Monday, October 1, 2012

Foreign policy under President Obama

Most Americans (including myself) are wary of heavy American involvement in  foreign affairs, given the exhausting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  But our President and our military have been active abroad, so it must be discussed.

 Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011 by U.S. soldiers, with direction from President Obama.  That's great news.  But Al Qaeda and related terrorist groups remain.  Indeed, we just suffered our 2000th casualty in Afghanistan, and many of these dead were killed by Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists.  We have had a military presence in Afghanistan since October 2001, yet more than two-thirds of the American deaths there have occurred since President Obama took over.



President Obama says that Al Qaeda is "on the path to defeat."  Sadly, I'm not sure about that.  A Muslim military officer who killed 13 fellow American soldiers in 2009 at Fort Hood was sympathetic to the cause of Jihad and (tenuously, perhaps) tied to several of the original 9/11 terrorists.

 Further, on September 11, 2012, a U.S. embassy was attacked and an American ambassador killed by members of an Al Qaeda affiliate.  This tragedy, as well as the President's ever-evolving story about how it happened and who was responsible, are troubling to say the least.

Indeed, reports now indicate that the President's administration had advance knowledge of the danger to our people in Libya but still denied their requests for increased security.

Concerning Afghanistan, what is President Obama's strategy?  He ordered a "surge" of 33,000 additional troops in Afghanistan in 2009. But at the same time he announced the surge, he also announced a timetable by which we would begin to draw down our troops.  The rate of American deaths there dramatically increased after he ordered the surge.

 What was the goal of the surge?  Why did we tell our enemies when we were leaving?  And now that we have begun to leave, what did we accomplish?  There are bad actors in Afghanistan that we might have needed to deal with, but President Obama's plan was aimless.  It is hypocritical for him to claim to be winding down the war in Afghanistan when he "wound it up" three years ago and can point to no benefit of having done so.


President Obama also claims that he ended the war in Iraq.  Of course, many soldiers have left Iraq on his watch (many still remain), which is great news.  But President Obama fails to mention that President Bush signed the security agreement with Iraq in 2008 that established the timeline for withdrawal in 2011.  President Obama didn't end anything; he is merely following the plan that was in place when he took office.

Overall, United States foreign policy has been perplexingly inconsistent, both concerning where we have chosen to intervene (Libya, Afghan surge) and where we have chosen not to intervene (Syrian innocents, Iranian dissidents).  President Obama helped to bring about the removal of Qadaffi in Libya -- a strongman dictator, but one who had given up his chem/bio weapons program during the Bush administration.  Further, he cheered the departure of Egypt's leader Mubarak, another strongman but a tepid American ally.  

Many who voted for President Obama were told that a less prominent American role abroad would cause America to be more well-liked on the world stage, but it hasn't worked out that way yet.

Again, I have no desire to see America overstretched or needlessly involved militarily, but President Obama's foreign policy credentials should hardly be a reason to re-elect him.

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