The Obama-Biden Foreign Policy Record

In large part the paroxysms of Trump hatred coming to us from the left are disguised expressions of love for Obama. The static issuing from these people is designed to cover up Obama’s failures, the better to establish his reputation for greatness. It smacks of nostalgia, but it more closely resembles a massive public relations campaign to make us think that everything Obama did was great and that everything Trump is doing is bad.

It is not just about covering up the Obama administration attack on the Trump election campaign, though that is certainly part of it. It is also about a return to those halcyon days when we had great alliances around the world and could confront Russia with the wind to our back. You will read such drivel throughout the media. It ignores the fact that the Obama administration projected nothing but weakness toward Russia and that Angela Merkel, the great European leader, not only opened her country to masses of anti-Semitic Muslim migrants, but is making her country dependent on Russian supplies of natural gas. Those who defend Obama ignore the fact that he was only respected in a couple of Western European countries and was dismissed as a world leader by China and Russia. Let’s not forget that Obama severely damaged diplomatic relations with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel… all in order to align itself with the America-hating mullahs in Iran.

As happened when Pres. Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital or when he declared the Golan Heights to be part of Israel, the anti-Trump chorus is up in arms over Trump’s readiness to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization. In particular, he is offering his support for Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, but he is also recognizing the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood is the godfather of terrorist organizations.

To put it in perspective, when Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate for the Egyptian presidency, was running for office, his allies were sending mobile infirmary vans into the poor neighborhoods of Cairo in order to allow families to mutilate the genitalia of their daughters without having to suffer the indignity of going to a hospital or a well-equipped infirmary. Naturally, the Obama administration did not care. When Morsi won his election, that great defender of women’s rights, Hillary Clinton was the first international leader to show up in Cairo to bless the result of the election. Then again, Hillary’s girlfriend’s family belonged to the Brotherhood, so we understand that her gesture was solely motivated by her love for America and her support for the inalienable rights of mutilated Egyptian girls.

Joe Biden’s ascent in the polls is now drawing more attention to his own record of making idiotic pronouncements on foreign policy. See this Commentary piece by Noah Rothman. But it has also drawn attention to the Obama administration record on foreign policy. With all the wailing about Trump, we have largely ignored the question. We note, with Matt Margolis, that Obama chose Biden because he needed an experienced foreign policy hand beside him. For roughly the same reason George W. Bush chose Dick Cheney.

Margolis wants the Biden candidacy to incite us to review the serial failures of Obama’s foreign policy. If the nation were not so focused on Trump, we would normally exercise our rational faculties to evaluate the record.

For instance, Margolis begins, ISIS arose and took over large swaths of Syria and Northern Iraq. It enslaved people, sex trafficked and gang raped women… and generally destroyed people and communities. Before Obama, there was no ISIS. With Obama there was the ISIS caliphate. After Obama, there is no more ISIS caliphate. Surely, Obama and Biden need to answer for ISIS.

Don’t expect the media ever to hold them to account.

And then there was Libya, leading from behind, losing an ambassador, delivering the nation to anarchy. We recall that Libya policy was directed by Hillary herself, with her weird sisters Samantha Power and Susan Rice. Obviously, it turned out badly. When our Ambassador was murdered in Benghazi, the morally defective Clinton refused to take any responsibility. And yet, the Secretary of State is responsible for the security of our ambassadors. It’s part of the job description. Clinton not only failed our Chris Stevens, she did not even have enough moral character to accept responsibility.

And then there were Iraq and Afghanistan. When Obama took over the peace in Iraq had been won… by the Bush troop surge. Obama and Biden declared it to be their own great victory. Then they failed to negotiate a status of forces agreement with the Iraqi government and unwisely pulled all American troops out of the country.

Margolis explains:

Territory was lost, ISIS took over, and Iran was filling the void America left there. Was this what Biden meant when he said Iraq would be “one of the great achievements” of the Obama-Biden administration, which he, by his own words, was directly involved with?

As for Afghanistan, he continues:

And what exactly happened with the “right war” in Afghanistan that Obama and Biden wanted to focus on? They lost that war, too. It took Donald Trump to clean the messes left by Barack Obama and Joe Biden. If Biden’s Democrat rivals don’t make him answer for that, Donald Trump will.

The Iran nuclear deal was supposed to be the crowning achievement of Obama and Biden’s smart diplomacy. It alienated our ally Saudi Arabia and our ally Israel. It must count among the worst sellouts in American history. It manifested nothing but a willingness to appease the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, and also the world’s leading proponent of violence against Americans and Israelis.

As for now, despite the whining and wailing of the weak sisters in Western Europe, Trump has disengaged us from that deal:

Iran kept violating the terms of the deal after Obama and Biden left office so that ultimately it took the Trump administration to hold Iran accountable by restoring sanctions against Iran and officially getting us out of the deal.

To top it off there was the Russian Reset. You recall that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton got it started when she handed the Russian foreign minister a plastic toy, with the word Reset mistranslated. Lavrov and the world laughed at her.

The rest is history, and not a very good history at that. Margolis summarizes:

Improving relation with Russia was a priority of Obama from the beginning of his presidency, and Biden was neck deep in that effort. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wanted to establish a “Biden-Putin Commission” to help achieve better relations. What exactly did this “Russian reset” entail? On Obama’s watch, Russia annexed Crimea, built up a presence in the Middle East, propping up both the Assad regime in Syria, and the Iranian mullahs.

Apparently, for the Obama-Biden administration, the “Russian reset” was all about capitulation—even at the expense of the United States national security.

The Obama-Biden administration took such a weak approach to Russia that they approved the transfer of 20 percent of America’s Uranium mining capability, and utterly ignored Russian attempts to interfere with the U.S. election in 2016. In fact, the Obama-Biden administration gave a “stand-down” order in response to Russian cyber-attacks in the summer of 2016. Many Democrats still hold onto the belief that Russia succeeded in hacking our elections and delivered Trump a victory. It seems like the Obama-Biden administration’s overall weakness with Russia, and their inaction when Russia was actively trying to interfere with our elections would be a significant line of attack for Biden’s primary opponents.

Russian election interference, all of which occurred on Obama’s watch, will never come up. Because the left has gone completely hysterical over what Trump did or did not say to Vladimir Putin at their meeting in Helsinki. Again, it’s all static, designed to distract from the real issues.