AMERICA AND THE WORLD – QUOTE OF THE DAY – from the great British historian, Andrew Roberts, via the Hoover Institution.  As we watched President Obama attend a ball game in Cuba yesterday in the midst of the Brussels horror, we inevitably thought about the foreign policies he's pursued in his wretched seven years as president: 

Yet in the situation the United States has found herself post–World War II, the retention of strategic alliances spanning the globe has been essential, for both fighting and winning the Cold War, for subsequently prosecuting the War Against Terror, and also for facing the emerging threats from a revanchist, irredentist Russia and an increasingly confident and nationalist China. The United States fought all her major postwar struggles—primarily in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan—as the leader of a coalition of allies. But the Obama administration has a deeply unimpressive record of nurturing and protecting America’s allies, which are in a worse state of repair than at any time since the Carter administration over a third of a century ago.

Although many Europeans among America’s allies derided President George W. Bush’s administration and opposed his invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, none doubted his resolve to protect them from Russian or Chinese incursions against their sovereign territory. They were willing to nestle safely under the American umbrella while sneering at the president who obligingly held it over them.

By total contrast, today America’s allies are deeply concerned that American support for them is weak, partial, and hesitant, while continuing to praise President Obama personally. Specifically, the eastern European and Baltic states worry that Obama has been insufficiently tough over Vladimir Putin’s seizure of the Crimea from Ukraine, and not supportive enough of Ukraine in its struggle against separatist rebels who are willing even to shoot down Malaysian airliners (at no cost, so far). They worry whether Obama would support the Baltic states if Putin were to destabilize them, too. In the Middle East, the Israelis, Saudi Arabians, and other Gulf allies of America are also deeply concerned at Obama’s appeasement of Iran and refusal to destroy the Islamic State. In the South China Sea, China’s saber rattling and aircraft carrier-building have left its neighbors deeply concerned, especially as Obama’s much-vaunted “shift to the east” now looks like just so
much verbiage.

COMMENT:  That's what happens when a president is elected simply on the basis of political correctness.  Obama came to office as an inexperienced, self-important kid from Chicago.  And that's the way he's leaving office.  He hasn't grown at all.  How can you improve on perfection?

What a waste.

March 23, 2016