President Obama and our Foreign Policy

Well, this is the first post to this blog. I have never had a blog before and see it as the new "letters to the editor" for the 21st Century. Everybody seems to be putting in their two cents with a blog so, why can't I?

The President has neither had any victories nor any major defeats in his first year managing our foreign entanglements. The President manged the Iran Nuclear issue rather well despite the fact that nothing has gone our way. The Iranians continue to thumb their nose at us and threaten the destruction of Israel as soon as they have a nuke. Will they really make a nuclear bomb? Duh! Why else are their nuclear facilities in (relatively) bomb proof underground shelters? If they wanted it for purely peaceful means, why not accept the help and resources that have been offered to them? If they accepted this help, they could likely be creating electricity to spark the lights of all of Tehran in a few short years. Instead, they take it upon themselves to construct devices that purify the nuclear materials and create fissile substances. Hey, Tel Aviv, can you say kaboom?

Obama could not do any better than George W. Bush on this issue. Neither man is able to get the Chinese to buy in to sanctions on Iran nor can they get the Russians onboard. Obama gave up the missile defense of Poland and the Czech Republic to get Russian concessions on this very agenda item. Medvedev and Putin are of one voice- "Not now Mr. President Obama." Essentially, they don't see the need for sanctions yet. It leaves an American Public asking, when will they see the need? The actual question is, will they see the need. Not when. Iran is a very strong trading partner of Russia's and purchases a surprising amount of refined gasoline from them. Apparently for all its money Iran has not made any decent investments in their refining capacity. If Russia wants Iran to bend to its will, it would be fairly easy for them to embargo refined gasoline and see the Iranian people uncork.

Russia will not do this as it would look as if they were conceding to the requests of the western world. That does not fit into the Russian world view. The Russian leadership cannot be seen by its people as being weak or playing the role of stooge; easily giving concessions to the west due to fear ala Boris Yeltsin. These new leaders of the former USSR are trying to create a new Russian Empire. Russian leadership wants to be seen as firmly in control of Russia and its' periphery. Thus its conquest into Georgia and its not-so-thinly-veiled threats to the Ukraine. You may have noticed that countries on the Russian periphery are becoming much more Russian friendly. "Join NATO? Nah, my big neighbor says that's not a good idea for me." Ukraine could have all of its access to natural gas cut off by the Russians in the dead of winter. It is a good idea that they are playing ball with the Ruskies.

China won't help with Iran either. They have an excellent commerce relationship between them. Iran's population has disposable income and China wants a piece of the action. This springs the eternal question of the decades, is China a communist or capitalist country? In reality it is a capitalist dictatorship under the guise of communism. Instead of the dictatorship of the proletariat it is the dictatorship of the capitalist industrialist.

The traditional American Democratic controlled government is hot for human rights violations and China makes a good target for the human rights do-gooders. What does that do for our relationship with China? Not much. The Chinese want to be left alone and control their populace the way they want. Our policy is to challenge China on its human rights practices. Our policy is to have dialog with the leader of Tibet, the Dali Lama. If we push China a bit too far, would it be beyond them to raise the rates on the substantial amount of U.S. debt they carry for us? Bush knew better than to push the Chinese on human rights.

China will never give up Tibet. Why? China has been invaded many times. The mountains of Tibet create a natural barrier that seals off the Chinese frontier from India. With deserts to the west, inhospitable mountains to the north and an ocean to the east China has well established barriers to invasion. China has a tremendous population and a huge standing army. Regrettably, the army is not as mobile as other world class armies. With so much land to guard and protect, it pays to have natural barriers to invasion.

So the Iranians won't cooperate. The Russians are rebuilding their empire and the Chinese want us to let them deal with their populace the way they please. No openings here for our President. Then, let's go to Europe. They love Obama, don't they?

Copenhagen is a wonderful city and the Danes a wonderful people. The International Olympic Committee met there to consider where the 2016 Olympics would land. They had several wonderful choices before them and they had Chicago. Chicago was turned down. It seemed the committee could not turn down Chicago fast enough despite our President's impassioned speech to them. Olympic Committee: 1 President Obama: Zero

Copenhagen was also the home of the Climate Summit. Though President Obama talks a good game about cap and trade, green technology, and solar photovoltaic panels, he was able to negotiate us out of any binding treaties. Without the U.S. onboard, there could be no binding treaty to end or even slow the growth of greenhouse gasses. For our president it was a good idea not to buy in on any of the fluff the Summit was selling. It seems the science behind global warming is being questioned and, most particularly, it is being questioned by his constituency at home. An international promise to enforce job killing Cap and Trade rules upon U.S. industry would have been a fast path to one term for our President. Without the indulgence of India and China on their fast growing greenhouse gas issues, there could be no treaty according to our President. Europe is pissed and basically got nothing for all the protests and bombast. He wins for us by accomplishing nothing. That is not unusual in international politics.

Well outside of sending more troops to Afghanistan, which he promised in his campaign, he has had little effect upon international issues. he won the Nobel Peace Prize based upon his speeches and his campaign. Not for anything he did to truly foster world peace. As far as the U.S. foriegn policy under this administration, not much has changed from the days of GW Bush. The State Department would likely challenge that statement, but in the end, if you truly look at the facts, we are continuing the foriegn policies of the past administration.