The Obama Foreign Policy Record

It’s never a bad idea to look at the record. It’s certainly not a bad idea, at the current remove, to examine the Obama foreign policy record. One reason the progressive left has its knickers in a twist over Donald Trump is that it must, no matter the price, defend the indefensible Obama record.

Where, pray tell, didn’t Obama fail on foreign policy?

Over at the Powerline blog, John Hinkeraker lays out the case:

With today’s bombshell about Iran’s ongoing nuclear weapons program, the wreckage of Barack Obama’s foreign policy is coming into focus. Syria: the “red line” fiasco, with hundreds of thousands killed. North Korea: a do-nothing policy that brought America’s West Coast perilously close to coming under nuclear threat. Iran: a deal that would have been foolish even if the mullahs hadn’t cheated, $100 billion and sanctions relief now, in exchange for promises that Iran could walk away from at will. We now know that the deal was even worse than that.

Those were the biggest disasters, but not the only ones. Libya: incredibly, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton participated in the overthrow of a dictator without having a plan for what would come after. The result was a failed state, and a terrorist haven. Cuba and Venezuela: while the disastrous condition of both socialist countries is not Obama’s fault, his admiration for, and coddling of, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez contributed to sentencing the people of those countries to another generation of poverty and oppression. China: Obama failed to stand up to China’s military expansionism, or to its aggressive trade and economic policies that cost American companies many billions of dollars. Israel: Obama deliberately downgraded relations with one of our most important allies, and shamefully meddled in an Israeli national election in hopes of electing a Prime Minister as spineless as himself.

It doesn’t look very good. Of course, we are not allowed to talk about it. And that is why we ought to raise the issue. Pretending that it was all great because the Messiah did it puts reason in a coma. Besides, it’s grossly condescending not to hold Obama to objective standards of success and failure.