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.”
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