Weakness at home, Impotence Abroad

When President Obama assumed power after an overwhelming victory in 2009, he made his apology tours, Cairo speech blaming The United States for all the evils in the middle east, sent Sec. of State Hillary Clinton to Moscow to present a Oversize Reset button in the hopes that "leading from behind" would make the worls live us him.


Things didn't work out according to the plan of using Smart Power, now did it?


Overthrowing a friendly dictator, but friendly to US dictators in Tunisia and Egypt led to Islamists seizing control through one man, one vote, one time elections.  Tunisia's Islamist government policies have emptied out their previously very popular beach resorts, due to prohabition of alcohol, and strict dress coads and separation of sexes on beaches.  Egypt is a basket case, tourists are gone, the Muslim Brotherhood tried to force Sharia Law down peoples' throats and the tolerant people of Egypt were not having any of that.  Of course Obama sided with the wrong people, the Brotherhood.  The military stepped in, and the formerly stable Egypt is on the brink of a civil war.  The intervention in Libya to overthrow Kadafy made no sense then and makes no sense now.  He has not been a threat to US national secutiry for years.  We were left with a failed state where Al-Qaeda linked jihadists have been trying (almost successfully to neighboring Mali and Niger).


SMART POWER indeed.


In Europe Obama cancelled the military defense missle agreements with ou NATO Allies, the Czech Republic and Poland with nothing to show in return from the increasingly beligerant Vladimir Putin in The Soviet Union Russia. But President Obama was being flexible. 


Of course all our allies as well as advisaries and enemies see all this as a sign of weekness, as they should.  Obama made a deal with Iran that relieved sanctions that allows them to keep the centrifuges running and refining bomb making nuclear material.  And the band played on.


Is it  any surprise that China has taken an aggressive stance towards Japan over some oil rich section of the East China Sea or all but declared the entire South China Sea as China's private lake, threatening Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, and once again Taiwan (who China still considers a renegade province)?


North Korea keeps testing missles and developing more nuclear arms, and even with a large American force just across the 48th parallel, and a strong ROK army, who is to stop a mercurial dictator from deciding to make the ultimate test of Obama and decide to nuke Seoul followed by an invasion by a million man army who are nothing more than cannon fodder?


Yes indeed SMART POWER has certainly changed the way we do business with other countries.


Are people sleeping easy now in Tel Aviv, all of eastern Europe or the pacific rim?