Powerline: You know it’s bad when even the Associated Press notices
The “sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq” that Barack Obama and Joe Biden hailed as one of Obama’s “great achievements” in 2014 has regressed into chaos as a result of Obama’s premature withdrawal of American troops. But it isn’t just Iraq. Syria is the closest thing to Hell on Earth. Iran is working away on nuclear weapons and delivery systems. Yemen has fallen to Iran’s proxies. Saudi Arabia is looking for nuclear weapons to counter Iran’s. ISIS occupies an area the size of Great Britain. Libya, its dictator having been gratuitously overthrown by feckless Western governments that had no plan for what would follow, is a failed state and terrorist playground.
It seems as though things couldn’t possibly get worse, but they almost certainly will.
That is quite a litany of failure. We know it will get worse. Only the delusional liberal left thinks otherwise. Arguably Obama is the worst president in US history.
In hindsight Canada did itself no favours by participating in the the take down in Libya. We should have let Gaddafi continue killing various shades of Islamic radicals.
Oh yes, it will get worse. In case you thought negotiations with Iran were all about proliferation of Nukes and a determination to stop Iran from having their own arsenal, well, it’s more about following the money and why certain players are more than willing to throw Israel under the bus to lift sanctions.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/european-business-prepare-for-lifting-of-iran-sanctions-a-1034240.html
In every conceivable way imaginable, Obama’s foreign policy decisions have been one large cluster****.
At first I was unsure whether to chalk it up to sheer incompetence or deliberate willingness. If this ISN’T deliberate, I wonder how much more he’d have to do to prove it is.
It is hard to imagine someone THIS incompetent when I consider the whole of everything that has occurred under his watch rather than the mere sum of it’s parts.
Wanna know what “worse” looks like? France death marching every French Muslim into Turkey.
“It seems as though things couldn’t possibly get worse, but they almost certainly will.”
Yup, it seems we the Murkans need to Call A Friend.
Someone who is savvy and experienced on an international scale.
Someone whose enemies are Our Own Enemies.
Someone who is Our Trusted Ally.
Someone who would never ever lie to us or benefit financially.
Oh, if we only had Such A Friend, what a wonderful world would that be.
Can anyine name three Foreign Policy Achievements by Barack Obama?
I do not think waxing Bin Laden counts, as that was the US Military, not the US State Department. I will give BHO credit for it, but I hate that we abandoned the doctor that helped us find him. Last I heard the doctor was still in a Pakistani jail.
Are there another two accomplishments?
Powerline is being a bit generous in its assessment. Libya is not simply a failed state. Eastern Libya is effectively a province of ISIS. The government so-called in Tripoli has no intention and no capability of trying to assert control in Cyrenica. It has virtually no control in much of Tripolitania.
rd, waxing bin Laden is not a foreign policy achievement. It was a simple military takeout. It’s actual effect on foreign affairs has been zero. Its tactical benefit is not apparent either. ISIS and Al Qaeda activity has increased, not decreased, since. So answering your question, there have been zero successes and a string of complete disasters throughout his time in office. He has even failed utterly to strengthen or even maintain US alliances. All are weaker now than when he took office.
Obama has the Inverse Midas Syndrome when it comes to foreign relations. Everything he touches turns to faeces.
Obomber has managed to insult and denigrate all the US’s trusty, and some less worthy, allies. His only ally now is Iran. He even probably thinks it’s not fair that Putin is being so mean.
And is Obama concerned? I don’t know but I hear he’s taken up tweeting. Isn’t that a little like Nero fiddling while Rome burned.
That is the crux of the matter, Harkov.
They are either incompetent, or they are complicit.
They can be both.
Obama and biden would make a couple of interesting disney villians they cerianly qualify
Absolutely…the pogroms that will take place across the civilized world when the denizens have had enough will make any large scale expulsion from history pale in comparison.
There is one thing that could make it worse….
Obozo being assassinated.
It’s not just the loathsome prospect of every other freeway, airport and bridge becoming an Obama memorial….
It is the almost certainty that putting things right would be impossible…
If you believe in prayer…please pray for him.
In spite of Obama’s missteps, maybe all is not lost in Ramadi/Iraq, though it’s truly a cluster-f**k:
“Islamic State isn’t actually winning in Iraq:”
“Ramadi has remained a contested city, with Islamic State entrenched in an urban war that perfectly suits their style of fighting and expertise. Air assaults, carried out by the U.S.-led coalition, including Canada, are largely ineffective in such a setting, where fighters enjoy mobility and cover.”
What’s needed are ground troops, which the Iraqi army has provided. But, as journalist Raed El-Hamed pointed out in a June 2014 analysis for the Carnegie Endowment, Islamic State militants have the advantage because of their “superior combat experience dating back to the Saddam Hussein era, and insurgency training acquired during the U.S. occupation.”
“The government troops, in comparison,” he warned, “are largely inexperienced units and are highly dependent on the [Shia] militias. It’s these militias that will take the fight to Islamic State in Ramadi, something current Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has avoided until now. It was not until the Iraqi army was forced to retreat that Abadi gave the order for the militias to advance, asking Sunnis to fight alongside their Shia brothers against the bigger enemy.”
Ramadi now faces an extremely volatile future. If the Shia militias are successful in pushing Islamic State out, will they then concede control of the city to local Sunni leaders? Some Sunnis have condemned Abadi’s move, characterizing it as a Shia attempt to take over Anbar; others are taking a more practical approach, agreeing to join the militia advance. This will now be a major test of whether or not Iraq can overcome its deep sectarian divisions.”
http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/the-islamic-state-isnt-actually-winning-in-iraq/