Natalie Gonnella
While most commentary this morning focused on the President's fiscal "re-do," Will Inboden reminded Americans that it's not just domestic policy where the Obama Administration is scrambling to correct it's previous mistakes
In a post via ForeignPolicy.com's Shadow Government blog, Dr. Inboden outlined a number of foreign policy areas where President Obama is struggling to right his strategy wrongs.
With the White House now retreating on two years of misjudgements, here's a look at a few of the key issues Inboden highlights in his recent post:
- After misconstruing the Israeli-Palestinian peace process as the strategic linchpin of the entire Middle East, and an imbalanced fixation on a freeze in Israeli settlement activity as the essential precondition to progress, the White House now finds itself back at square one. And they know they have a problem on their policy when even John Kerry dismisses it as a "wasted...year and a half."
- After publicly dismissing human rights concerns in China and signaling to Beijing that American diplomatic advocacy on human rights need not be taken seriously, the Administration now belatedly takes notice that China is in the midst of its worst crackdown on dissidents in at least three years;
- After giving Hugo Chavez a presidential hug, the administration two years later still finds the Venezuelan thug fomenting mischief and undermining American interests across Latin America;
- After extending a unilateral olive branch to Iran, disregarding the dramatic 2009 Green Movement protests, and losing valuable diplomatic leverage, the administration is now struggling to reassert pressure on the Iranian regime in the face of new reports of advances in its nuclear weapons program.
Dr. Inboden's full post can be viewed here.
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