Obama Agenda: Foreign Policy

Let’s continue our tour through Obama’s agenda. With the resolution of the Honduras situation this week and Obama continuing to dither over Afghanistan, now is a good time to examine Obama’s foreign policy agenda.

Obama was a big critic of Bush’s foreign policy. He claimed it was arrogant and made it harder to “rally international support for our leadership.” He also claimed Bush used foreign policy “as a political wedge” issue to divide Americans -- even though it was actually the Democrats who did that. In the end, Obama promised to “meet with the leaders of all nations, friend and foe” to get the world to rally behind American leadership.

It is, therefore, no small irony that Obama has angered the French by snubbing Sarkosy, angered Britain by snubbing Gordon Brown and by dealing behind Whitehall’s back with Bermuda about terrorists, snubbed the Poles in their commemoration of the invasion of Poland by the Nazis (and by telling them on that same day he would abandon them on the missile shield), started a trade war with Canada, and spat on just about everybody else. Not to mention his indiscriminate giving of gag gifts and his penchant for giving back diplomatic gifts.

In any event, let’s go through his goals and plans:

1. World Liberalism. Right out of the gates, Obama promised a thorough adoption of a number of liberal sacred foreign policy cows. Strangely, things haven’t gone as planned:

Debt Forgiveness. Obama promised to cancel 100% of the debt of the world’s heavily-indebted poor countries. No action.

Fight Global Poverty. Obama promised to spend $50 billion in foreign aid to cut “extreme poverty” around the world in half by 2015. He mentioned this in his 2010 budget as a “goal”, but took no real action.

World Health Aid. Obama promised to launch a Health Infrastructure 2020 to give aid targeted at developing countries health care systems. No action.

Small Business Aid. Obama promised to create an agricultural initiative to create a fund that will provide seed capital and technical assistance to small and medium enterprises. No action.

Tax Havens. Obama promised to create an international tax haven watch list of countries that do not share information returns with the United States. No action.

Climate Change. Obama promised to bring the United States into the suicide pact that is climate change theology. But he disappointed the world by not submitting Kyoto the Senate, and now it looks like the Copenhagen Treaty is in trouble because the Senate hasn’t passed a cap and trade law, and China and India won’t participate in a new treaty until we agree to cut our emissions. No action.

Nuclear Weapons/Proliferation. Obama made several promises vis-a-vis nuclear weapons:

• He promised to strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Yet, one of Obama’s first acts was to authorize the transfer of nuclear equipment to India in violation of the treaty. . . an evil for which Bush was roundly criticized. He then poured salt (or is it SALT 2?) into the wound by letting Hillary state that this arrangement (which violates the Treaty) can “serve as the foundation of a productive partnership on non-proliferation.”

• He promised to seek reductions in US and Russian stockpiles. On April 1, Fools Day, Obama and Medvedev agreed to pursue a new agreement by the end of the year to reduce the number of strategic warheads from 2,200 to around 1,600. Woo hoo, an agreement to agree on an insignificant reduction.

• He promised to stop the development of new nuclear weapons. No action.

• He promised to work with Russia to take US and Russian missiles off “hair trigger alert.” No action. In fact, Russian Presidential Security Council Chief Nikolai Patrushev recently declared that Russia reserves the right to use pre-emptive nuclear strikes on both a “large, regional and even local” scale to safeguard Russia from aggression, and he singled out Obama’s United States and NATO as foes who still pose threats to Russia.

• He promised to institute a global ban on intermediate-range missiles. No action.

• He promised to secure all loose nuclear material within four years and to negotiate a verifiable global ban on the production of new nuclear material. No action.

2. War On Terror. Obama promised to refocus the war on terror (in fact, he has even informally banned the phrase).

End The Use of Torture & Extreme Rendition. Obama promised to stop both torture and extreme rendition. He signed an executive order on January 22, 2009 that claims to end these practice, but really doesn’t. It did however, establish a task force to study these issues. Yipee!

Guantanamo. Obama promised to close Guantanamo and to ensure that the terrorists housed there receive all the rights afforded by international law. On his second day in office, he signed an executive order that promised to close Guantanamo within one year. That won’t happen. White House counsel Greg Craig has been offered as a scapegoat for this failure.

On May 15, Obama also announced that he would keep the current system in place for handling the inmates. In fact, he even tried to strip them of more rights.

Iraq. Obama promised to remove American troops from Iraq by August 31, 2010. There appear to be about the same number of troops there right now as before the surge, and Obama has stated that he plans to keep 35,000 to 50,000 troops in Iraq through 2011.

Afghanistan. Calling Afghanistan the “good war,” Obama promised to send two more brigades to conduct a non-surge surge. He did that and it didn’t work. So now his generals are very publicly asking for 40,000 more troops, and Obama seems incapable of coming up with a plan -- largely because his own party is split on whether or not to continue the war.

Obama also promised to use his messianic powers of persuasion to get the Europeans to contribute more forces and to remove the restrictions those countries placed on the troops they did send. Most of the Europeans right away ruled out sending more troops, and some are discussing pulling out entirely. On September 29, 2009, Obama finally met with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. He achieved nothing.

Pakistan. Obama promised to condition US military aid to Pakistan on their shutting down training camps, evicting foreign fighters, and preventing the Taliban from using Pakistan as a base to strike into Afghanistan. Obama did sign a law placing such conditions on Pakistan’s aid for the next five years. Whether or not this is verifiable remains to be seen.

Anti-Extremist Schools. Obama promised to establish a $2 billion Global Education Fund to “offer an alternative to extremist schools.” No action.

3. Russia. Obama promised to “address the challenge posed by an increasingly autocratic and bellicose Russia” by (1) supporting democratic partners in the region and upholding principles of sovereignty in Eurasia; (2) strengthening the transatlantic alliance so that it speaks with a unified voice to Russia; (3) decreasing the dependence of Europe on Russian energy; and (4) engaging directly with Russia on issues of mutual interest. Um, fail. He slapped down Poland and abandoned Georgia, thereby ensuring that no alternative to Russian gas would be available to Europe. He has done nothing to stop Germany and England from becoming Russian natural gas addicts. And he’s pandered and kowtowed to the totalitarian Vladimir Putin.

4. Middle East. Obama promised a realignment of United States policy in the Middle East. Good luck with that.

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Obama promised that resolving this conflict would be a key diplomatic priority. He also promised to “never distance” the United States from Israel and to support Israel’s right to self defense (including continuing US cooperation with developing an Israeli missile defense system). So far, his diplomatic efforts have lost the good will of the Palestinians: “All hopes placed in the new US administration and President Obama have evaporated.”

He also promised to continue military and economic aid to Israel ($30 billion over the next decade). No action to date.

Iran. Obama planned tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions. Obama promised to offer Iran (1) membership in the World Trade Organization, (2) economic investments, and (3) normal diplomatic relations, if Iran abandons its nuclear program and its support for terrorism. If Iran refused, Obama promised increased economic and political pressure. Iran rebuked Obama’s offer before he made it. He has since ignored Iran. He ignored the uprising by the Iranian people. He has been unable to stop Russia from adding to Iran’s nuclear capability. And now even the French are upset that he's been so weak.

The Arab World. Obama promised to use his unique talents to explain to the Arab world that we “are not at war with Islam.” So far he’s given one speech in Egypt and one in Turkey, claiming that the United States is a Muslim nation. Only 19% of Americans think this will improve our relations with the Muslim world.

5. Asia. Obama plans to seek new partners in Asia, while maintaining strong ties with allies like Japan, South Korea and Australia, and work to ensure that China plays by international rules.

Japan. Japan’s recent elections have resulted in a new government that wants United States military bases removed from Japanese soil.

China. Obama promised to use all tools available to demand that China (1) respect human rights, (2) fight intellectual piracy, (3) end their suppression of Tibet, (4) improve the safety of their products, (5) end their currency manipulation, which “contributes to massive global imbalances and provides Chinese companies with an unfair competitive advantage,” and (6) to end their support of repressive regimes in Sudan, Burma, Iran and Zimbabwe. Other than sending Geithner to beg the Chinese to buy American debt, no action to date.

North Korea. Obama promised to use “sustained, direct and aggressive diplomacy” to handle North Korea, promising to impose “strong international sanctions” against North Korea for any violation of United Nations resolutions. They’ve been shooting rockets into the Pacific ever since. No action.

6. Africa. Obama promised to make Africa a top diplomatic priority. He promised to open consulates in “hopeless corners” of Africa. He promised to immediately take steps to end the genocide in Darfur by “increasing pressure” on Sudan. And he promised to create a Global Energy and Environment Initiative to ensure that African countries have access to low cost energy. No action to date.

7. Latin America. Obama promised to rebuild diplomatic links throughout the hemisphere through aggressive, principled and sustained diplomacy. He promised to promote democracy in Cuba by allowing unlimited family travel and remittances, which he has done. He also promised to offer Cuba normal relations and a lifting of the embargo if Cuba takes significant steps toward democratization, which hasn’t happened.

He also promised (threatened) to rethink trade agreements, saying he will stand firm against agreements that “undermine our economic security” and promised to use trade agreements to “spread good labor and environmental standards around the world.” No action to date.

Finally, he promised to foster regional security through an initiative to cooperate in combating drug gangs. No action to date.


That’s it. Not much to write home about, is it?