America’s Failed Foreign Policy

We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.  Winston Churchill

A recent Wall Street Journal article of 12-30-14 outlines pretty well the sad and desperate state of United States “foreign policy,” if that is what it might be called.

ISIL, or Islamic State, rose to dominate much of Iraq after its armed forces captured the northern city of Mosul in June, followed by a sweep toward Baghdad.

Islamic State’s rise was made possible not merely because the U.S. wound down its military presence in Iraq but because Mr. Obama chose to eliminate that presence. Under intense pressure from the Pentagon and our regional allies, the White House later in the year committed useful if limited air support to the Iraqi army battling Islamic State. Without question, the U.S. was behind the curve, and with dire consequences.

Islamic State’s success has emboldened or triggered other jihadist movements, despite Mr. Obama’s assurance that the war on terror was fading.

Radical Islamists are grabbing territory from U.S. allies in Yemen. They have overrun Libya’s capital and threaten its oil fields. Boko Haram in Nigeria, the kidnappers of some 275 schoolgirls in April, adopted the ISIL terror model. U.S. allies in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia and Jordan, are struggling to cope with the violence spreading out of Syria and Iraq. Mr. Obama can only hope that the Afghan Taliban do not move now to retake Kandahar after he announced this week with premature bravado “the end of the combat mission.”

In February, the crisis in Ukraine began and worsened quickly, as Vladimir Putin’s Russian forces occupied Crimea. Next came the Russian incursion into eastern Ukraine, with a Malaysian airliner shot down in July, killing 283 passengers. Through it all, Mr. Obama refused the pleas of Ukraine and staunch allies such as Poland to provide the Ukrainian army with the basic means to defend itself. He limited his support to non-military supplies, such as battlefield food rations.

The danger is that Mr. Putin, supported at home by a massive anti-U.S. propaganda campaign, will next move on Moldova or Estonia, even in the face of Western economic sanctions. The collapse of world oil prices has intervened to force Mr. Putin to confront his own weak economy, but the threat of Russian expansion remains.

President Obama’s attitude toward foreign policy is encapsulated in one of his recent remarks on NPR “I believe in diplomacy, I believe in dialogue, I believe in engagement.” He said Iran could be “a very successful regional power” that is “abiding by international norms and rules.”