Posted by
Always To The Right on Thursday, April 16, 2009 12:59:21 PM
The Obama administration spun the European Grand Tour as a tour de
force for Barack Obama, even though Obama failed to get any combat
troops for Afghanistan, failed to gain Russian cooperation on Iran, and
left the American economic agenda at Andrews AFB. The White House
claimed that Obama had set the stage for more respect and cooperation
from European allies. However, the Times of London
reports that Obama left Nicolas Sarkozy completely unimpressed, and complaining that Obama is “insubstantial”
Sarkozy has taken aim at two specific claims that Obama’s team made of
his diplomatic prowess. During the trip, Obama took credit for
settling a dispute between China and the EU on tax havens, and for
brokering the acceptance by Turkey of Anders Fogh Rasmussen as NATO
Secretary-General. Sarkozy now disputes both accounts, and says Obama
had to be “shamed” into acting at all
Six weeks ago,
Hillary Clinton gave Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov a present —
a big red button that was supposed to say “Reset” in Russian, but which
actually said “Overcharge” … in Latin script, no less. Lavrov laughed
at Hillary’s gesture, meant to symbolize a major change in direction
for the Russo-American relationship. Apparently, Lavrov’s still laughing at Hillary as he publicly insists that Russia will never increase pressure on Iran to stop building nukes
Remember how Team Obama claimed that it would have more success in
pursuing the American agenda through “smart power” than through George
Bush’s supposed arrogance on the world stage? They’ve not quite made
it to 90 days yet, and so far Russia has cut off our supply lines
through Kyrgyzstan, announced its intention to start building new
nuclear weapons, has reneged on its commitment to pull troops out of
Georgia, and now has given the US the finger on Iran. That’s an
impressive list of foreign-policy setbacks for an entire term in office, let alone less than three months.
. . . The US Navy should buy or lease some smaller container ships as decoys
and sail them through the Gulf of Aden, only with fully-armed commandos
on board. When pirates start discovering that some American-flagged
ships are fakes bristling with death, they’ll think twice about
approaching any other American-flagged ship again.