Obama Foreign Policy
March 22, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu apologized today to Turkey for an Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla. The apology is, of course, the handiwork of President Obama. Indeed, Netanyahu made the call during an airport meeting with Obama shortly before Obama mercifully left Israel. The apology is a humiliation for Israel, which had nothing for which to be sorry. Netanyahu’s statement — which he wisely resisted making for three years —
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March 22, 2013 — Scott Johnson
President Obama said some good things in Israel. The good things he said contradicted the thesis of his first-term approach to Israel. In the style of what might be called Obama knows best — knows best what is good for you — he also said some foolish and patronizing things that represented continuity with his first-term approach. In his speech to Israeli students, for example, Obama gave the impression that
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March 21, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
According to this Washington Post report, President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu displayed “unusual solidarity” during the first day of Obama’s visit to Israel. By this, the Post means unusual solidarity for them. The Obama-Netanyahu interaction was what one expect from the leaders of two close allies, but not what we’ve seen in the past from these two, thanks to Obama’s studied belligerence. But, the appearance of good will
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March 21, 2013 — Scott Johnson
In mid-2011, as you may recall, President Obama sought to bring peace to the Middle East through his proposal that Israel should return to its 1967 borders in exchange for being annihilated by its enemies. Has Obama’s thinking on the subject advanced? Aaron Klein suggests that it has not. We’ll have to check back after Obama’s big speech to Israeli students, from which he has thoughtfully barred the students of
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March 20, 2013 — Scott Johnson
I watched President Obama’s arrival in Israel at Ben-Gurion Airport this morning (this afternoon in Israel, I guess), live on CNN. Obama was welcomed by President Peres and Prime Minister Netanyahu, who rolled out the red carpet for him (screenshot below). Obama’s remarks, so it seemed to me, were pitched to show that there is no daylight between the United States and Israel. They might have been persuasive if you
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March 19, 2013 — Scott Johnson
The White House has posted the video below on its YouTube channel with this explanation: “President Obama sends best wishes to the Iranian people as they celebrate Nowruz. In his video message, the President speaks directly to the people and leaders of Iran about the opportunity to begin a new relationship between our two countries.” President Obama, with all due respect, sir, you are a complete and utter fool. Via
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March 18, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Today’s Washington Post (print edition) proclaimed that “Obama’s trip to Israel aims to fix missteps.” But for what purpose? The Post suggests that Obama needs to fix the mistakes of his previous approach to Israel so that he can “revive” his “ill-fated effort to secure an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.” I don’t doubt that President Obama would like to revive that effort. And it’s reasonable for Obama to conclude, albeit belatedly,
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March 15, 2013 — Scott Johnson
I try to discount reports of future White House doings, but veteran reporter Neil Munro’s Daily Caller article — Obama will press Israel to mollify furious Arabs” – is sourced to Ben Rhodes, the president’s deputy national security adviser for strategic communications. Rhodes contributes another chapter in the praise of folly that Obama has brought us over the past four-plus years: “It is obviously a good thing that the people
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March 8, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
The White House insists that President Obama will go ahead and visit Israel later this month even if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not put together a governing coalition before the president arrives. Obama is scheduled to arrive March 20. Netanyahu’s deadline for forming a governing coalition is March 16. However, it’s not clear that Netanyahu will meet that deadline. And even if he does, the views of the new
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March 6, 2013 — Scott Johnson
At Defining Ideas, Kori Schake has an excellent summary of “The view from Tehran.” Schake makes the case that the mullahs believe they are achieving their aims in their long confrontation with the United States. One of the data points in Schake’s assessment is the retirement of General Mattis ahead of schedule. From Obama’s perspective, Mattis was an inconvenient fellow “because he irritatingly kept insisting that political guidance from the
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March 5, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Hugo Chavez has died. The Washington Post calls him “passionate but polarizing.” That’s a way of putting it, I suppose. Eventually, the Post provides a few examples of Chavez’s polarizing passion: He criticized the U.S.-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and, in a speech at the United Nations in 2006, said President George W. Bush was “the devil.” He called Tony Blair, then Britain’s prime minister, “an imperialist pawn who
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March 5, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Vice President Biden gave a long speech at the annual AIPAC Policy conference yesterday (complete text here). The speech is worth reading in its entirety. Drawing on his long public career, Biden shows a natural ability to connect with his audience despite the complications of the past four years. Much of the speech is difficult to square with the tenor of the Obama administration’s approach to Israel and the Middle
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March 5, 2013 — Scott Johnson
The editors of Investors Business Daily pose a good question: What are we to make of the U.S. suddenly finding $250 million to spare for Egypt during a supposedly devastating sequester? Has this administration miraculously parted a sea of red ink? The editorial concludes: The U.S. is giving $250 million to an Egyptian president who calls Jews “blood-suckers” who are “descendants of apes and pigs”; Morsi unequivocally supports the Iranian-backed
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March 4, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Last week, in a speech at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Marco Rubio called for the United States to provide ammunition to the Syrian opposition. And nearly every week, it seems, John McCain argues that the U.S. should supply arms to that opposition. But Michael Rubin argues, persuasively I think, that the time has passed to take such action because the Syrian opposition is now dominated by radical
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March 4, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Reading accounts (such as this one) of John Kerry’s whirlwind trip to the Middle East has got me thinking about the Obama administration’s top foreign policy/national security team of Kerry, Chuck Hagel, and, if confirmed as DCIA (which I hope he isn’t), John Brennan. Don’t they deserve some kind of a nickname? I’m thinking of something along the lines of Axis of Stupid. It probably doesn’t work, because the obtuseness
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March 2, 2013 — Steven Hayward
In honor of the recent Cabinet confirmations of John Kerry, Jack Lew, and Chuck Hagel, it becomes apparent that Churchill’s famous remark about Ramsey MacDonald as “the boneless wonder” is for once inadequate to the moment: Obama has installed an entire boneless chicken farm. To do full justice to the complete mediocrity that is Obama’s second term, we’ll need to roll out the entire repertoire of Churchill’s dismissals of MacDonald,
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February 11, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Unnamed sources tell Israel’s Army Radio that the main purpose of President Obama’s upcoming visit to Israel is to warn Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu against attacking Iran. Netanyahu has flagged the spring of 2013 as a significant time in the context of the Iranian nuclear threat. And having recently been re-elected, he can now form a more hawkish security cabinet [note: at least according to the Jerusalem Post]. According to
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