Israel Matzav

The damage Obama has done to American foreign policy

For as we abandon the notion of critical allies, the world's bad actors embrace it anew. If in January 2002 there was an Axis of Evil, today there is a continuous loop. One can draw a line of nefarious cooperation through the following countries and connect the last with the first to start all over again: Russia-Venezuela-Iran-Syria-North Korea-Burma. On matters of defense, economics, intelligence, and energy, these anti-democratic, nuclear and nuclear-aspirant countries are working together in various configurations to extend their reach into all hemispheres. Simultaneously history's most effective force for good is shrinking its influence and severing ties with sympathetic global partners. The hope is that antagonistic regimes will so appreciate this humility they will reconfigure their political and cultural DNA and become friends of the United States.

While this is a foreign policy worthy of grade school it is certainly not harmless.

In December of 2007, Senator Barack Obama was winding down a caucus pitch in Iowa when he hit one of the loftiest rhetorical notes of his candidacy for President of the United States: "I will send once more a message to those yearning faces beyond our shores that says, 'You matter to us. Your future is our future. And our moment is now.'"

Although Barack Obama has broken his campaign promise, it remains true that our allies' futures are tied to our own. When the world's strongest democracy is compromised, weaker democracies are imperiled. Last Thursday, the U.S. assented to a revanchist bully. Eastern Europe has every reason to worry. The president who was supposed to repair American ties around the globe and restore the world's faith in American benevolence has done something far worse than fall short. He has made room for a new age of autocracy.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:50 PM