Russian brazenness in
Crimea is a direct result of American fecklessness. More pointedly,
Russian President Vladimir Putin's audacity is a direct result of U.S.
President Barack Obama's timidity. The Russian invasion of the Ukraine
is what happens when America is in global retreat.
In fact, what happened
this weekend in Eastern Europe should come as no surprise to anybody who
has followed the Obama administration's purposeful engineering of
America's decline on the world stage.
You see, I have never
believed that Obama's foreign policy is ham-handed or weak. I have never
ascribed Obama's zigzagging on Libya, Egypt, Iran and especially Syria,
along with his failed reset in relations with Russia, to indecision,
inexperience or incompetence.
Obama is none of these
frail things. He is neither naïve nor inept. He is quite decisive when
he wants to be, and very able in advancing his agenda when he really
wants to hit the goal.
Moreover, none of these
descriptions explain his apparent indifference in the face of America's
decline. Obama has care-freely allowed America's international
reputation and awesome global power to waste away. Why?
The answer is that
Obama is clearly out to emasculate America; to doggedly drag it down,
purposefully so. He seeks the weakening of the United States on the
global stage as a good and necessary outcome. He has set this as one of
the key goals of his presidency -- and he is doing a very good, skillful
job at hitting his target!
In short, the nonchalance of Obama as American global power and influence decays is doctrinaire. He ideologically intends it.
From day one, Obama has
not been comfortable with American leadership in world affairs. He
explicitly views America's past global performance to be arrogant and
high-handed; to be militaristic and not completely moral. During his
first campaign, he called America "overbearing."
Dozens of times, he has
made it clear that he views America not as the leader of the world or
the free world, but at best as a partner in the community of nations.
His path, then, has
been to "fundamentally transform" America's place in the world; to
denude the United States of its overwhelming global power; to strip the
United States of its superior position; to drag America down from its
imperious perch.
Obama very clearly
believes that the humbling of America will bring healing to the world;
that the diminishment of America's ability to throw its weight around
will make room for other, just-as-moral powers to emerge (such as,
perhaps, powerful Islamic actors or even Putin!); that the denouement of
America will elevate world politics to a better sphere. Don
Quixote-like, Obama thinks that he will be leaving the world a better
place by cutting unexceptional America down to size.
Taking advantage of a
war-weary American body politic, and camouflaging his retreat from
leadership as a new form of global "engagement" (whatever that means),
Obama has proceeded very nicely in wrenching the United States off its
traditional, honorable moorings. In five short years, with three to go,
he has succeeded in squandering centuries of American might, prestige
and credibility.
In recent months, Obama
has granted Russia's Putin and Iran's President Hassan Rouhani
gargantuan international victories. He has given Syria's President
Bashar Assad a new lease on life, emboldened Iran and its allies like
Hezbollah, and re-energized the morally bankrupt U.N. All the while,
Obama has played Hamlet about his own authority to strike Syria, and
equivocated about the world's ability to deny Iran enrichment. All of
which has trashed U.S. credibility.
It is no wonder, then, that Putin fears Obama not at all, and feels free to re-take the Ukraine without serious repercussion.
For the next 2½ years,
until Obama's term comes to a blessed end, we can expect more of the
same effrontery from Putin. Alas, we can expect similar impudence and
defiance from the Iranians and Turks, too.
There is no one in Washington to
ride herd and set limits on the nerve of these radical actors. The world
has no sheriff. Which unfortunately, is exactly the way Obama likes it.
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