At the United Nations last week, Libyan strongman Muammar al-Qaddafi showered U.S. President Barack Obama with unexpected praise, telling the heads of state and dignitaries assembled that he hoped Obama could “stay forever as the president.”
This was hardly a flattering endorsement for Obama. Qaddafi has been tied to countless acts of terrorism including the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988 and the bombing of a German nightclub packed with U.S. servicemen in 1986.
The endorsement from the “mad clown of Tripoli,” as President Ronald Reagan called him, is not an isolated incident. Scores of other dangerous despots, terrorists, and anti-American mouthpieces have come out in support of Obama’s foreign policies, which include ambivalence about the U.S. presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, wavering support for Israel, and a diminished sense of American exceptionalism.
It began when candidate Obama ran on a foreign policy platform of what scholar Robert Satloff later described as “anti-Bushism.” Whereas George W. Bush sought to confront rogue regimes and radical ideologies, Obama sought to find understanding with them.
Cuba, which earned sanctions and isolation for decades of support for terrorism, was heartened by Obama’s campaign promises to ease restrictions on Cuban Americans traveling to Cuba that were imposed by the Bush administration. Accordingly, Raul Castro struck a conciliatory tone in January, saying that Obama “seems like a good man,” and wished him luck.
Similarly, Syria smiled when Daniel Kurtzer stated that peace with Syria, which has a long and incontrovertible record of aiding the Iraq insurgency and supporting anti-Israeli terrorist groups, would be a high priority. Syrian dictator Bashar Assad complimented Obama after his election, calling his victory, “a positive sign” that U.S. foreign policy was changing. Over the summer, Assad even had the audacity to invite the president to meet him in Syria.
Less than a week after Obama’s inauguration, the Taliban terrorist group that had once given safe haven to Osama bin Laden, lauded the new president for his stated goal of closing the prison facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. “Obama’s move to close Guantanamo detention center is a positive step for peace and stability in the region and the world,” read a Taliban communiqué, which also asked Obama to “ void all those evil projects established in the light of Bush’s satanic perspective of instability in the world.”
Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez also found reason to celebrate the new U.S. president’s non-confrontational foreign policies. In April, at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, after noting a more conciliatory U.S. policy towards his regime, he gave Obama a copy of the anti-American screed, The Open Veins of Latin America. Because Obama tolerated these antics, Chavez later said he would give Obama another book: What is to be Done? by Vladimir Lenin.
Two months later, Obama delivered a speech to the Muslim world in which he appeared to distance himself from Israel, exhorting the Jewish state to eschew policies that undermine “efforts to achieve peace.” This earned the president praise from the enemies of Israel in the Middle East. Ahmed Yousef, a spokesman for the Hamas terrorist organization, told al-Jazeera television in Gaza that the President’s speech was reminiscent of Martin Luther King Jr. in its vision. “What he said about Islam was great. What he said about Palestinian suffering and a Palestinian state is great.”
Most recently, Russia cheered when Obama declared his intention to cut missile defense by $1.2 billion in 2010, and to altogether scrap European missile defense. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, who attributed Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia to the “arrogant course of the American administration,” lauded Obama’s decision to scrap missile defense a “responsible move.”
Judging by the overwhelming approval of these nations which often challenge the United States, Obama’s foreign policies are failing to serve American interests. A Wall Street Journal/NBC news poll released on September 24 confirmed this, noting that Obama now “faces significant doubts from the American public” about his “handling of foreign policy.”
When Americans begin to signal their support and terrorist groups and authoritarians begin to howl with disapproval, we can be assured that U.S. foreign policy is serving U.S. interests. For now, however, the President is dangerously off-track.
19 responses so far
1 EscapeVelocity // Sep 30, 2009 at 2:07 pm
It pays to hate America!
Change you can believe in!
2 FosterBoondoggle // Sep 30, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Your message seems to be that our foreign policy goal should be to have a large number of people hate us. So when Obama does things that FAIL to piss off foreigners and defuse global tensions, and then is lauded for it by some of these foreigners whom we might not like, that’s really terrible. I seem to recall that his illustrious predecessor, GWB, actually managed to piss off not just OBL and maybe Qaddaffi, but also the French and Germans. This was seen as a major boost for US foreign policy in some conservative quarters. (Do they still serve “Freedom Fries” in the HR cafeteria?)
Moore’s Fahrenheit 911 was full of lovely pictures of GWB shaking hands with and hugging some fairly nefarious types who had been pretty solidly linked to funding OBL. I don’t think that an argument that more people like us (even “the wrong sort” of people) proves very much. You really need to show that the “right” people don’t like us. I haven’t heard that the Japanese, French, Canadian and German PMs are upset with Obama. He’s just not coming out looking for fights everywhere. Is that really so bad?
3 balconesfault // Sep 30, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Man, it seems like every time I turn around, I’ve been reading how radical foreign dictators have been publicly scornful and mocking of Obama. Now we find that they love him.
This is all stupidity. We have no evidence that these countries are reacting to Obama’s diplomacy by acting against US interest. We have copious evidence that these countries reacted to Bush’s “diplomacy” by acting against US interest. How about we give this some more time to play out, since Obama is going to be President for another 3 years?
Politics stops at the waters edge? Right.
4 sinz54 // Sep 30, 2009 at 2:45 pm
balconesfault:
Wait a few more years.
(I remember Carter’s infamous “inordinate fear of Communism” speech he gave in his first year in office–and what happened a couple of years later.)
5 Derek // Sep 30, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Correlation does not imply causation.
6 Derek // Sep 30, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Does anyone remember in the old days when conservatives used to study a little logic before they shot their mouth off?
7 maxhead // Sep 30, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Every Western Democracy welcomed Obama’s election.
What are you trying to do to him?
Oh yea: Hanging
8 EscapeVelocity // Sep 30, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Its the logical conclusion of Anti Westernism and Anti Americanism of the Western Left.
The Western Conservative is the most vile creature on the planet and should be voiciferously attacked. However, these Islamists and especially Communists are people we can work with on our shared interests. (Which is presumably, destroying Western Civilization and especially the USA).
9 EscapeVelocity // Sep 30, 2009 at 4:26 pm
You can see it in immigration policy, which seeks to import new voters to empower the Left and replace the concerns of the racist bourgois indigenous with those of the brown and Islamist newcomers. Disempower Western Civilization and empower others.
The Western Left is a traitorous project.
Words cant describe how vile, evil and treacherous the Western Left is.
10 balconesfault // Sep 30, 2009 at 4:54 pm
I’m having a hard time telling – does escapevelocity actually read the posts and comments before he writes stuff? Because no matter what the topic, his schtick sounds identical.
11 midcon // Sep 30, 2009 at 5:56 pm
balconesfault, actually he sounds a lot like islamic extremists when they talk about the U.S. I wonder if he doesn’t take their speeches and replace the words to talk about the left. Even the form he uses is strikingly similar to them; things like “Western Left” (with capital letters as if it is a formal name). He doesn’t seem to be from any particular region of the U.S. because his pattern of speech does not fit with anywhere and it almost seems like he is copying this stuff (especially the terms) from somewhere, because no one can make this stuff up!
12 balconesfault // Sep 30, 2009 at 6:15 pm
balconesfault, actually he sounds a lot like islamic extremists when they talk about the U.S. I wonder if he doesn’t take their speeches and replace the words to talk about the left.
Off topic (forgive me) but that reminds me incredibly of the parody of Ann Coulter, where they went through Mein Kampf and replace every reference by Hitler of “Jews” with the word “Liberals”. It ends up reading remarkably like Coulter’s most recent books. Can’t find it anymore – I think that since then Coulter has made any satire of herself obsolete.
13 raygun // Sep 30, 2009 at 9:25 pm
“racist bourgois indigenous”
brilliant
14 athensboy // Sep 30, 2009 at 9:44 pm
A rather pathetic article by the author to paint President Obama as anti-American. I don’t come to this site to read Glen Beck type rhetoric. I came here to read intelligent commentary. Nixon flew to China, Reagan talked with Gorbachev. Talking to foreign leaders doesn’t make Obama Neville Chamberlain. Mr. Frum, please don’t turn this site into Newsmax.
15 Derek // Sep 30, 2009 at 9:54 pm
I’m just as confused athensboy. Frum seemed to want to add some intelligence back into conservatism and yet he has jokers like this posting.
16 mycelf // Oct 1, 2009 at 2:32 am
Sadly, Frum’s recent posts (with the exception of his initial commentary on Beck) are not any better.
17 Derek // Oct 1, 2009 at 7:37 am
He is likely feeling the pressure from the angry, ignorant mob that has taken over the party, and doesn’t want to stray too far from the herd.
18 sinz54 // Oct 3, 2009 at 10:04 am
athensboy:
But at the same time, Reagan actively supported Soviet dissidents, and the Solidarity movement in Poland. Covert aid given to Solidarity helped crack Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.
What bothers me about Obama is NOT that he’s talking to foreign leaders. It’s that he’s blowing off the opposition forces in those countries that might, just might, weaken those regimes and force them on a more moderate course.
For example, Obama has had almost nothing to say in support of the Iranian dissidents whose heads were getting bashed in by government forces this year.
And Obama’s envoy to Sudan, Gration, suggested that we should offer milk and cookies to the Janjaweed, as some kind of gratitude that they’ve eased off somewhat on their genocidal war in Darfur. (Did we offer milk and cookies to the Nazi war criminals after 1945, in gratitude that they had now stopped killing Jews?) That was too much even for Obama’s liberal supporters; he’s taken heat for that from them.
Unlike just about every previous postwar president from Truman up through Bush 43, Obama has refused to use his bully pulpit to speak out for human rights in these unfree countries. From what he said in his U.N. speech, it seems that he doesn’t think the U.S. has the right to “interfere” in that way. Maybe he just doesn’t think the U.S. has the moral high ground to do this.
That’s a tragedy.
Speaking out for liberty around the world has been America’s unique role throughout its history.
Until Obama came along.
19 balconesfault // Oct 6, 2009 at 5:44 pm
For example, Obama has had almost nothing to say in support of the Iranian dissidents whose heads were getting bashed in by government forces this year.
I am surprised that you cannot tell the difference between the Soviets relationship with their dissidents, and the Iranians.
America could support Soviet dissidents, and it wasn’t going to make any difference in how they were treated.
America’s overt support for Iranian dissidents would almost certainly have been used as justification by the Mullahs to crack back even harder on them.
The surest way to ensure that any opposition group in Iran fails would be for the President to publicly support it.
Maybe he just doesn’t think the U.S. has the moral high ground to do this.
That is a tragedy. But after a decade where the American brand has been sullied by war crimes, violations of the Geneva Conventions, and human rights abuses … that’s where we are. Obama has to do some brand rehabilitation before he can expect our bully pulpit to have resonance abroad.
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