In the midst of everything else the Obama administration is doing wrong, there’s the ongoing saga of how he’s handling the Middle East. Earlier last year, he spoke glowingly of the inappropriately named Arab Spring. What a boon this was going to be for the world. Now that Egypt has held its elections, the results have not been encouraging. Egypt is even holding nineteen Americans for trial who are primarily aid workers. I was hardly the only one who warned this development was inevitable, but the president and his administration seemed blissfully unaware of the trajectory of the protest movement. It has turned out as predicted:
Radical Islamists now effectively control Egypt. Sen. Rand Paul has introduced a bill that will stop all foreign aid to that country; I support it. Egypt is now another potential Iran.
Speaking of Iran, the effort to build nuclear weapons continues apace. This is the regime, when Obama was running for president back in 2008, that he said he could connect with—that Bush just didn’t try hard enough to communicate. Was this the height of foolishness or was this height of foolishness [sorry, I don’t see another viable option here]? While he is now finally implementing some sanctions, it may be far too little, and it is probably far too late. A nuclear Iran? That’s not a problem, right? Anyone who can look past this threat and declare we have nothing to fear from it is truly living in fantasyland. Obama, although confronted with a genuine enemy, nevertheless has his own favorite “enemy” in that hostile region:
Obama has never liked Israel. He considers that anomaly in the middle of Muslim states to be the main obstacle to peace. All one has to do is recall his twenty years in attendance at “Rev.” Wright’s “church” to know where he stands. That “church” deplored Israel and promoted propaganda from Hamas and other terrorist organizations. Israel has no friend in President Obama. He treated Netanyahu with disrespect on one of his visits to America, and polls in Israel show the people there no longer see the U.S. as a trusted ally because of Obama. If we help that nation at all, it’s going to be only because of political pressure during his reelection campaign.
Obama’s foreign policy is just one of the many reasons he doesn’t deserve a second term, but it’s not a minor reason—our national security depends on having a president who has a clear vision of who our friends and enemies really are.