obama, the Israeli prime minister avoided what looked like a set up for some Islamic nations dictatorships to turn the occasion into an anti-Israel forum. Thanks to Obama, we have a nuclear proliferation summit in which Israel, a nuclear power, is pushed away – but where Liberia shows up.

Unforgiveable enough.  To damn with nearly nonexistant praise, it could be said that Israel is a hot potato.

Still less forgiveable is his treatment of Poland:

It is hard to imagine how Poland’s treatment by Obama could have been worse. It was a week of shock and grief for the Poles – a close NATO ally that has sent large forces to fight alongside America in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama used the Iceland eruption as an excuse to cancel his trip to the funeral of Poland’s president and top leaders killed in the air crash. But those of us who live in Eastern Europe know that Cracow Airport was open and Obama could have flown in there. A president who respected true friends and sacrifices in blood would have made a serious gesture. Not Obama – he took off to play golf and did not bother to take a few minutes to sign the consolation book at the Polish Embassy on the way to the course.

This follows on two other just-plain-stupid insults against the Poles; his neglect of the 70th anniversary of the German invasion, and his unilateral bailing out on the missile defense system on which the Kaczynski administration had burned up tons of political capital.

Finally, the US Ambassador to Honduras, Hugo Llorens, insulted America’s closest ally in Central America by called the Honduran Congress’ removal of President Zelaya last year a “coup d’etat.” (Llorens’ letter to Wall Street Journal, April 14). Now Honduras is a genuine democracy and the removal of Zelaya was done lawfully and with the support of the majority of the Honduran Congress. The removal was no coup – it was an appropriate act to stop an out of control president who tried to overthrow the constitution by grabbing an illegal second term.

In context, it’s almost forgiveable; it’s the kind of thing you see in Chicago all the time.

Remember when people called Obama “smarter than Bush?”

Alienating three close allies in one week is quite a trick, even for a president as inept in foreign policy as Barack Obama. However, it fits a pattern. President Obama has never shown any understanding for the basic rules of foreign policy which include cultivating allies, avoiding unnecessary friction, and doing one’s homework. These things happen because Obama is fundamentally uninterested in foreign policy. It is part of a pattern that began when Obama was elected to the Senate.

Ironic, isn’t it, that the only parts of  “smart”, “intellectually curious” president’s foreign policy that actually work are cribbed from “the dumb one?”

I read the story in Power Line, who wrote:

Not only is Obama mostly uninterested in foreign policy, but his instincts are bad because at bottom, he doesn’t believe in advancing America’s interests. Moreover, perhaps because of his own jaundiced view of American history, he seems to be instinctively contemptuous of people and nations that are pro-American.

Wonder how Obama will be billing among Europeans in 2012?

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Monday, April 26th, 2010 at 6:42 am and is filed under History And Its Making, World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.