Obama Retreated, Will America Be Defeated?

"It is not such a big deal to disagree with a president and his policies. But it is shocking to realize that the leader of the world’s most powerful country doesn’t appear to understand the most basic principles of international relations.

"This isn’t surprising since Barrack Obama has no—zero, nada—previous experience in this area. It shows. There are two distinct ways other countries respond to this combination of his ignorance at realpolitik, urgent desire to be liked, and pride in projecting U.S. weakness:

• Friends, especially in Europe, are pleased, applaud, but then add that they don’t have to give this guy anything because he is all apologies and no toughness. They like the fact that he is all carrots and not sticks. If, however, they are states more at risk—Israel, relatively moderate Arab states, perhaps Asian and Latin American allies--worry that they cannot rely on the United States to help and defend them.

• Enemies or potential rivals, a category including Iran, Syria, North Korea, Cuba, Russia, Venezuela, and many—mostly Islamist—revolutionary movements, say that this guy is weak and defeated. He apologizes, offers unconditional engagements, and promises concessions because all previous U.S. policies have failed. Obama says so himself. They’ll eat the carrots and, of possible, their neighbors as well.

"Obama, the supposed liberal, also offers some considerable, bizarre reversals in the meaning of that word. A couple of years ago when a brilliant conservative Middle East analyst asked me if I, too, was a conservative now, I said that I remained a liberal. In my view, the problem is not liberalism itself but the way that the far left has taken over liberalism, as Communism tried—but failed—to do in the 1930s.

"For me, though, a liberal president is one who is harshly critical of dictatorships. He has been the kind of person who understands the importance of ideas and the value of America’s good side throughout history. He didn’t spend his time denouncing U.S. mistakes so much as urging others to follow the American system of democracy and reasonably regulated free enterprise.

"Such a president hates totalitarianism because he extolled the liberty embodied by the United States. A liberal president wasn’t someone eager to suck up to repressive dictatorships but someone who could unite democratic and moderate states.

"Will some presidential successor of Obama have to apologize some day to all those people who were crushed by the dictatorships he is coddling?"