Obama’s foreign policy wasn’t principled, it was malicious.
Sucker-punch at Israel not the mark of a ‘uniter’
Barack Obama’s nasty parting shot at Israel may well have secured his legacy in foreign affairs. As weak, malevolent and sneaky.
His foreign policy has been a disaster almost from the outset in ways that contributed to the frustration and rage t hat poisoned the 2016 election. In part, Obama simply seemed languid, unable to stir himself in the face of threats or even look up from his putt. But there were always those who suggested that behind the indolence and prissy Wilson- ian pose of being “too proud to fight” lurked something more sinister.
Obama, t hey claimed, was viscerally hostile to the United States and the West.
When he took office he had the bust of Churchill removed from the Oval Office. His relations with Israel were always prickly. He snubbed Canada in spiking Keystone XL.
Yet he did not react with alarm or even visible discomfort to threats to NATO such as Russian moves to destabilize and partially dismember Ukraine, despite a firm American security guarantee when it gave up its nuclear arsenal in 1994.
Then there was his very revealing response to a 2009 question about American exceptionalism: “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”
As too often with Obama, t he quicksilver t ongue formed a yes that swiftly, smoothly morphed into a no.
Still, one could always make excuses. That Church- ill bust was loaned to Bush. Israeli PM Netanyahu is himself prickly.
Ukraine was corrupt and it’s very risky to act decisively in an area so close to Russia’s heartland. It was high time America had a less arrogant president.
It was even argued that despite short- run upheav- als, there would be significant long- term benefits to Obama’s overdue reduction in American overreach. The U. S. would get a much-needed respite while encouraging its allies to step up in the world.
Unfortunately Obama shrugged as the withdrawal turned into a rout while its Western allies, long accustomed to a free ride, seemed unable to find their convictions, weapons or wallets.
Indeed, both Britain and France voted for Security Council Resolution 2334 on which Obama’s representative abstained, a loathsome document essentially denying any Jewish connection to key sites in “East Jerusalem” including the Temple Mount, although British PM Theresa May went after John Kerry for his pompous post- vote speech piling on to Israel.
Whatever one t hinks of British foreign policy, Obama’s snaky stab at Israel makes it very hard not to put the least favourable interpretation on much that went before, including his infamous nuclear deal with Iran.
It vindicates those critics who called him anti- American or simply un-American, sharing his father’s anti- colonial mentality in which the United States was just one more arrogant white nation oppressing non- whites like himself. As Britain’s Daniel Hannan has pointed out, when Obama went to West Africa and spoke of the slave trade, he made no mention of the Royal Navy’s role in stamping it out.
Obama fell far short of his aspirations to be “a uniter, not a divider” in many areas including race.
But his failures in foreign policy l oom i ncreasingly large and, in light of Resolution 2334, reflect culpable malice and dishonesty along with unworthy timidity.
The malevolence is revealed in his deep hostility to the only democracy in the Middle East, an island of ethnic, religious and gender tolerance in a sea of hate. The same timidity that led him to erase his own “red line” in Syria and dither for years on Keystone XL is on view in his only finally tearing off the mask regarding Israel once he became a lame duck, and then by abstaining on a vote. But the deceit glares forth.
For eight years Obama concealed his true feelings about Israel from leading American Jewish figures like Alan Dershowitz, who backed him politically and financially. Jews overwhelmi ngly vote Democrat but comprise just two per cent of the electorate. But they contribute roughly half the money Obama’s party raises directly. Waiting until it is somebody else’s problem to thrust the dagger is not just a cowardly refusal to take the heat. It’s downright sleazy.
Finally, as if more were needed, it shows the same lack of respect for the U. S. Constitution that Obama frequently showed in attempting feebly to brush aside the separation of powers.
As a lame duck whose party just lost the 2016 elect i on badly, winning t he popular presidential vote but losing the Electoral Coll ege, the Senate and the House and doing very badly at the state level, he had no authority to undertake a major policy change openly opposed by his successor that his spokespersons characteristically denied even happened.
Obama might possibly have escaped into the history books only as a man who meant well feebly in foreign affairs.
Not any more.
HIS FAILURES IN FOREIGN POLICY LOOM INCREASINGLY LARGE. IT VINDICATES THOSE CRITICS WHO CALLED (OBAMA) ANTI-AMERICAN. — JOHN ROBSON