100 Days of Obama’s Foreign Policy
It's not as disastrous as some had feared.
Barack Obama’s savviest public relations move as a candidate was when he told an interviewer, shortly before the election, that the conventional time lapse for measuring an infant presidency — the first 100 days — would be insufficient given the amount of work the new administration would have to do. Instead, Obama said, we had better wait until the first 1,000 days to make a fair assessment. This struck me as very reasonable at the time, and also uncharacteristic of the man who often gloried in raising expectations to celestial impossibility. Nevertheless, we have a fondness for revisiting stale political metrics, and so now that that 100 day mark has arrived, it is worth inquiring how the president has done. Since his greatest perceived weakness as a candidate was foreign policy, it is interesting to note that this is precisely the area in which Obama has impressed many of his former critics. For instance, I doubt very much that the average reader of Commentary would have expected to see, on November 5, an observation like the following being made on the journal’s blog a few months later:
It is, of course, premature to conclude that Obama’s foreign policy is essentially the third term of the Bush administration. There could be big discontinuities later on; they just haven’t appeared yet. That hasn’t been obvious because of Obama’s symbolic moves such as apologizing for alleged American misdeeds and shaking hands with Hugo Chavez. I don’t mean to suggest that symbolism isn’t important. It is. But substance is even more important, and on that score I think Obama deserves a solid passing grade on foreign policy for his first 100 Days.
The emphasis is mine, but the sentiment belongs to Max Boot, an adviser to the man who was supposed to be heir to George Bush’s “third term.” Though Boot is not alone among hawks and interventionists in offering a favorable assessment of the new president. At a March 31 conference on Afghanistan organized and hosted by the new neoconservative think tank the Foreign Policy Initiative, the president, although absent, was the subject of what Robert Kagan called a “love fest.” Praising Obama’s commitment to dispatch 17,000 additional troops to Afghanistan as “gutsy and correct” and “one of the most important decisions he makes in his presidency,” the author of The Return of History and the End of Dreams added:
I think that one of the really important aspects of the President’s decision is that it definitely — he is definitely saying “no” to pulling back. If anything, he has clearly deepened and strengthened America’s commitment to a difficult conflict in a far-off part of the world of which the American people know little.
And the president has made this decision, Kagan added, despite calls from within his own administration to act otherwise. Even John McCain, also a participant in the FPI conference, felt compelled to note that his own thinking is more or less the same as his erstwhile rival’s on Afghanistan and that, pace those who think Obama has been too eager to assail his predecessor, many of the challenges facing the current rescue operation of that country are the results of bad planning in the Bush years. (We forget that the shuttering of Guantanamo Bay and the discontinuation of “enhanced interrogation” techniques were executive inevitabilities.)
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Michael Weiss is a senior editor of Tablet Magazine and a culture blogger for The New Criterion. He also writes occasionally for Slate, The Weekly Standard, City Journal, The New York Daily News and Standpoint.
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22 Comments
1. BPT (Australia):This is a ground war and a culture war. Obama is exciting anti-American ferals around the world, from Red North Koreans to pirates. If America is attacked again, then his Newspeak, his anti-torture views for terrorists and his rejecton of “useless gobbler” baby rights will be judged accordingly.
May 4, 2009 - 4:49 am 2. Macko:Someone should check but I believe Castro decided the rules of embargo or atleast some of them
May 4, 2009 - 4:49 am 3. njcommuter:Even if Obama is growing up under the weight of informed responsibility, his actions now are laying the seeds of future problems. And what we most need, a 40- to 80% increase in the defense budget, with a long-term commitment to a larger (and newer) Navy, a larger Army, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard, and a restored Air Force as well as a Cyber Force, is just not going to happen. Well, maybe the Cyber Force will. It might be Changey enough. But as to seeing the threat? No, I don’t think so.
May 4, 2009 - 5:25 am 4. David Thomson:“Obama said, we had better wait until the first 1,000 days to make a fair assessment. This struck me as very reasonable at the time.”
This would be similar to allowing the arsonist more time to burn down the neighborhood. Barack Obama deserves a C+ on his handling of war against the Islamic nihilists. But things are likely to deteriorate rapidly because the president has not worked out his hostility towards white people. He is too inclined to perceive our existential foes as victims of the United States imperialist policies. Indeed, it is fair to describe Obama as a self hating American.
May 4, 2009 - 6:09 am 5. NCBob:This is a dumb article so I didn’t finish reading it.
May 4, 2009 - 6:42 am 6. LynnS:O’s performance can’t be assessed because we don’t know what he has done. My bet is that he has secret envoys out to all the world’s bad guys, looking for a deal. He wants to look like a hero so he’ll pay whatever they want.
“It’s not as disastrous as some had feared. ” Only because we don’t know what “it” is.
Plus…
He’s so cool. It makes perfect sense he would need to apologize to the world for the United States uncool president. And the bow before the Saudis?
An unschooled president not knowing the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia? sooo…his best guess would be to bow?
His advisor’s not sure of the protocol so their best guess would be to bow before Saudi Arabia?
A new era in foreign relations and you feel comforted that he didn’t do too much damage…….great.
Now for Afghanistan the righteous war, obama’s war, the one no other country will enter along side us. But we apologized and bowed.
This is not cool.
May 4, 2009 - 6:45 am 7. AThinkingPerson:TeleBama is not as disastrous as we had thought he would be so what does that mean? Should we rejoice now that he is following in Bush’s foreign policy footsteps? Should we overlook the fact that Bush was demonized for doing what we’re now glad to see TeleBama doing? Hilarious. We’ve gone from having a President with a conscious and a backbone to one who rules by the polling numbers, says one thing and does another and we’re supposed to be glad? Who writes this stuff? I’m not willing to tolerate apologists anymore, sorry.
May 4, 2009 - 7:19 am 8. David W. Lincoln:Well, to speak for the opposition, I produce this from Don Martin of the National Post:
Don Martin: Obama is proving a dangerous man for Canada
Posted: May 01, 2009, 2:42 PM by NP Editor
Full Comment, Don Martin
We’ve been blacklisted as copyright pirates, blasted as a northern
terrorist haven, been forced to squander billions on a matching Chrysler
car company bailout and endure rising protectionism through sneaky “Buy
American” policies and environmental safeguards.
The conclusion is hard to miss as irritants pile up across our southern
border: U.S. President Barack Obama is becoming Canada’s worst political
nightmare.
That’s a hard swallow because the man is so darn charismatic, and he
proclaimed with great sincerity his love for Canada.
But behind the folksy, 1,000-watt smile lurks a president who is guiding a
hostile Congress against us and appointing unfriendlies to implement
policies that could soon turn those welcome-to-Canada smiles from just ten
weeks ago into worried frowns.
The latest Obama administration move against Canada is to designate us
among the world’s worst offenders in failing to crack down on those
ripping off movie and music artists through wide-open illegal copying.
That’s ridiculous. Anyone who has trolled the markets of other blacklist
members such as Indonesia, Pakistan or China knows full well their very
public piracy epidemic is simply not matched in Canada, the only Western
country on the U.S. list.
Add that to the moronic musings of Homeland Security Secretary Janet
Napolitano, who says Canada is soft on undesireables and thus rates a
border with a Mexico-level of intense security, and you’d have cause to
get nervous that Canuck-bashing is becoming an American sport.
Thrown in Recovery Act buying restrictions that have Canadian business
May 4, 2009 - 9:23 am 9. Sherab Zangpo:interests bracing for export challenges, new softwood lumber duties and
costly food labeling disputes and, well, it’s only a matter of time before
the same Parliament Hill that attracted thousands of rapturous Obamaniacs
in February will be filled with protesters carrying signs pleading the
unthinkable: Bring Back Dubya.
National Post
Very funny column.
- North Korea missile launch . (Could have been stopped)
- Appeasement of Iran. (Will lead to a global catastrophe)
- Hugging Chavez, getting lessons from the sandinistas, bowing to the saudis.
- The Talibans thirty miles from Pakistan’s capital.
- Insulting America in all his speeches.
- The destruction of the CIA.
- Drug cartels setting solid positions in the Southern States.
- Declaring he will sign the UN treaties that will severely reduce our Sovereignty.
Not too bad ? What the heck is bad enough to be called bad for you ? The Red Coats (of Chavez) raiding Capitol Hill ? the proclamation of the Islamic Republic of the USA ?
Humans DO adapt, this is the problem.
We are running towards a catastrophe and the guy says that it is not too bad.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
May 4, 2009 - 9:23 am 10. Professor Guvinoff:The scope of rationalization is boundless. If it was not, all abused women would break their toxic relationships, all alcoholics and other addicts would go to detox, all muslims would repudiate violence, etc…
Trying to feel good about a president who incurs unprecedented national debts and attacks the very principles that have made America great, is an heroic effort, but a misguided one. This president has never asserted the greatness of America. Instead, he has shown his sympathy to those who hate it.
This is what the tea parties are about. I have prepared a one-page message to express how I feel aboout it. You can get a copy at:
http://turbozero.com/liberty.pdf
May 4, 2009 - 10:53 am 11. dmk3:Those compleminting Obama for being a “third Bush term” are misstaking autopilot for policy. Pakistan is about to collaps, Isreal is apparently getting ready to strike Iran and Darfur has become the genocide we can no longer name. Other than appolgy, what new policy has Obama offered?
May 4, 2009 - 10:56 am 12. AThinkingPerson:#10 Professor Guvinoff: Enjoyed the one-page message. Just about sums up my feelings too!
May 4, 2009 - 12:06 pm 13. Sebastian Shaw:President Obama’s foreign policy is a destructive path for the United States of America; he is an anti-American who hates everything American stands for, yet he is by law as President to uphold our Constitution. President Obama is shredding it bit by bit.
Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, China, Cuba, & Russia have found President Obama wanting. He is a weak narcissistic fool.
President Obama is making things worse for us in the long run. Hello the all new, all different Jimmy Carter II.
May 4, 2009 - 12:20 pm 14. Professor Guvinoff:12. AThinking person:
So we are either both right, or both crazy, whichever comes first?
May 4, 2009 - 1:02 pm 15. anton:@13. Sebastian Shaw,
I concur wholeheartedly; aimless, feckless, clueless, the adjectives just keep piling up that describe Obam’s foreign policy. The few points of hope are false glimmers, left-overs from the previous administration. Obama is too busy destroying American to turn his attention to screwing up foreign policy just yet.
What I worry most about is what the world will look like 900 days from now.
May 4, 2009 - 1:03 pm 16. PM:Marsha is going to love this.
May 4, 2009 - 2:20 pm 17. SukieTawdry:Oh, I think he’s very much “the disastrous one that so many feared.” Worse even. I’m horrified at the thought of the 1000 day assessment.
May 4, 2009 - 8:37 pm 18. vivo:9. Sherab Zangpo:
Putting the dots on the i’s:
- North Korea missile launch . (Could have been stopped). What’s this, Star Trek?
- Appeasement of Iran. (Will lead to a global catastrophe). Not really, appeasement is the opposite of warmongering.
- Hugging Chavez, getting lessons from the sandinistas, bowing to the saudis. Nice gestures.
- The Talibans thirty miles from Pakistan’s capital. They all are Muslims, aren’t they?
- Insulting America in all his speeches. Only conservatives believe this, face the truth.
- The destruction of the CIA. The opposite.
- Drug cartels setting solid positions in the Southern States. Keep selling them guns, greedy bastards.
- Declaring he will sign the UN treaties that will severely reduce our Sovereignty. This the World, not an island.
May 5, 2009 - 5:28 am 19. Cybergeezer:I love this article title; Everything about this pathetic idiot is “foreign”.
May 5, 2009 - 7:10 pm 20. William:I wonder if Obama ever heard of the eschthology of Islam? If he had, he wouldn’t think he can come to terms with “moderate” Islamists. They don’t exist. Come to think of it, outside of his law school text books and Sol Alinsky’s directives, I don’t think he has read much of anything. An empty suit fronting for someone whose identity we still must learn.
May 7, 2009 - 7:06 pm 21. Steve:Obama better than expected in foreign policy?? He is setting the stage for perhaps the biggest disaster in modern times. Sucking up to America-hating dictators, “moderate” Taliban (an oxymoron), and Holocaust deniers while pressuring Israel to accomoodate those who are pledged to its destruction and abandoning the war on terrorism is a potential calamity of untold proportions.
May 7, 2009 - 8:20 pm 22. howiem:“His infamous bow before King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia was not an act of submission foreshadowing our nation’s thralldom to the Wahhabi kingdom, but rather a nervous faux pas on the part of a rookie statesman”
May 10, 2009 - 4:18 amThe author is an apologist for the impostor in the White House, and apparently too stupid to understand that State Department advises on protocol. Either Obama disregarded the State Department or he canceled the briefing. It was an act of submission.