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Editorial See other Editorial Articles Title: Why Obama Should be Thanking Bush President Obama barely talked about defense and foreign policy last night, except to unfairly disparage his predecessor, George W. Bush. “American leadership has been renewed and America’s standing has been restored,” declared Obama. In fact, when it comes to defense and foreign policy, Obama is living off of his Bush inheritance. He thus owes his predecessor a tremendous debt. For Bush has given Obama the public policies that have led to any success for which Obama now claims credit. Where, after all, has American leadership been “renewed” and “restored”? * Certainly not in the Middle East and Lebanon, where Hezbollah, backed by Iran and Syria, has solidified its control: by toppling a western-oriented government there and imposing a new pro-Iranian prime minister. * Certainly not in Egypt and Tunisia, where people are protesting against tyranny and oppression, but with little or no apparent support from the Obama administration. * Certainly not in Russia, which has succeeded in forcing upon the United States a new nuclear arms control agreement which may well limit and constrain our ability to build and deploy a missile defense. * Certainly not in Iran and North Korea, which, despite Obama’s SOTU bravado, continue to develop nuclear weapons, while threatening and causing regional havoc and instability. * And certainly not in Mexico and Venezuela, where the drug cartels and dictator (Hugo Chavez), respectively, continue to undermine liberty, opportunity and the rule of law. In Iraq, it is true, progress has been dramatic; and, for all practical intents and purposes, the war there has been won. But this is not because of any new and brilliant policy pushed by Obama. To the contrary: it is because Obama adopted and continued the surge policy that Bush effected over the opposition of then-Senator Obama! In any case, Iraq could yet fall apart if we leave and abandon the country to the tender mercies of Iran. Which is why it is notable that, as Eli Lake has keenly observed, Obama said nothing about leaving Iraq in 2011. Instead, he talked about “finish[ing] the job of bringing our troops out of Iraq.” But our job is not to “bring our troops” home; our job is to win! Yet two years into his presidency, Obama still finds it impossible to utter that word. To his great credit, Obama has committed tens of thousands of more troops to Afghanistan. Yet he persists in his dangerous and detrimental call for a timeline for withdrawal. And he repeated this call in his speech last night: This July we will begin to bring our troops home. This was followed by the sight of American congressmen and senators rising to their feet to applaud the president. What does this tell our enemies? What does it tell our friends and allies? It tells them what Obama said at West Point in Dec. 2009, which is: I really don’t want the United States to be in Afghanistan; I have much more important things to do; and as soon as I can, I’m hightailing it out of here. Now, I know the President has since walked back his commitment to leaving Afghanistan by July of this year. But words have consequences. And in Afghanistan, the consequences of Obama’s timeline for withdrawal — which he reiterated last night — have been disastrous. Indeed, Obama’s words help to explain Hamid Karzai’s erratic and unpredictable behavior; and they help to explain why our troops have had surprising difficulty winning the allegiance of the Afghan people. Simply put, both Karzai and the Afghan people doubt America’s staying power and commitment to them, and for good reason given Obama’s own policies and pronouncements. And seeing our Congress leap to its feet to vigorously applaud the removal of American troops from Afghanistan does absolutely nothing but reinforce this perception of American weakness and irresolution. Finally, the president uttered a throwaway line about cutting from the defense budget tens of billions of dollars that the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, “and his generals believe our military can do without.” This is misleading. The generals are obligated, essentially, to toe Gates’ line. They “support” the cuts to the extent that they do mostly because they feel they have to. In any case, if Obama were serious about military “reform,” then he would have devoted more than one throwaway line to the topic. He would have embraced real reform of our military personnel, pay and benefits structures. Pay and benefits, after all, are the fastest-growing and most statist parts of the defense budget; and they threaten soon to subsume all Pentagon spending. In truth, though, Obama was more interested in scoring unearned political points than he was in seriously addressing public policy problems. Thus his cheap shots at George W. Bush. But far from disparaging his predecessor, Obama instead should be thanking Bush for providing him with the public-policies that he (Obama) has mostly adopted, and which are allowing him to claim credit on the world stage. There’s only one problem: it won’t last. The world is a rapidly evolving tinderbox that is waiting to explode. And so, at some point, Obama is going to have to develop a set of defense and foreign policies that will deter and avert conflict — and which, should conflict occur, will allow the United States to successfully prosecute that conflict. And the sooner he does this, the safer we all will be. Unfortunately, there’s no indication from his speech last night that Obama has given any thought to this problem.
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 1.
#1. To: L Ron Paul Hubbard (#0)
That's a fact! They are indeed developing nukes! And, China has the neutron bomb!
#2. To: BTP Holdings (#1)
(Edited)
If China has the,multi-potent in sooo many ways,Neutron Bomb,it will be a matter of 1 hour and 37 minutes before N.Korea has one of theirs on a boat bound for Iran. If the US would join Israel and destroy the ME once and for all,Bush will be vindicated (to all Americans that know what a piece of shit he truly is)as a true patriot, a man among men,a president worthy of Mt.Rushmore,the One,Ten,and Fifty dollar bill,a giant among midgets,ahh where was I? oh yeah,the toilet.(aka Al Queda)
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