Israel Matzav

The unimpressive President

Writing in Monday's Wall Street Journal, former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton has withering criticism for President Obumbler's Asia trip. Here's the bottom line of a damning article.

Overall, President Obama surely suffered his worst setbacks in Beijing, on trade and economics, on climate change, and on security issues. CNN analyst David Gergen, no conservative himself, compared Mr. Obama's China meetings to Kennedy's disastrous 1961 encounter with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna, a clear indicator of how poorly the Obama visit was seen at home. The perception that Mr. Obama is weak has already begun to emerge even in Europe, for example with French President Nicholas Sarkozy, and if it emerges in Asia as well, Obama and the U.S. will suffer gravely.

Many media analysts attributed the lack of significant agreements in Beijing to the "rising China, declining America" hypothesis, which suits their ideological proclivities. But any objective analysis would show that it was much more Mr. Obama's submissiveness and much less a new Chinese assertiveness that made the difference. Mr. Obama simply seems unable or unwilling to defend U.S. interests strongly and effectively, either because he feels them unworthy of defense, or because he is untroubled by their diminution.

Of course, most Americans believe they elect presidents who will vigorously represent their global interests, rather than electing Platonic guardians who defend them only when they comport with his grander vision of a just world. Foreign leaders, whether friends or adversaries, expect the same. If, by contrast, Mr. Obama continues to behave as a "post-American" president, China and others will know exactly how to take advantage of him.

Read the whole thing.

And we're not even through the first year yet. What could go wrong?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:13 PM