On the world stage, Obama the idealist has taken fright

[Violet_Crumble]

Bin Laden's killing aside, his foreign policy has all been waffle, dither and drift – with a trail of acts of dismaying expediency.

Simon Tisdall
The Guardian, Tuesday 4 October 2011

Candidates run on hope. Incumbents run on their record. But Barack Obama, lining up for a second term at the White House next year, has little to offer on either score. The heady optimism of 2008 has dissipated. At home, Obama is primarily associated with hard times: only 34% of voters approve of his handling of the economy, according to a recent poll. Abroad, his presidency has come to stand for impotence and incompetence. He promised new beginnings; what he has delivered, for the most part, is waffle, dither and drift.

If this verdict seems harsh, take a quick tour round the globe. Everywhere the pillars of American superpower are crumbling. The old habit of hegemony, formed in the postwar decades and confirmed in 1989 as Soviet power imploded, is fading as fast as a Honolulu sunset.

Part of the explanation is faltering industrial and financial clout, reflecting the rapid rise of rivals like China and India. But that is compounded by another central element: Obama's persistent failure to stand up, in practical, substantive ways, for the values, beliefs and interests he so eloquently espouses.


<snip>

Amid multiple disappointments, one dismaying act of expediency stands out: Obama's open-ended threat to veto UN recognition of a Palestinian state. After the three-year runaround handed out by Israel's last-ditcher, "no surrender" prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, Obama had the chance to deliver a symbolic blow for peace, something surely right up his street. But with a wary eye on the 2012 campaign, he just couldn't do it. Under Obama, the empire does not strike back. It strikes out.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/oct/04/barack-obama-foreign-policy-presidency

[Denzil_DC]

1. "Obama's early, anguished indecision over keeping his promise to close Guantánamo

Bay". Tisdall shows his bias, or perhaps lack of knowledge, early on in a very superficial article.

[Violet_Crumble]

2. Obama and Guantanamo: A chronology of his broken promise

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/07/obama-guantanamo.html

Somehow I don't think it's Tisdall who's showing bias in what is a very good article that articulates clearly why Obama has been such a total disappointment to many people when it comes to foreign affairs...

[Denzil_DC]

3. Perhaps you can explain how Obama could close Guantanamo

in the face of obstruction from both the Republicans and Democrats in Congress, including some darlings of the left?

And who the heck takes anything Andrew Malcolm writes seriously? Seriously? Andrew Malcolm, known at Media Matters as "Laura Bush's flak"? http://mediamatters.org/search/index?qstring=andrew+malcolm&x=1&y=15

Sample:

If ever a writer was suited to pen editorials for Investor’s Business Daily, it’s Andrew Malcolm. And starting next month, Laura Bush’s former flak will leave his post at the Los Angeles Times to go work for IBD, a far-right newspaper that publishes loopy birther columns, climate change denial rants, nasty personal smears, and in general just makes stuff up on a regular basis.

[Violet_Crumble]

6. Ah, the Powerless President argument. It doesn't work....

So, what obstruction has there been that would lead anyone to believe Obama couldn't close Gitmo, rather than Obama ended up not really wanting to after all?

Maybe you could point out the inaccuracies, if there are any, in the article I linked to?

I'm not sure why anyone would think that Obama hasn't been a massive disappointment when it comes to foreign policy. I had high hopes for him, gave him the benefit of the doubt for a while, but after the sheer hyocrisy of the past week or so in the UN Security Council where the US threatened to veto the Palestinian statehood bid after a long history of vetoing Resolutions critical of Israel's occupation, then goes on to express outrage that China and Russia used their veto power to veto a Resolution the US supported...

[Bluenorthwest]

7. Wow. 'darlings of the left' idicates a huge bias, and a rightish

view. Darlings of the left, what a pantload. The left? In the US? Hilarious. And what 'darlings' does your imaginary 'left' have that wanted Gitmo open? Tell us who you mean. Darlings of the left. And you come to speak of bias, with slanted, loaded terms like that?
Maybe the most amusing post I have ever read on DU. Darlings.

[ixion]

4. He's been great for the top 1%, not so much for the 99%.

Thanks a pantload, Obama.

[xchrom]

5. Recommend

[COLGATE4]

8. +1

[Doctor_J]

9. On a good day I think he's an idealist who's running scared

On a bad day, I think he's a BFEE accomplice who bamboozled me in 2008