The Great Destroyer: Barack Obama's War on the Republic (38 page)

BOOK: The Great Destroyer: Barack Obama's War on the Republic

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“U.S. FAVORABLE RATINGS ACROSS THE ARAB WORLD HAVE PLUMMETED”

Obama has prioritized improving U.S. relations with the Muslim world, seeming to believe that a mixture of flattery, self-criticism of the United States, support for Arab Spring Islamists, and his own magnetic personality will do the trick. From his pandering speech in Cairo to his disgraceful fecklessness on the Ground Zero Mosque, Obama has begged Muslims to believe that he, personally, has ushered in a new era of good will between the United States and the Islamic world. Yet his strategy hasn’t borne fruit.

Opinion polls not only show no uptick in Muslims’ approval of the United States under Obama, but a decline. As famed pollster Zogby International reported, “After improving with the election of Barack Obama in 2008, U.S. favorable ratings across the Arab world have plummeted. In most countries they are lower than at the end of the Bush administration, and lower than Iran’s favorable ratings (except in Saudi Arabia).” Among the main reasons cited as “obstacles to peace and stability in the Middle East” are “U.S. interference in the Arab world,” precisely what Obama promised to correct.

Zogby further reported that “President Obama’s favorable ratings across the Arab World are 10% or less,” which is remarkable in view of his pained efforts to ingratiate himself in the Middle East. As Michael Prell observed in the
Washington Times
, “After he promised to restore America’s international reputation, not only does the Arab world hate America more under Mr. Obama than it did under President George W. Bush, it even hates Mr. Obama personally, more than it detested the swaggering unilateralist cowboy from Texas.”
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Furthermore, the administration’s approach to the Middle East peace process—largely consisting of pressuring Israel to stop building settlements and even to halt construction of new apartments in certain parts of its capital city of Jerusalem—has been a complete bust, as the Palestinian Authority refuses even to negotiate directly with the Jewish state until it meets Obama’s ill-conceived demands.

Recall that the Democratic establishment and President Obama routinely derided the alleged warmongering of President Bush, and the mainstream media published an almost daily casualty count in Iraq. But in 2010, U.S. deaths in Afghanistan rose 57 percent from 2009 and were triple those of 2008. Indeed, total deaths in that country in 2010 exceeded the number of deaths for the previous seven years of the war combined. In light of all that killing, it’s no wonder that in Afghanistan, as in most of the rest of the Muslim world, President Obama has failed to make the United States more popular: only 43 percent of Afghans viewed us favorably at the beginning of 2011, compared to 83 percent in 2005.
⁷⁷

Aside from his failure to win popular acclaim abroad, Obama has failed to endear himself to foreign leaders, despite his vaunted willingness to talk with America’s enemies. Although his many overtures to Iran have met with ridicule and the mullahs continue developing nuclear capabilities, he and his administration still pander like a smitten suitor; American diplomats drew attention in September 2010 when they declined to join Canadian diplomats in walking out during a speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the UN.
⁷⁸

In Iraq, despite having proudly boasted of opposing the U.S. invasion from the outset, Obama’s diplomatic magic has also backfired. When Obama and Vice President Biden presumptuously urged President Jalal Talabani to resign and allow Iyad Allawi to replace him, they came up empty-handed, embarrassing themselves and harming our relations with our new ally in the process.
⁷⁹Likewise in Pakistan; Army General Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the British media, “[The average Pakistani who] doesn’t know the United States, doesn’t read about the United States or just watches something on television about the United States, at that level, [the relations] are probably the worst they’ve ever been.” And, he said, the relationship between the U.S. government and the Pakistani government is “on about as rocky a road as I’ve seen.”
⁸⁰

Despite multiple overtures, Obama is also continually rebuffed by Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, who even rejected Obama’s designated ambassador to Caracas.
⁸¹In addition, Chavez has announced he would host a founding conference of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). Claiming the gathering would “change the history of the continent,” Chavez made it clear against whom the conclave was aimed. “For centuries, they’ve imposed on us whatever the North [e.g., the United States] felt like imposing on us!” the dictator thundered. “The time of the South has arrived!” As the
Latin American Herald Tribune
noted, the conference is intended to counter-act the Organization of American States, a regional grouping that, unlike CELAC, includes the United States.
⁸²

Meanwhile, Obama continues to alienate our stalwart ally Israel, seeming to view the prospect of an Israeli preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear weapons program as a bigger threat than the program itself.
⁸³Moreover, not only has he pressured the Israelis to make even more unreciprocated concessions to the Palestinians, he also gratuitously insulted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; after French President Nicolas Sarkozy called Netanyahu a liar during a G20 summit in November 2011, Obama, not realizing their conversation was being captured on microphone, replied, “You are sick of him, but I have to work with him every day.”
⁸⁴

Ironically, Obama hasn’t even managed to capitalize on his mistreatment of Israel to improve relations with the Palestinian Authority. To the contrary, after adopting Obama’s own conditions for re-starting talks with Israel, the PA abandoned negotiations and instead, ignoring the administration’s pleas, sought statehood recognition directly from the United Nations.

ELSEWHERE AROUND THE GLOBE

Even outside the Middle East, Obama has mangled foreign policy across the board. While placating our enemies, Obama has often been thoughtlessly offensive to our allies, particularly Great Britain. The UK
Telegraph
‘s Nile Gardiner wrote a piece in 2010 highlighting “President Obama’s top ten insults against Britain,” and he updated the list in 2011 and in 2012. Included among the slights were “siding with Argentina over the Falklands,” “calling France America’s strongest ally,” “downgrading the special relationship” between the U.S. and Britain, “supporting a federal Europe and undercutting British sovereignty,” “betraying Britain to appease Moscow over the New START Treaty,” “placing a ‘boot on the throat’ of BP,” “throwing Churchill out of the Oval Office,” “DVDs for the Prime Minister,” “insulting words from the State Department,” and “undermining British influence in NATO.”
⁸⁵

“During the Bush presidency relations with Japan, China, India, Mexico, Colombia, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Great Britain (to name just a few countries) were better than they have been during the Obama years,” observes writer Peter Wehner. He also notes that our relations with France and Germany have chilled under Obama, since both nations’ leaders are skeptical about Obama’s commitment to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program, and both view the United States as less than a reliable partner in the Eurozone crisis.
⁸⁶

Wehner catalogued Obama’s many failed campaign promises on foreign policy, concluding, “What one finds are extravagant promises, from a stronger and more sustained partnership with Pakistan, Afghanistan, Japan, India, and China … to ending our dependence on foreign oil, to deepening our engagement to help resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict, to closing Guantanamo Bay; to meeting (without preconditions) Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during Obama’s first year in office; to renewed respect for America in the Muslim world; to rapid economic growth in order to maintain our military superiority.”
⁸⁷

Heritage Foundation foreign policy experts also note that the Obama Doctrine—“one in which the White House engaged with enemies and undercut allies, apologized for American exceptionalism, and favored the ‘soft power’ of treaties and international organizations” in order to recast America’s image—has yielded “disastrous results.” Syria, they say, is another example. Hoping to engage Bashar al-Assad, Obama soft-peddled his criticism of Assad’s violent crackdown on anti-government protestors. After that, “Syria ordered the attack on the U.S. embassy in Damascus, threatened the U.S. ambassador, and to date has killed more than 7,500 Syrians who are standing against the autocratic government.”
⁸⁸

Consider also the administration’s policy toward one small country: Honduras. As recounted in
Crimes Against Liberty
, the Obama administration worked to undermine the democratically and lawfully elected government in Honduras and supported the lawless dictator Manuel Zelaya, who was eventually exiled from his own country after attempting to illegally extend his term in office. The administration’s bizarre support for Zelaya against the expressed will of the Honduran people, Congress, and Supreme Court was wholly inconsistent with its professed support for democracy, though not with its strange affinity for leftist dictators. Only after it was clear that the Honduran people would not yield to the administration’s bullying did it begin to change course. Finally, the administration belatedly voiced approval of Honduras’ democratically elected president, Porfirio Lobo.
⁸⁹

But it soon became apparent that Obama’s team had not really given up on Zelaya. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, revealed that the administration was engaging in backchannel efforts to pressure President Lobo to drop a case against Zelaya for misappropriating government funds and falsifying documents, and to allow Zelaya to return to Honduras from exile in the Dominican Republic. In a letter to Arturo Valenzuela, the assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs, Ros-Lehtinen wrote, “I am gravely concerned by reports I have received regarding efforts by U.S. officials to pressure the Government of Honduras to absolve former President Manuel Zelaya of the criminal charges he faces in that country and ask, within all applicable rules and guidelines, that if these reports are accurate, the State Department immediately cease exerting such undue influence over duly elected Honduran government officials acting in accordance with Honduran law.”
⁹⁰

The administration was unmoved, hailing a later agreement backed by Venezuela that allowed Zelaya to return to Honduras without being prosecuted and with the freedom to engage in politics. “Hugo Chavez’s handprints are all over this deal,” Ros-Lehtinen declared, warning that the accord opened the door for Chavez to work with Zelaya to undermine Honduran democracy. “It is regrettable and incomprehensible that Honduras continues to be bullied into indulging the incessant demands of Manuel Zelaya and his ALBA cohorts.”
⁹¹

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton not only called the signing of the agreement a “great day” for the Honduran people, she praised the Chavez regime for helping to realize it. As if claiming vindication for the administration’s original support for Zelaya, Clinton issued a statement saying, “Thanks to the help of the Colombian and Venezuelan governments, this agreement paves the way for the reintegration of Honduras to the Organization of American States and gives Honduras the opportunity to pursue national reconciliation and end its isolation from the international community.” Chavez, as is his wont, praised the agreement as “an example of the value of the resistance of the people.”
⁹²

So what explains Obama’s support for Zelaya? Two released WikiLeaks cables from the U.S. embassy in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, suggested that the administration backed him despite being fully aware that he was a threat to Honduran democracy. In a cable, Charles Ford, U.S. ambassador to Honduras, told his successor Hugo Llorens, “Ever the rebellious teenager, Zelaya’s principal goal in office is to enrich himself and his family while leaving a public legacy as a martyr who tried to do good but was thwarted at every turn by powerful, unnamed interests…. His erratic behavior appears most evident when he deliberately stirs street action in protest against his own government policy—only to resolve the issue (teacher complaints, transportation grievances, etc.) at the last moment.” Ford noted that Zelaya had a “sinister” side and that he was surrounded by “a few close advisors with ties to both Venezuela and Cuba and organized crime.” Ford also plainly indicated that Zelaya could not be trusted, saying, “I am unable to brief Zelaya on sensitive law enforcement and counter-narcotics actions due [to] my concern that this would put the lives of U.S. officials in jeopardy.”
⁹³

The
Wall Street Journal
‘s Mary O’Grady theorized that the released cables suggest Obama supported the lawless Zelaya regime as a means to improve U.S. relations with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. “The U.S. knew Mr. Zelaya was a threat to democratic Honduras but had decided the country should tolerate his constitutional violations in the interest of realpolitik,” wrote O’Grady. “Practically speaking, Hugo Chavez was the man to please.”
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THE “RESET” WITH RUSSIA

Shortly after he was elected president, Obama promised to “reset U.S.-Russia relations.” The reset policy, unsurprisingly, has consisted of a series of U.S. concessions to Russia apparently geared toward trying to generate goodwill from the Kremlin. But the Russians have not shown any willingness to reciprocate, and why would they? Obama seems content to respond to their intransigence with ever-more concessions and even to adopt their narrative on bilateral issues.

BOOK: The Great Destroyer: Barack Obama's War on the Republic

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