The World Is No Longer Afraid of US

++That's the Economist's blast at President Obama's foreign policy. Interesting idea that you want the world to be afraid of the United States.

++This week has seen an orgy of attacks of President Obama's foreign policy from the Amazon Post (a name picked up by the Obama Administration's in last night's White House Correspondent's dinner) and the New York Times this Sunday.

++Interesting, Thomas Friedman, a big apologist for the Iraq War, came to the defense of Obama and admitted Iraq didn't turn out so well. Friedman's point was that we are in a situation of failed states and that the United States doesn't have the resources to put them together again. In other areas,we lack the leverage to get countries to move in our direction.

++Charles Krauthammer, who believes the latest Benghazi e-mails are worse than Nixon's tapes, won conservative's hearts and minds by his op-ed on the fickle nature of Obama's foreign policy. 

++Maureen Dowd began the week attacking President Obama for not hitting home-runs by only singles, which indicates a lack of leadership. By today, she has found her champion, Hillary Clinton, and said that Obama's Presidency is used up.

++Frank Bruni in todays Times wonders where the optimism in America has gone and worries that his children will not have the same standard of living as he does. He did rightly point out that Americans have answered the Right Direction--Wrong Direction in polls for the last ten years in the negative so all the fault in not Obama. 

++The Amazon Post ran an editorial on Iraq blaming President Obama for not getting the Force Agreement, which would allow the United States to remain and mitigate the current civil war. No one pointed out that both W and Obama didn't get the Force Agreement because the Iraqis would not agree to immunity for American forces, which makes sense because of their past behavior.

++I have not read an editorial anywhere about how Congress weakens American foreign policy. President Obama and John Kerry promise immediate aid to the Ukraine and so what do congressional Republicans do--filibuster it. The House Republicans have cut off aid to UNESCO and the OAS, an institution which has been a reliable ally in promoting democratic values. The Senate has not provided the IMF "fix" that the Administration has promised for several years.

++Now imagine you are living overseas and you see a Congress that closes down the government of a major world power as a tantrum against that country's citizens receiving health care. Imagine you see congressional leaders publicly argue that this major power can willfully default on its debt as a policy option without any repercussions for the world economy. You would have to conclude that country is not "exceptional" as they claim but exceptionally stupid.

++Also imagine you are Chinese, Japanese, or European. And you come to the United States and take the train. Or fly into our airports. You would have to laugh that this destination is a major country. Yet Congress first would not even entertain the Infrastructure Bill of the President nor the idea of John Kerry's to create an infrastructure bank with the private sector.

++You are a German company with an auto plant in the United States. Your company's model is to have worker councils to mitigate labor disputes and to ensure efficient production. The state you have a plant in campaigns against your employees having a labor union. You have to think that state is insane,

++And let's look at the President's critics. None of them have ever seen a war they didn't like. Whether it's the Washington Post or the New York Times. Only when the establishment tired of Vietnam did they go against that war. While millions took to the streets against Iraq, both papers defended it. They have not been against a war since the late 1980s when the United States embarked on an uninterrupted period of permanent war.

++Has President Obama made foreign policy mistakes? Sure. But even Thomas Friedman's lukewarm defense of the President misses the point on Libya. For a few billion dollars and only 4 killed in Bengazi,the United States managed to secure and destroy Qaddafhi's nuclear program that W missed. With regard to Krauthammer's complaint about Obama on Syria,Congress had the right to vote to go to war and didn't. Through diplomacy,Syria has eliminated about 86% of its chemical weapons. The advocates for war in Syria wanted the President to go it alone but refused to take responsibility.

++I have received all week e-mails from my conservative friends, who studiously avoided the jobs report or the Obamacare success, to focus on the issue of accountability. 

++Why wasn't Paul Wolfowitz held accountable for his estimates of the cost of the Iraq War? He was promoted to the World Bank. Where has been the accountability for America practising torture for the first time since the Spanish-American war? Where has been the accountability of the violation of America's doctrine of not waging a war of choice? 

++For my Republican and conservative friends, what's your foreign policy, since the last one lies in tatters. Where are your geopolitical thinkers? While President Obama went to the Pacific, what foreign policy ideas do you bring on that region? What are your foreign policy ideas on Africa? And to both Republicans and Democrats what is your foreign policy on Latin America?

++The United States has not had a geostrategic policy since the late 1980s. Consider this--we still hear from Zbig and occasionally Henry Kissinger. They are the last geopolitical thinkers left. Where in the new generation? Remember George Kennen was young when he had his greatest influence.The fact of the matter is that there are none and all the gibberish we read are the fragments of burned out ideologies.