Posted by
Sgt.Stryker on Tuesday, April 14, 2009 6:16:33 AM
Most of us remember the
stern warning issued by Slo' Joe Biden back in October, in which he stated that candidate Barack Obama, if elected, would be tested by the international community within his first six months in office. While that's really not much of a prediction, as most world leaders are tested in some way on a daily or weekly basis, the remarks caused quite a commotion, even though the whole thing could really just be chalked up to "Joe being Joe". In reality, though, the number of international foreign policy "tests" have been numerous for our new "fearless leader". With the Somali pirates' timely demise via well-placed
Navy Seal headshots now in the history books as a successful outcome, I took the opportunity to ruminate on these tests, causing me to wonder,
which one, exactly, is
the test Sir Gaffe-A-Lot was speaking of?
Maybe the test came during one of Barry's numerous exploits with various EU leaders, such as the infamous
Irish PM/TOTUS incident. Well, first of all, that was a TOTUS test, and TOTUS failed that one. Barry had a rather comedic recovery, but I would hardly call it a foreign policy "test" in the true sense of the word.
I know- it was the incident involving Great Britain...well, ok, there's been a few. Was it when Obama
sent Churchill's bust back to England, for no good reason? Or when he gave Gordon Brown a selection of
25 useless DVDs? While these qualify as problematic, and would certainly be viewed as failures, they don't necessarily rise to the level of foreign policy "test".
The
letter "The One" sent to Jacques Chirac was a well written piece, I'm sure...only problem is, it probably should have been sent to the actual current French president, Nicolas Sarkozy. Chirac and Sarkozy have quite a strained relationship and this probably didn't help, but, no matter. We're repairing our standing in the world. Just another in a string of
minor failures.
Obama's apology tour surrounding the G20 summit wasn't so much a test as another self-inflicted wound, but given that he requested increased troops from the EU for Afghanistan and got nothing to speak of from anyone, the case could be made that this was a failure. When you add in
"The Bow" to Saudi King Abdullah, the case becomes even stronger. But it wasn't a "generated crisis" of the type that Biden was describing. Except, directly following the TOTUS speech in Prague, in which he
called for disarming the world of nukes, we got...
"
North Korea said on Tuesday it would quit international nuclear disarmament talks and restart a plant that makes bomb-grade plutonium after the United Nations chastised it for launching a long-range rocket"
In the meantime, the Iranians just announced that they had installed
7000 centrifuges at their facility in Natanz. Who knows, maybe this is just a bit of dis-information for the Israelis, who have been adamant about their
plans to attack Iranian nuclear sites. Another "test" for BHO on the near horizon.
Russia presents a whole different set of potential tests, given their expanding relationship with Venezuela and their provocative
statements regarding the establishment of bomber bases in Venezuela and Cuba. Given that some of the arms being used by the Mexican cartels may have also come out of this disturbing relationship, it's mandatory that Obama's reactions need to be effective. So far, there's been no evidence at all to suggest he "gets it".
The Somali pirate issue? Anyone would have made the right call on that, especially given that, from my understanding, the US Navy doesn't "need" any signed executive order to use deadly force in the type of situation that was presented, with American lives at stake. The true "test" surrounding this scenario occurs when and if Barry decides to take out these pirates via some military attack on their ground bases. But credit where credit is due. The Navy performed superbly, and even though the Adminstration took 5 days to negotiate in a quasi-law enforcement posture with the FBI in charge, the end result was probably the best that could reasonably be hoped for. At least Barry didn't get in the way.
At this point the question becomes, however, can we afford to wait and see whether or not Obama will actually pass a real "test"? So far, on nearly every foreign policy issue, the operative phrase seems to be "misstep". Personally, I'd love to sit back and gloat and say "told ya so", but that would entail a scenario in which we, as a country, are in more danger than we had been up to that point. For the sake of all of us, I'd rather be wrong.
Unfortunately, I am not too confident in the likelihood of that being the case.