Wonder if he is still smiling today. Official White House photo via Wikipedia.
The duel disasters of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 and the invasion of Gaza by Israel adds more fuel to criticism of Obama's foreign policy. Yahoo/AP Obama insists he is still a better foreign policy president then George Bush even though he has continued his domestic fundraising tour. The article touts recent sanctions against Russia and the nuclear talks with Iran as examples of good foreign policy.
My Comment:
They sure left a lot out in this article. In addition to the Ukraine crisis and the war in Gaza, they only made passing mention of Iraq and ISIS, which is a much bigger problem then whatever the Israelis are doing in Gaza. Related to that is the Syrian Civil War. Iran is a problem not only because of their nuclear programs but because of their involvement in the other wars in the region. China was mentioned briefly, but it's one of the biggest tinderboxes in the world right now. Then there is the ever present specter of North Korea, perhaps not as dangerous as it once was but still a major foreign policy issue. And of course the one everyone always forgets, the Mexican Drug war happening just across the border, and has a huge impact on U.S. domestic issues as well. I haven't even gotten into Afghanistan and the other places U.S. troops are fighting either openly or clandestinely.
Unfortunately, Obama has always been a domestic president (a pretty horrible one but that's for another post). I always had the impression that foreign policies were perceived by this White House as an annoyance at best. He wants to focus on transforming America with his policies, like Obamacare for example, and not focus on the rest of the world. This leads to policy decisions being rushed and not well thought out.
And no, the endless cries of "he inherited this mess from Bush" doesn't fly anymore. Say what you want about Bush, but Iraq was beginning to stabilize when he left, Ukraine and Russia were still on friendly terms, Russia was, if not friendly to America, still willing to talk to us. Now I am not saying that Bush doesn't deserve criticism but at some point people have to stop blaming things on him that happened well after he was out of office.
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