President Obama's Bankrupt Leadership

Let’s recap the last 2 weeks. The Palestinian leadership (including Hamas) received a standing ovation while lobbying the UN for statehood. They do this as they circumvent peace talks with Israel. Pakistan threatened America for chasing Taliban and other terrorists into their “sovereign” but terror infested territory. Iranian officials had the audacity to suggest that 9 / 11 was an American inside job–and they did so while on American soil–in Manhattan! The Iranian’s have also threatened to place warships off the American coast even as they announced their new cruise missile that they claim can sink our greatest warships. Iranian Revolutionary Guards have also reportedly stolen sophisticated Russian surface-to-air missiles amidst the chaos we helped create in Libya. Putin seems poised for taking the reins (has he ever forfeited them?) in Russia and China is thumbing its nose at Congress’s efforts to finally challenge their currency manipulation policies. As I predicted two years ago in my book, Re-United States, the Obama administration’s apologist and appeasement policies will project a weakness that, sooner or later, will invite aggression. Weakness always invites aggression.

It’s not just the Treasury that’s bankrupt

What apologies and appeasements, you ask? The president’s apologies started in Cairo where he repudiated the Judeo-Christian values that America was founded on and accused Israel of obstructing Middle East peace. From there he went on to delight the Russians and dishearten our allies in Poland and the Czech Republic by abandoning our nuclear missile defense program. He refused to abet the one Arab revolution (Iran in 2008) we should have aided even as the Mullah’s are marching unobstructed toward becoming a nuclear power. Obama has apologized to the world for America’s bad habits such as when we “dictate [to the world] our terms”, failed to “sustain engagement with our neighbors” or to “appreciate Europe’s leading role in the world”. As if Europe’s social democracies are economically healthy–and they aren’t–the president acknowledged to Europe that the US is responsible for the economic crisis of 2008 and beyond. Advising that Mid-East peace talks ought to start with the premise that Israel contract to the 1967 lines and then begin negotiations is perhaps his greatest appeasement of all. Bowing to King Abdullah but not to Queen Elizabeth II didn’t exactly help his image of confusing allegiances. The only notable exceptions to this president’s apparent lack of leadership are the continued drone wars and pursuit of Al Qaeda high value targets. In less than three years he has managed to so confound our allies that many of them must wonder whether they would fare better if they were our adversaries.

In life and in politics, empty spaces must always be filled. If a mass is surgically removed; the remaining space will fill with fluid, fibrous material or some other substance. So, doctors try not to leave spaces. If a great nation inexplicitly retracts from the world stage (leaving a space), something will fill that void. I believe that America is the greatest force for good in the world so when we retreat, something ugly is going to take our place. Don’t look now but we are knee-deep in ugly and it seems to be getting worse with each passing day. I fear that we are about to learn that as bad as financial bankruptcy is, leadership bankruptcy is far worse–and the combination may be lethal. November 2012 just cannot come soon enough.