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Townhall...
Obama Irrelevant on
World Stage
By Linda Chavez
Two years into his presidency, the man who promised to restore
America’s standing in world public opinion has rendered himself
personally irrelevant on the world stage. President Obama came into
office more popular abroad than he was even at home, where he won a
resounding election victory. European crowds thronged his speeches;
leaders complimented him on his cultural sensitivity; the foreign press
praised his cosmopolitan roots. The cognoscenti were so enamored of
Obama that he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize barely nine months into
office. The move embarrassed even Obama.
But as the world faces a cataclysm of popular revolt stretching across
North Africa and into the Middle East, Obama stands mostly on the
sidelines. He did nothing to support the brave Iranian demonstrators
who flooded the streets of Tehran after fraudulent elections there in
2009. He waited too long to weigh in on the side of Egyptians who
demanded an end to autocratic rule in their country.
Now, as tens of thousands of Libyans flee their country and despot
Moammar Gadhafi orders air attacks on his own people, Obama dispatches
his secretary to Capitol Hill to quiet administration critics urging
the U.S. to impose a no-fly zone over Libya.
The wisdom of setting up a U.S.-enforced no-fly zone is debatable, but
that wasn’t the message Secretary Gates delivered. He implied that we
couldn’t do it because the U.S. doesn’t have enough aircraft carriers
in the region to support it. The administration seems intent in
engaging in the opposite of saber rattling; call it saber sheathing
instead. Following the decision to dispatch a chartered ferry to
evacuate Americans trapped for days in the escalating violence in
Tripoli, his comments make us look weak.
The protests spreading throughout the Arab and Muslim world came with
little warning -- and it is far too early to tell whether things will
end well for the people in the region or for United States’ interests.
For more than 60 years, the one thing that has united Arabs is their
hatred for Israel and Israel’s ally, the United States. Arab rulers
have managed to quell opposition by ginning up hatred of Israel,
crushing those who dare to challenge them, and -- in oil-rich countries
-- providing a standard of living just high enough to keep the general
populace from open revolt.
But it wasn’t Obama who saw the demand for democracy coming. It was his
predecessor George W. Bush. Indeed, the push for democracy in the
Middle East was the linchpin of his foreign policy in the region. He
gave countless speeches on the subject, rarely missing an opportunity
to promote his freedom agenda. Yet, the very people who fawned over
Obama openly reviled Bush.
It wasn’t Obama but Bush who said in 2003: “Sixty years of Western
nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle
East did nothing to make us safe -- because in the long run, stability
cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty.” Bush warned that, “As
long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not
flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment, and
violence ready for export.” And of course, thanks to Bush, the first
country in the region to elect a representative government -- outside
Israel -- was Iraq. Those elections were made possible by American
blood and treasure.
Obama, on the other hand, has managed to make the most powerful nation
in the world look weak and ineffectual. History is being made from
Tripoli to Sana, and the United States plays no role. For years, the
left has wanted the United States’ role in the world to diminish. Now
they are getting their way, thanks to Obama’s reticence.
But the world will not be a better place for lack of U.S. influence.
Witness the very different outcomes in the revolution that swept Iran
in 1979 when President Jimmy Carter was in power and those that swept
Eastern Europe when Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush. The vacuum
created by our absence in the current revolutions will likely be
filled. Let us hope that is not by the Islamists who will topple
secular dictators in order to impose even more brutal religious
tyrants. If that happens, Obama will share the blame.
Read it at Townhall
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