Foreign Policy: Trump vs. Obama

Weekly Editorial   —   Posted on April 19, 2018

(by Roger L. Simon, PJ Media) – Now that we have learned CIA director and secretary of State nominee Mike Pompeo met with Kim Jung Un over Easter, it is time to acknowledge the obvious:  the foreign policy of political novice Donald Trump has been vastly more successful that that of the supposedly experienced Barack Obama.

And vastly is an understatement.  Obama’s foreign policy was a disaster, beginning with the peculiar apology tour that mystified much of its Middle Eastern audience, through the yet more peculiar “reset” button with Russia [the word “reset” in Russian on the symbolic button presented by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was misspelled] that further mystified Sergei Lavrov, on to Obama’s overheard whisper to Medvedev telling Putin he would be more accommodating on missile defense after the election (imagine the apoplectic reaction of our media if Trump did that!), to the Libyan war leading to the assassination of Qaddafi (the only Arab leader to voluntarily denuclearize) that created a failed state and a raft of refugees to Italy and elsewhere, and, of course, the rapid exit from Iraq that gave rise to ISIS.

And this omits the equally egregious examples — the failure to enforce the red line on Assad’s use of chemical weapons, about which he naively believed Putin, and the never-signed, never-published Iran Deal itself, which has done nothing but enrich the mullahs who wreak havoc from Venezuela to Yemen.  This duplicitous and unverifiable non-agreement prolonged the monstrous Syrian civil war, causing the greatest refugee crisis since World War II and changing the character of Europe possibly forever.

There’s more but you get the point.  Not even Jimmy Carter had that bad a record. And this is without Obama’s sickening lack of response to the freedom demonstrators in Iran. (“Obama, Obama, are you with us or are you with them?”  Well, we know.)

And Trump?

To begin with, there’s the near-annihilation of ISIS.  Then there’s the renewed alliance with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states without, miracle of miracles, the ostracism of Israel.  Indeed, while announcing the move of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem (with little protest by Middle East standards), the Israeli-Saudi alliance has flourished.  Does this mean a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem is imminent?  Probably not. But at least the decades of moribund unchanging policy since Oslo have finally been bypassed and new perspectives made possible.

He has also so far managed the Syrian gas attacks with an intelligent level of response, escalating it carefully.

And then there is the North Korea situation.  Not one American president made a dent in it.  There are no guarantees, but Trump seems to be on the brink of…. something. It’s exciting to watch because there is actually a possibility of real peace in a part of the world that has not seen it in well over half a century.  Trump, the peacemaker, balancing North Korea, South Korea, China and Japan?  Who would have thought it?  Not our media.  They hate him so much if he cured cancer they would think it was a trick — or a clever way to sabotage Obamacare.

Published April 17, 2018 at PJ Media .com. Reprinted here April 19 for educational purposes only. May not be reproduced on other websites without permission from PJMedia.