As a world power, the United States has vanished. The Obama Presidency has marched the country off a cliff. There are no successes, only degrees of failure.
From Tunisia to Iran, there is a string of foreign policy disasters, many of which can be laid on the front runner for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton. Libya is a mess and Secretary Clinton proudly proclaimed, "We came, we saw, he died." Looking at it now, one has to agree that we were better off with Gadaffi. Iran, who was still having weekly 'Death to America' rallies throughout the negotiations on the 'Nuclear Deal,' is having sanctions lifted and assets unfrozen in exchange for... nothing. Nope, the only thing we get out of it is a piece of paper that says we have a deal. It might win a Nobel Peace Prize for John Kerry. With Russian planes now stationed in Syria and warships in its harbors, Assad is certain to survive. Russia commenced bombing but didn't target ISIS. No, they bombed the rebels that we are supporting, the ones that were fighting Assad. All that 'red line' and 'wrong side of history' talk amounts to nothing. Egypt? Military dictatorship not unlike that of Mubarik but much less friendly to the US. Yemen? Only a few months after Obama declared it a model for US foreign policy, it collapsed. Afghanistan? We are only still there because Obama had called it the 'right war' so that he could fustigate Bush about the wrong war in Iraq.
China is on the rise both in Asia and Latin America. As it is building a military at a rapid rate, the US has weakened itself economically and militarily in relation. Japan is sufficiently alarmed that it is altering the rules for its Self Defense Force. The American shield that Japan relied upon for the last 60 years no longer inspires the confidence it once did.
Europe is at threat of being squeezed by an ascendant Russia. Russia already controls the majority of natural gas that goes to Europe. With its moves in the Middle East (Syria, Iran, Iraq) combined with its own considerable petroleum reserves, it may eventually have a chokehold on European energy. That the US is barred from exporting oil only exacerbates the problem. Russia has already annexed portions of Georgia and Ukraine and is pushing for more. Right out the gate, Obama has encouraged such adventurism on Putin's part by nixing the missile defense deal we had with Poland and the Czech Republic. Hillary Clinton's childish reset button showed them how unserious we were. Then Obama moved into full surrender mode with his announcement that he would be 'more flexible' after the 2012 election. We are seeing just how flexible.
Not resting on these failures, Obama pushed on to surrender to Cuba. Yes, after more than 50 years, we finally recognized the Castro brothers. No demands on human rights were made or return of property in order to gain diplomatic recognition. Fidel can now die knowing that he brought America to heel.
Is it possible that the policy makers in Washington are this incompetent? Can such a dramatic and overwhelming collapse be an accident or did we finally elect the Manchurian Candidate? That sounds like tinfoil hat conspiracy stuff to me but the evidence is damning. Of course, Obama did tell us that he didn't like America as the sole superpower and declared that he was a 'citizen of the world' when he was running for President of the United States. Maybe we should have taken him on his word.
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